Proposal to Overhaul School Funding Put On Hold (UT)

March 30, 2011

A Republican lawmaker wants to completely overhaul the way schools are funded, but his idea will likely have to wait.

The House Education Committee voted Tuesday to hold back HB123 for study over the next year. The bill would remove requirements that schools spend money on specific programs and instead allow districts to use all the money as they see fit.

Sponsor Rep. Kenneth Sumsion, R-American Fork, said the bill would have “basically given complete local control to the local school boards to manage what kind of education programs they will have in their local school districts.”

But some education speakers worried the bill might have unintended consequences, such as the state’s losing federal funding for certain programs. And other lawmakers on the committee said the idea needs more study.

Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, urged the committee to “keep the idea alive, but let us go forward in an interim study and look at this with fresh eyes.”