Two lawmakers are crafting a bill to spread school building costs across entire counties. The legislation could mean property taxes from throughout Salt Lake County, which encompasses four separate school districts, would help build classrooms in the booming west valley.

"What we're hoping to do is ensure we can have a countywide or statewide equalization of school building costs for growing districts," said Draper Republican Sen. Howard Stephenson, Education Interim Committee co-chairman. "I feel strongly that if we're going to be dividing districts, no one [should be] able to cut and run from their obligation to build school buildings."

Stephenson will introduce a draft bill for debate at Wednesday's committee meeting. He hopes the bill will be considered during a special summer legislative session. Draper Republican Rep. Greg Hughes, the committee's other co-chairman, is co-sponsoring the bill.

Currently, school district residents pay specific property tax levies for building projects and interest on bond debts. Those funds become stretched when demand for school buildings skyrockets in growing areas.

Stephenson and state school board member Mark Cluff of Alpine have long favored spreading building funds beyond district boundaries. But the issue gained traction when splitting school districts became possible.

"We'd already thought, 'I don't want this to be an east versus west issue,' " Cluff said. "The best way to solve that so it's not about the money is to equalize funding across the county."

Both said resistance to the idea will depend on whether residents feel responsibility to pay for schoolchildren in other districts.

"We don't know how egalitarian Salt Lake City taxpayers, for example, are going to be about it," Stephenson said.

Much of the controversy surrounding potential division of Jordan and Granite school districts concerns west-side areas that are growing quickly and need more new schools. A smaller district would mean fewer taxpayers to foot the bill, so west-side residents would have to raise their tax rates to pay for the schools they need.

Utah code allows only residents of the new district to vote whether to split, meaning citizens of the remaining district wouldn't have a say in a matter that could affect their tax rates.

Stephenson said he and others are working to determine whether that provision violates the "equal protection" clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.

Because city councils could opt to form new districts and put the issue to their voters as soon as November, Stephenson wants the Legislature to consider his bill this summer.

"If the election goes forward without school building equalization resolved, you will see a federal lawsuit on the 14th Amendment question," he said. "And I will be the first to initiate it."

nstricker@sltrib.com