Provo Way Award Recipient: Marni Story, Wasatch Elementary Teacher
December 11th, 2023
As educators, we do our best to prepare our students for the future—but what does this...
The Provo City School District Board of Education, in an effort to be more transparent with our community, is providing the following information to explain the current increase in local taxes. There is an inherent tension between providing services and collecting taxes to fund them. Provo City School District has raised taxes for two reasons:
Below is from the certified tax rate system. We are increasing our tax revenue by $12 million. $6.7 million is going towards building and Wasatch and Shoreline, with the remaining $5.3 million going to salaries. These amounts must legally go towards purposes for which they have been allocated.
Auditor’s Certified Tax Rate | Auditor’s Certified Rate Revenue | Proposed Tax Rate | Budgeted Revenue |
---|---|---|---|
0.006073 | $58,682,188 | 0.007323 | $70,771,450 |
Source: Utah Property Tax Certified Tax Rate System
Our budget last year totaled $176.5 million. The increase of $12 million is a combined increase of 6.8% to our budget from the previous year.
So why is this different and everybody is reporting increases of 20 and 30%? That is because of all of our revenue that we receive, only a portion of it, which totals 36.0%, comes from our local property taxes. The state has set the funding mechanism for local school districts and this is why there is not a direct 1:1 correlation between the increase to our budget versus the increase to taxes. When we increase taxes, it only impacts one line in our revenue, the local revenue. That means the local tax payers carry the majority of the burden when we have to increase our budget beyond what the state or federal government gives us.
For the Year Ending June 30, 2023 (With Comparative Totals for Prior Years)
Revenues | Proposed 2022-23 | Final Amended 2021-22 | Total % | % Increase |
---|---|---|---|---|
Property Taxes | $ 75,787,562.00 | $ 63,621,896.00 | 36.00% | 18.90% |
Interest From Investments | $ 531,197.00 | $ 531,197.00 | ||
Other Local | $ 17,255,391.00 | $ 10,180,745.00 | ||
School Foods Sales | $ 982,952.00 | $ 67,952.00 | ||
State of Utah | $ 89,507,425.00 | $ 79,625,132.00 | ||
Federal Government | $ 27,234,630.00 | $ 22,461,045.00 | ||
Total Revenues | $ 211,299,156.00 | $ 176,487,967.00 | 6.80% |
The table below is taken out of the certified tax rate system and the amounts highlighted in gray are the only rates the board has the ability to change when it comes to the district’s funding. So while the total budget only increased 6.8%, the funding that the board is able to adjust is disproportionately affected because the district does not control where all of our buckets of money come from.
Budget Code | Budget Name | Auditor’s Certified Tax Rate | Auditor’s Certified Rate Revenue | Proposed Tax Rate | Budgeted Revenue |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
190 | Basic School Levy | 0.001652 | $15,962,640 | 0.001652 | $15,962,640 |
210 | GO Bond Payments | 0.001381 | $13,345,199 | 0.001381 | $13,345,199 |
230 | Capital Local Levy | 0.000964 | $9,314,761 | 0.001847 | $17,850,000 |
246 | Voted Local Levy | 0.000691 | $6,676,867 | 0.000587 | $5,676,000 |
510 | Board Local Levy .002500 | 0.001289 | $12,455,110 | 0.00176 | $17,010,000 |
526 | Charter School Levy | 0.000096 | $927,611 | 0.000096 | $927,611 |
527 | Grand Total | 0.006073 | $58,682,188 | 0.007323 | $70,771,450 |
0.004325 | 0.005575 | 28.90% |
The Wasatch and Shoreline facilities are currently underway. Those facilities are being replaced because they are 70 and 90 years old respectively and are in need of significant renovations and repairs. Those buildings also have unreinforced masonry (URM) which means they are not seismically safe and if there was an earthquake those buildings have the greatest likelihood of collapse. The URM report by FEMA (summary attached below) was released this last year. When compared to neighboring districts, Provo City School District is far ahead in replacing our facilities to meet the current standards. After replacing these two final buildings, no facility with children in it will have unreinforced masonry – making Provo one of the safest districts in the state.
We are happy these construction bonds were issued last year before the current increase and interest rates. This will save us $30 million over the next 20 years that would have been needed to cover the additional interest. This also means that over the next 30 years, Provo’s tax rate is likely to fall while other districts will have to increase their tax rate to bond and replace their aging facilities.
