Rod Decker

“In the past, school revenue automatically increased when the value of property rose. In 1996 the legislature “floated” the tax, that is, each year they fixed the amount schools would receive and then technicians calculated the rate needed to produce that amount. School property tax eventually fell about one-third as a result. In 2007, a year with record revenue, legislators cut state income taxes and $150–200 million from annual school revenues. None of these measures had a large immediate effect. All were technical, the gradual, long-term reductions were scarcely noticed by the public. By 2006 the Utah Foundation estimated that the changes together cost schools $1.3 billion, one-third of school spending. In 1996, before the changes, Utah had been fifth among the states in percentage of total personal income devoted to public schools. By 2014, Utah had fallen to thirty-seventh.29 After the mid-1990s, Utah’s economy grew more than the American economy, but Utah school spending fell further behind spending in other states. Republican politicians never say they hold down educational spending on purpose. They always say they spend as much as Utah can afford.”
― Rod Decker, Utah Politics: The Elephant in the Room