Should Granite School District Split?

As part of the ongoing Elementary Boundary and Closure Study, Granite School District has received questions about how a district split would impact Granite School District. The District does not take an official position on the idea of a split, nor does the district have the authority to initiate a split. However, data from recent splits in the state of Utah present concerns that warrant consideration. 

Lessons Learned From Other District Splits

• Similar to the Jordan/Canyons split, both smaller districts would need to drastically raise taxes in order to maintain the same level of services.
  • News media reported that taxes were increased by 20 percent in Jordan and 16.75 percent in Canyons following the 2008 split. (Deseret News, 2014)
• If Granite were to split, both smaller districts would still face issues with declining enrollment and high home prices. Housing costs would increase as property taxes would need to be increased. Both districts will still be faced with closure decisions.
• Overall administrative costs would increase across both new districts.
  • News media reported that administrative costs per student increased from $540 before the split to $795 in Canyons and $575 in Jordan. (Deseret News, 2014)

Equalization

During the last split, ALL Salt Lake County taxpayers were required to subsidize the inequities in funding. Our taxpayers funded the last split. Granite School District participated with other districts in a Capital Equalization Program (Deseret News, 2008) from 2009 to 2016 at a total estimated net cost to the District of $5 million. This was money that the State Legislature obligated Granite to contribute to help (Deseret News, 2009) facilitate the Jordan/Canyons split. The Legislature could once again require additional dollars from a splitting district to pay for any inequities in the remaining district.

School and District Size: A Report to the Legislative Education Interim Committee.

Click here to review, “School and District Size: A Report to the Legislative Education Interim Committee.” Among other key findings, this report to the Utah Legislature finds that:

• “One time cost of splitting a district could range from $3,500,000 to $45,000,000.” Those estimates are from the year 2000 – the costs would reasonably be far greater now.
  • As reported by the news media, the Canyons/Jordan split cost $59 million. (Fox13, 2014)
• “…as the number of students in a district goes up, the costs of educating each student comes down.”
• “Unknown but predictable added costs would be very substantial.”

Reduced Offerings and Higher Costs

• If Granite were to split, both smaller districts would not have the economies of scale in terms of students and funding to have access to Granite Technical Institute, some CTE programing, and other offerings of a larger district. 
• If Granite were to split, both smaller districts would lose the current self-funded insurance plan and would likely need to use a more expensive private provider. Employees would no longer have access to the best benefits package in the state.
  • For example, a smaller district in Utah recently had an 18% spike in premiums, while Granite’s self-funded insurance only went up 0.3%.

Stay Informed

We encourage all district patrons to stay informed about the processes and methodologies that go into managing Granite School District.  Here are some helpful links to our budget and boundary studies web pages, where you can find data and studies related to district funding, enrollment trends, etc.