As employees leave our district, we ask them why. It is commonly stated that in both our district and other districts, the employees are leaving the industry for better working conditions and pay.
Unfortunately, this has been occurring for a long time and has now reached its boiling point. Universities have seen declining enrollments in their education programs and the number of graduates in these programs is not meeting the demand.
This has created an urgent supply and demand issue, where a teacher’s working conditions, pay, and career outlook cannot keep up with the market in comparison to other careers. In addition, Provo City School District employees are making less, overall in career lifetime earnings, compared to our neighboring districts.
Beginning Salary | Ending Salary | 35 Yr. Career Earnings | |
---|---|---|---|
Provo | 45,500 | 76,950 | 2,142,875 |
Alpine | 45,946 | 67,313 | 2,207,536 |
Nebo | 47,074 | 71,410 | 2,197,807 |
Tooele | 48,485 | 71,410 | 2,269,757 |
Logan | 50,698 | 81,298 | 2,309,930 |
Ogden | 49,475 | 79,225 | 2,436,000 |
Non Provo Average | 48,336 | 74,131 | 2,284,206 |
without Alpine | 48,933 | 75,836 | 2,303,374 |
Provo vs. Average | -2,836 | 2,819 | -141,331 |
without Alpine | -3,433 | 1,114 | -160,499 |
Beginning Salary | Ending Salary | 35 Yr. Career Earnings | |
---|---|---|---|
Provo | 50,125 | 81,575 | 2,304,750 |
Alpine | 48,045 | 92,687 | 2,690,327 |
Nebo | 51,306 | 83,049 | 2,457,038 |
Tooele | 52,717 | 83,049 | 2,551,208 |
Logan | 54,298 | 84,898 | 2,624,930 |
Ogden | 53,850 | 83,600 | 2,589,125 |
Non Provo Average | 52,043 | 85,457 | 2,582,526 |
without Alpine | 53,043 | 83,649 | 2,555,575 |
Provo vs. Average | -1,918 | -3,882 | -277,776 |
without Alpine | -2,918 | -2,074 | -250,825 |
Beginning Salary | Ending Salary | 35 Yr. Career Earnings | |
---|---|---|---|
Provo | 53,825 | 85,275 | 2,434,250 |
Alpine | 49,108 | 97,652 | 2,852,742 |
Nebo | 56,950 | 88,693 | 2,654,552 |
Tooele | 58,360 | 88,693 | 2,748,724 |
Logan | 57,898 | 88,498 | 2,750,930 |
Ogden | 57,350 | 87,100 | 2,711,625 |
Non Provo Average | 55,933 | 90,127 | 2,743,715 |
without Alpine | 57,640 | 88,246 | 2,716,458 |
Provo vs. Average | -2,108 | -4,852 | -309,465 |
without Alpine | -3,815 | -2,971 | -282,208 |
Consequently we have reached a critical point where we don’t have the necessary number of people who are interested in educating the children of our community. This shortage requires us to be competitive with our salaries.
Our support personnel are also seeing significant pressure from the private sector and people are walking away entirely from the job market. Most of our hourly positions started between $8 and $12 an hour. Our bus drivers start between $19 and $22 and require a CDL, they have to understand how to manage children, and be expert drivers to keep the children safe.
We also have a significant number of openings in our instructional aides, child nutrition, and custodial ranks. In transportation, we currently do not have enough drivers to start the school year. If we do not get these positions filled, it could cause a significant disruption in our ability to provide services to students.
We are taking steps to streamline services and be efficient. For example, we have increased the student to teacher ratio, which will save us about $2 million this year. We are changing our health insurance and will save $2-4 million per year by doing so. We’ve also generated about $2.5 million by reinvesting our construction bonds while the construction is taking place. But even with all of this, we need an increase just to be able to increase wages and try to stay competitive. This increase doesn’t make up all the ground in one year either. We worked out an agreement with our employees to do this over multiple years to try to lessen the burden on our taxpayers.
Utah has a process for individuals and families that currently do not meet certain income thresholds. If anyone does not meet those thresholds, they are encouraged to utilize this process to mitigate the tax bill. Utah has the homeowner tax credit. To learn more about it visit the Utah Tax page on the state website here.
The form is called the TC 90 and can be found at on the state website here. The other option is to use the tax deferral system that was passed into law this last year. To learn about all potential tax relief options, visit the state website here.
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