State Legislators Discuss Education Issues

Anita Weston, Reporter

Rich Civic Times

RANDOLPH, Utah. January 18, 2017.  At the Rich School Board meeting, time was given to Representative Logan Wilde and Senator Lyle Hillyard to introduce themselves and give any information they felt would be helpful to the Board.

Representative Wilde is new to the House of Representatives.  He noted that he is looking forward to working as a representative.  He said that he is a cattle and sheep rancher and felt at home in Rich County.  Since he is new, he didn’t have a lot of information about what bills or items that have been handled in the past and what will be presented beginning this next Monday.  He desires to represent his area of responsibility and encouraged the Board to contact him if he can be of assistance to them.

Senator Lyle Hillyard has served in the State Senate for many years.  He said that he hadn’t heard any action toward building or enlarging the Bear Lake Marina.  That is an item he will be looking into during this next session.

He encouraged the County to continue to grow in economic development and tourism.  He reported that the education budget is currently at $287 million.  He said that there are no one time monies in the budget at the present time.  Generally, there are some funds available there for building capital facilities, buying computers, or other items that are needed in the schools. Currently, the budget monies are completely assigned to various schools and projects.

He noted that a great deal of the education money for Rich County comes from secondary homes.  He does not want an equalization board to re-evaluate homes in this area and change the property taxing rules.  Currently, there is not that much difference, and taxation of secondary homes is very helpful to the County.

Some believe that teacher salaries must be increased.  It is believed that teachers leave schools because they are not being paid enough.  However, that is not the case.  Teachers are generally leaving because of the difficulty of working with all of the restrictions and responsibilities that are assigned to them.  In addition, there is a lack of manners and civility that creates issues in classrooms.  Parental support is often missing.  Money may be part of the reason, but certainly not the only one.  Class size and differences in abilities among the students themselves is common and requires much greater effort on the part of the teacher to reach goals set by outside agencies.  How to approach and solve all of these issues is not something that can be quickly determined and passed through the legislature.

Early pre-kindergarten is important.  Some parents spend time with their children and help them so that they are prepared for kindergarten.  However, there are other families where the children are not being taught at all.  If a student is not reading by the third grade, they will probably drop out or be unable to complete the public education program.

Sales tax revenue is slowing.  People are changing how and what they buy.  There are so many options today using the computer.  In addition, income taxes are rising.  There is a broader base which also lowers taxes. 

The legislators said that there are three main things that are tremendously important to the future  of education:  First, reduced income taxes.  Monies are needed to keep education moving forward.  Second, charitable contributions are dropping and many more students are coming from lower income homes.  Third, interest in education in the home is becoming lower or even non existent.

Upstart is a good program.  It is very successful in homes where the parents volunteer and work with their children.  The opposite is also true.  Many young children would really benefit from this program, but fail when there is no parental assistance.

Hillyard felt that it is not a good idea to raise individual taxes.  He said it would be better to increase taxes on corporations and businesses.  Money for education is not an easy problem to solve.  Hopefully, the legislature will come up with some solutions that will move education forward.