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When Gov. Gary Herbert's proposed budget called for $500 million in new funding for Utah schools, educators hoped the lean years of the Great Recession were behind them.

But a preliminary budget released by lawmakers on Thursday showed both good news and bad for the public education system.

The recommendations by the Executive Appropriations Committee include more than $100 million in per-pupil spending and $48 million for enrollment growth.

The total price tag is roughly half of what Herbert proposed and excludes requested investments in school technology and teacher training.

The budget also restores a $63 million funding cut that lawmakers approved last month as part of a budget exercise to highlight spending priorities.

"I'm disappointed," Utah Education Association president Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh said. "We're a long, long way from $500 million."

Members of the education community, including the UEA, the Utah Parent Teacher Association and the state's school employee organizations, plan to rally at the Utah State Capitol on Monday. The event, to be held in the Capitol Rotunda at 5:30 p.m., is intended to show support for Herbert's budget proposals and urge lawmakers to increase their investment in Utah schools.

"It can be done," Gallagher-Fishbaugh said of Herbert's budget. "It's time that we adequately funded our public schools."

Lawmakers are recommending a 4 percent increase in the weighted pupil unit, the basic funding formula used for per-student spending. If approved, that increase would be effectively double the per-student increases that Utah schools have received for each of the last two years.

The weighted pupil unit is also unrestricted funding, which state school board chairman David Crandall said could be used at the local district level for targeted programs like technology and training.

"A 4-percent increase is fairly significant," he said. "It affords the districts and the schools a lot of flexibility in what they can do."

Herbert's spokesman Marty Carpenter said Friday that the governor had received the Legislature's budget and would be meeting House and Senate leaders to discuss where changes can be made.

"We are hopeful that at the end of this process, the budget will reflect the governor's priorities," he said.

But Gallagher-Fishbaugh said the budget's emphasis on flexible spending doesn't make up for the Legislature's failure to adequately fund schools.

Schools were hit hard by the recession, she said, and the state has yet to return education funding levels to where they were before the market crash.

"When a person is starving, they'll cry out for food," she said. "Yes, we are crying out for adequate resources and I'm not going to apologize for that."

Education funding was the subject of a recent study by Utah Foundation President Steve Kroes, who found that Utahns currently face the lowest state tax burden in 20 years.

But while education spending, as a percentage of personal income, has fallen, funding for other state agencies — including public safety and natural resources — increased or stayed level, Kroes said.

"Utahns now enjoy a lower tax burden," Kroes wrote on UtahFoundation.org, "but over time, we have paid for the entire tax reduction through lower investment in schools."