Tax Increase Concerns Salt Lake City School District Officials

08.04.2009 by Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News) The Salt Lake City School District held a press conference yesterday in lieu of a truth-in-taxation hearing to explain how a new school equalization formula in Salt Lake County will impact local taxpayers. Superintendent McKell Withers says property taxes in the capital city are increasing nearly $6 million this year, but the district won’t see a penny of it.

“It will have no negative impact on our district, but it has a negative impact on our taxpayers,” Withers says. “So this $5.8 million increased collection, gets redistributed now to the Jordan School District.”

Taxes on a $200,000 home in Salt Lake City will increase by about $115 annually. Property tax increases in the Granite, Canyons, Murray and Salt Lake City Districts will send more than $10 million combined for new schools in the growing west side of the valley, under a bill passed in 2008 to help the Jordan District after the east side split off. Withers says the Salt Lake City School District is concerned about this new funding formula because it depends on local property taxes that have traditionally been used to fund local needs.

“We think the property tax should be the last choice, rather than the first choice,” Withers says. “And that if you’re going to do it, you should do it statewide, not Salt Lake County only. And that if you then only do it in one county, it should be not disproportionately impacting one district over another.”

Withers says a statewide school funding equalization formula already exists under the Capital Outlay Foundation Program, and uses state funds, not locally levied property taxes to pay for new school buildings. But he says it’s underfunded.