Feb 15
HB163 School Fee Amendments…Let’s Call a Spade a Spade
2008 at 12:04 am | posted by Rep. Craig Frank 6 comments
HB163 School Fee Amendments (Rep. Craig Frank, R-Pleasant Grove), will require current acadmic coursework related fees to be absorbed into the traditional funding mechanism–the WPU [Weighted Pupil Unit, $2,513.91 plus or minus FY08-09].
Other non-academic fees (clubs, sports, etc.) will continue to be charged directly to students and their parents. Afterall, I shouldn’t be required to pay for your son or daughter to play varsity lacrosse…right? And, I certainly wouldn’t expect you to pay for my son’s varsity golf green fees!
However, because we all, as a society, benefit from having an educated population (lower crime rates, wider tax base with a lower rate, etc.) we have, in Utah, traditionally absorbed the costs of educating our state’s school children through Personal Income and Corporate Income Taxes and Local Property Taxes (for capital outlay and debt service, etc).
100% of Personal and Corporate Income Tax funds Public Education (K-12) in Utah. That means the base of those who pay for nearly 525,000 Public School children’s education is represented by the employed population and labor force of those who contribute to state income taxes through payroll withholding.
Fees related to coursework required for graduation should be part of the traditional WPU distribution formulas. We constitutionally guarantee a “free” public education to our state’s resident children. Yet, at the beginning of every school year the vast majority of parents who’s children attend grades 7-12 get slapped with a bill from their children’s schools. Those bills include a variety of “fees” related to almost every academic course of the state’s academic core…courses required for graduation.
And, what happens if students/parents don’t pay their fee assessment in time? Often, if these fees aren’t paid by the time grades are posted on Powerschool (on-line grade reporting system) the student will receive an “NC” in the place of a grade until the fee is paid in full.
So, if these academic “fees” are required for academic coursework and graduation from high school, HB163 treats them as the tax they really are and rolls them into the WPU.
Let’s call a spade a spade…really.
6 Responses to “HB163 School Fee Amendments…Let’s Call a Spade a Spade”
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February 15th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Before I disagree with one of your facts, I want to say thank you for running this bill. I think it’s important that we keep the compulsory portion of our education system “free” for all students.
Contrary to what is oft repeated, 100% of income tax does NOT go to K-12 education. A 1996 amendment to the Utah constitution allowed income tax dollars to also be spent on _higher_ ed, and since that time income tax dollars have increasingly been used instead of general fund dollars (more than $700 M in FY 2008).
There’s an easy to read graph in the Utah Foundation’s report, “Utah’s Education Funding Effort: Update and Historical Perspective” (Aug 2007), at the bottom of page two (Figure 4).
http://www.utahfoundation.org/research/rr680.html
February 16th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Tom:
You are correct. What I probably should have said was that 100% of personal income (and corporate income) tax goes into the Education Fund where it is distibuted to Public Ed (and Higher Ed).
Thanks Tom, I know I can always rely on you to keep me honest.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Craig, Thank you for working on this reform. All of us with children in jr. high or high school have been hit with these annoying and burdensome fees every August. It’s a pretty big imposition if you have a couple of kids subject to the fees and you can pay $500 a year, just at the time when you’re buying new school clothes and supplies and all. Not to mention trying to catch up on bills from that cool summer vacation!
March 7th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
The committee passed it favorably, and had more than enough time to be considered … is there any clue as to why it didn’t pass?
March 10th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Tom:
The answer is $13.3 million. That’s the cost…in on-going dollars. It’s a great idea, but the passage of this bill will take the “perfect storm”
Craig
October 27th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
[...] parents’ need to pay academic related fees for classes reuired for graduation. Link HERE for YT video. This legislation has been supported by the Utah State School Boards’ [...]