Finally, down in Utah, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, two decades of Utah tax policy has cost the state’s public school system $1.2 billion, a surprising deficit considering that lawmakers have approved millions of dollars to the education budget over the years. But as Utah Foundation research director Shawn Teigen, those increases are chewed up by inflation and enrollment growth:
“Those big increases, on average, have been basically whittled away to about $22 million per year in new funding,” Teigen said. “We’re definitely not saying it’s nothing. It’s just not quite the grand push toward education funding as maybe it looks like on the surface.”
Utah Foundation researchers looked at several changes to Utah’s tax code — including the Truth in Taxation process and a 1996 constitutional amendment that allowed income tax revenue to be diverted from K-12 schools to support higher education — and the effect those changes had on reducing the flow of funds to classrooms.
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