Contribute news or contact us by sending an email to: RCTonline@gmail.com

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Commission To Begin School Board Reapportionment Process

Bobbie Bicknell Coray, Reporter
Rich Civic Times

RANDOLPH, Utah.  March 6, 2014.  Reapportionment of the Rich School District was discussed.  In the previous week on February 25 an open meeting was called and held by a citizen’s group, headed by Bryce Huefner, in Garden City to preliminarily discuss the fact that Garden City’s population had grown and that there needed to be a reapportionment of school board members based on population. That meeting had sbeen attended by the county commissioners.

Chris Coray, resident of Rich County, summarized at the county commission meeting, the need for the county to come into compliance with the Utah State Code and complete a reapportionment that is required by state law at least once every 10 years.  No one in the current government could remember when this last occurred but it was certainly not in this century. 

The Utah code requires that Rich County schools have a 5 member school board, with each district substantially equal in population.  The 2010 U.S. Census identifies the population of Rich County as 2,264 (2012 Census estimate is 2267).  Using this data for the 5 member board  required by the Utah Code in this county, arithmetic produces an ideal size of a single district as 453 persons (to the nearest whole person).  Courts have allowed a 10% variance but the current districting does not come close to meeting the 10% test, and in fact there is currently at least as much as an 82% population variance from the ideal in one district (824 census vs. 453 ideal), and one district has a U.S. Census population 238% the size of another (824 vs. 346).

The commissioners indicated that they understand the current situation and accepted the need for a reapportionment to take place.  Commissioner Cox said that the current plan is to appoint a committee to begin the process of data gathering for reapportionment and that he expected that this would be under way in the next 30 days.  For the record, the exact Utah State statute requiring this reapportionment is Title 20A-14-201, which reads in part,

“The county and municipal legislative bodies shall divide the school district so that the local school board districts are substantially equal in population and are as contiguous and compact as practicable, and that this must occur “At least once every 10 years”.

No comments: