The majority of people probably realize Utah spends the least per pupil of any state in the nation yet spends more of our tax dollars on education that any other state. To our children this means overcrowded classrooms, stressed teachers, limited books, etc., and an emphasis on crowd control with learning often secondary. To the taxpayer this means dig deeper and deeper into your pockets.
At the time of statehood, 7 million acres (the state now has 3.7 million acres of surface rights and 4.6 million acres of mineral rights) were placed in trust to generate revenue to fund the education costs for the future generations of children.These lands are frequently referred to as state lands; however, they are school trust lands. These lands along with the trust funds established from the sale of the lands and minerals, if properly managed, would have resulted in significant dollars for education.
Revenues were to be put in a permanent fund to earn interest. The schools are allowed by law to expend only the interest from this permanent fund. Presently, this interest pays one-third of 1 percent of Utah's education costs. Why so low?
Over the years, Utah's permanent trust fund has suffered frequent raids despite a constitutional requirement that the state repay any losses. In 1983, $37 million was liquidated, leaving less than half of the permanent fund drawing interest. This raid along with others has never been paid back; consequently, not only has the permanent fund been depleted but the potential interest earnings have been lost. How could this have been allowed to happen, when the elected officials, past and present, are supposed to be so education-minded?
Mismanagement, political exploitation of the trust funds, political pressure in the lands for other state purposes than education, and a failure to focus on the primary mission of making income for the school children in a businesslike professional climate have resulted in Utah falling "dead last" in income from its trust lands.
The decision to write this letter was made after reading a recent newspaper article about the purchase of a ranch in the Book Cliffs area for the purpose of developing a large hunting preserve.
Book Cliffs is in an area acquired for the children's trust for its mineral value. However, the State Division of Wildlife Resources and the Federal Bureau of Land Management, The Nature Conservancy and others are developing a large hunting preserve.
This plan includes purchasing five large ranches with taxpayers' money. This plan also incudes using 114,000 acres of our schoolchildren's land "free." That is, one-fourth of the land in the plan will belong to our children, and unlike the private ranches that will be purchased, our children will receive nothing.
Not only this, the plan was developed without even consulting the schools or the school land administrators. It was just assumed that they could use the lands free.
One ranch (3,720 acres) has been purchased for approximately $1.3 million (approximately $350 an acre). If the school trust lands received a similar price, it would amount to a sum just under $40 million.
Just suppose the trust was paid only half that amount or one-third, we are still talking about a loss of millions of dollars that should by law be put in the permanent fund to earn interest to fund Utah 's education costs.
This is a public disgrace and outrage and should no longer be tolerated by those concerned about the education funding in our state and the heavy tax burden we continue to bear. We are not against the sport of hunting; however, we are against our children's school trust lands being donated to hunting with absolutely no compensation.