Just saying, a can of worms just opened up, and yesterdays meeting with the Jordan School Board was the first part of what I think will become an explosive topic. I wish there was an easy fix. There has never been a more important time to understand an issue, and work together for solutions.... What happened? As you know the Canyons school District broke away from Jordan in 2008 which created a fiscal crisis so to speak in the Jordan School District. Thinking JSD would not be able to build and fund schools, the Utah Legislature passed a law that substantiated the Jordan School District diverting tax money from districts like the Canyon and Salt Lake to help our growing community. This so called tax relief was a temporary fix and was set to expire at the end of 2016. Often laws are passed without fully understanding the ramifications of the law. In a very complicated twist, by law the extra funds were actually diverted from the schools, and lowered our (the Jordan School District Patrons) tax burden. So, in a way, we can say our friends in the Canyon School District were paying part of our taxes the last few years!!! (Man, are they going to be mad. Serves them right from breaking off from us!!! Sorry for the commentary) So, in the end, about 10 million dollars a year extra should have been going to our schools, and have not. In the end, our school children missed out on about 80 million dollars that we intended to go towards our childrens education. Good news, The Jordan School District has managed to get by, without the extra 80 million dollars. The bad news, is maybe our children and their teachers have suffered. There is enough blame to go around. How can our legislators pass a bill like this. Did they not think about results of what they were doing. Didnt someone watch where the money was going and how it was being accounted for. How can the Jordan School District lose 10 million a year without noticing it? Why did it take 6 years before anyone really figured out what was going on, or did someone know and failed to let us know? We could go on, but more importantly how do we correct it. There was some ideas put out there, but before we talk about them, I would be interested in your solution. What would you do to correct this situation?
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:21:31 +0000
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