Wasatch School District Board Meeting
WTPA members and Wasatch County citizens!
Tonight at 6:30 p.m., is the Wasatch School District Board Meeting. We are asking all WTPA members to please be in attendance. Please invite all your neighbors and friends to attend.
Wasatch School District- 2013 budget public hearing will be:
Thursday, July 19, 2012, 6:30pm
Wasatch Education Center
101 East 200 North
Heber City, UT. 84032
District Office: 435-654-0280
If you cannot make the meeting tonight PLEASE email the Board in support of the WTPA’s Call for a $5 Million Tax Cut.
Please put “Support of the WTPA’s Call for Tax Cut” in Subject line! Click here to email the Board.
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Based on the figures that were supplied to the Wasatch County taxpayers by the Wasatch School District, the Wasatch Taxpayers Association is calling for a conservative $5 Million reduction in property taxes, from the existing unassigned cash funds, for the adopted 2013 budget year. The cut would not affect the day to day operations of the school district.
WTPA welcomes the opportunity to discuss with the WSD the apparent budget increases that are shown in the documents below.
WTPA PowerPoint Presentation of WSD’s 2013 Budget
WTPA-Press Release-WSD tax cut 7-2012
WTPA – Eye Opening Summary of 2013 WSD Budget
June 14, 2012 WSD Board Meeting Audio
The WTPA Board invited the Wasatch School Board to attend our General Membership meeting this past Tuesday (July 17, 2012), to help us understand the current budget % increases in the context of day to day business. In an effort to work with the School Board, the WTPA Board extended an invite to discuss and work with the School Board to resolve School Budget issues. Blaik Baird was the only current school board member to attend.
The Wasatch Taxpayers Association is calling for a conservative property tax cut from Wasatch School District (WSD) in their adopted 2013 budget of at least $5 Million. SAVINGS- on a $300,000 home, the reduction of taxes would be $194.00 a year, and will not affect the day to day operations of WSD.
Over the past few years, revenues and expenditures for the Wasatch School District have far exceeded the increase in student enrollment. In analyzing the 2011 WSD amended budget, WTPA has found apparent unassigned reserves, or slush funds, nearing 9 million. In the FY 2013 budget there are still millions of unassigned reserves, and the total budget is $53 million.
UTAH STATE CODE 53A-19-103. Undistributed reserve in school board budget. (1) A local school board may adopt a budget with an undistributed reserve. The reserve may not exceed 5% of the maintenance and operation budget adopted by the board in accordance with a scale developed by the State Board of Education. The scale is based on the size of the school district’s budget.
Since a 49.33% unsubstantiated tax increase in 2007, approximately 23 million has already been spent, without a public bond election, to finish the new high school, build a 3.1 million football stadium, and to add on to an existing elementary. It is not clear which fund(s) this was drawn from, and WTPA would appreciate an explanation from the WSD.
The WSD Board of Education’s online statement of purpose does not mention fiscal responsibility, nor do they acknowledge any fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers who elect them and who they are representing. As the WTPA, we are eager to work with the Wasatch School District to remedy this oversight in being fiscally responsible to the patrons of the district they serve.
WSD Board of Education has put the already adopted 2013 budget out for a public 30 Day Review, after quickly adopting it in June 2012, without adhering to the state code to post the budget to the public at least 10 days prior to adoption.
Wasatch Taxpayers Association
“The Fiscal Hawks of Wasatch County”