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Show Bill to increase Davis funds . By JENNIFER PETERSON Staff Writer w The so-called Robin Hood Bill, passed by Gov. -Jorm Bangerter earlier this week, will increase Davis :ounty School District's building and maintenance unds as it transfers funds from richer to poorer listricts. Currently, school districts receive funding for wilding and maintenance through the property taxes :ollected within district borderlines. As a result, listricts with lower property values, such as Davis, jranite and Jordan, were receiving far fewer funds than ;chools in districts with higher property values such as 5alt Lake and Summit. House Bill 65, sponsored by Rep. Kim Bumingham Tl-Bountiful), is an attempt to make building and main-ainance main-ainance funding more equal across the state. "Some people think (the Davis County School -District is) a rich district because the income level is ligh, but the assessed valuation is poor," Bumingham aid. In fact, the Davis area with its $2 billion property tax xtential has less than one-third the potential of the leigh boring Salt Lake area. According to Bumingham, while the Salt Lake City District makes about three times the property tax in-;ome in-;ome as does Davis School District, Salt Lake has only ne-third the number of students. In other words, every mill collected in property taxes yy Salt Lake City produces about $55 per student while sach mill collected in Davis County only produces about $15 per student for the Davis County School District. "Previously, our systems of taxation were very unequal une-qual because in many cases the poorest districts are also some of the fastest growing districts," Burningham said. Bumingham noted that some states are far worse than Utah and have waited for court action to begin the equalization process. Utah has taken the equalization of capital outlay funds upon itself before court action had to be taken. "Every kid should be as important as any kid in any other district," Burningham said. Bumingham said that at some point, those districts which are losing money will have to raise taxes. Salt Lake City District spokespeople complained that they had planned to use the tax funds they will lose to earthquake-proof the schools. While Bumingham supports sup-ports such improvements, he believed other factors were more important. "The fact of the matter is that Salt Lake is the only district that can afford it. All the others have to raise property taxes just to build the buildings to house the student," Bumingham explained. HB 65 will be phased in, Bumingham explained, over the next eight to ten years. While districts may not see major changes in the first year, Burningham believes that by the end of ten years there will be a vast increase in monies being spent in poorer districts. "I'd say that in Davis County we may only see about $500,000 in the first year. That's about enough to build maybe one-sixth of an elementary school. But by the end of ten years we should have about $10 million to spread throughout those poorer counties," Bumingham explained. In the first year, the bill will create $1.1 million to spread throughout the entire state. A state contribution will bring this up to $3.1 million. "We may not really see a vast difference here in the south part of the county," Bumingham explained. "But up in the north end of Davis County it should have a substantial impact. Up there all the elementary schools are already on the year-round program and now they're talking about doing double sessions. That means the first group of kids would start school at about 6:30 in the morning and the last group would get home at about 6:30 in the evening." |
