Utah Policymakers Consider Charter School Funding Changes

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695234758,00.html

A draft bill under consideration in the Utah legislature would require school districts to provide an allocation of property tax revenues for each resident student attending a charter school. The "money follows the child" method would enable students' home-district funding to follow them to any public school, even if it is located outside the district. The bill would also require that charter schools receive their funding from school districts -- something they were required to do before 2004. This likely would incite more animosity between charters and school districts. "This is going to hurt all the way around and probably going to cause some feelings to come up again that had probably gone away for a little while," said Marlies Burns, state director of charter schools. "Everybody is frustrated with the whole thing because this puts (charters) in a position of taking money from districts." "Some see it as reasonable, some don't like it, but it seems to be a reasonable way to fund school students to ensure that the education they receive, from a financial standpoint, is essentially the same whether they go to a charter school or a local district school," said Rep. Ron Bigelow, who drafted the bill.

Source: Deseret Morning News
Date: 12/09/2007