This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
If charter school students were counted the same as district school students, charters would lose roughly $6 million in state per-pupil funding.
And if district school enrollment were counted the same as charter schools, Utah's school districts would see a funding bump of roughly $65 million.
That disparity, among other charter budgeting eccentricities, prompted lawmakers to create a monthly task force this year to research new funding options.
But during the task force's second meeting on Tuesday, the job of reconciling charter and district budgets led to four hours of occasionally heated debate, including the tongue-in-cheek suggestion by a Democratic representative that charters be shuttered altogether.
"Here's a solution to the funding formula: get rid of charter schools," Rep. Joel Briscoe, D-Salt Lake City, said.
Charter enrollment is based on a student head count taken in October, while district enrollment is based on average attendance through the year.
That means charters continue to receive funding for students who leave their schools after October, and they are counted again for partial funding if they transfer to district schools.
The snapshot method is scheduled to sunset next year, resulting in a uniform average attendance calculation for all schools.
But charter advocates want the deadline to be extended indefinitely to protect their schools' revenue.
"Let's not upset the apple cart over a few million dollars," said Kim Frank, executive director of the Utah Charter Network.
Briscoe said the original concept behind charter schools was that they would function with less funding in exchange for greater flexibility regarding state oversight and requirements.
Charters receive taxpayer dollars, but their governing boards are unelected, their teachers are at-will employees and many are administrated by private charter management companies.
Over the years, Briscoe said, charters have lobbied for greater resources to the point that their operations are almost indistinguishable from traditional district schools.
"You want all the economies of scale and advantages of a school district without having to be a school district," he said.
Frank said her children deserve the same resources as their peers who attend traditional schools.
"As a parent," she said, "I'm paying the same taxes as my neighbor who is paying taxes to the [school] district."
After the discussion, the committee held a straw poll in which the majority supported allowing the charter enrollment calculation to expire, but with some measures to cushion the blow for charters.
But the division led to a rare sparring match between Hurricane Republican Rep. Brad Last, chairman of the House Education Committee, and Draper Republican Sen. Howard Stephenson, chairman of the Public Education Appropriations Committee.
Last asked what problem the committee was trying to solve, saying the different enrollment calculations is a relatively small component in the state's $4 billion education budget.
"By their very nature there are differences that we are not going to resolve," he said. "We are wasting a lot of time on something that is not going to make a difference."
Stephenson said the problem is one of inequity between school types, since charters receive more money now than they would under a uniform method.
"That suggests we're treating charters in a more favorable way than we are districts," he said.
Last said schools are familiar with the current dual-track system. Districts and charters are different animals, he said, and lawmakers shouldn't try to stuff them all into the same box.
"We just shoot ourselves in the foot by having these kinds of fights," he said, "because it really is all about the kids."