Two decades of declining tax obligations has taken Utah from one of the states most invested in public education to a state that ranks well below average, according to new report released Monday.
In the last 20 years, Utah has fallen from having the nation’s seventh-highest K-12 education funding effort — or the percentage of personal income spent in schools — to having the 37th-highest, thanks to what amounts to a 29 percent decrease in tax revenues when comparing different tax rates and rules.
The state would have to add some $1.2 billion to K-12 spending next year to match what taxpayers were investing in 1990, according to the report, which comes from the Utah Foundation, a nonpartisan think-tank based in Salt Lake City.
“Utah’s K-12 funding effort has stagnated compared to the rest of the nation,” said Utah Foundation Research Director Shawn Teigen. “That’s resulted in numerous evidence-based K-12 investments that are constrained from the current level of spending. Our previous research shows that most Utah voters want to see higher K-12 spending, but time will tell if this will result in higher taxes for Utahns.”
