This likely means new policy will be more thoroughly debated during next year's general session.

Salt Lake City School District Superintendent McKell Withers was one of many local leaders relieved with the result.

"It's nice to see a task force will take more time to talk about such a critical issue that should never have been on a special session," he said.

Salt Lake Valley school district officials had criticized a recent version of the equalization plan that would have transferred millions to Jordan School District, in light of its growth and large population, but left Granite, Murray and Salt Lake districts in the red. In a worst-case scenario, Salt Lake residents would have seen their taxes jump significantly to make up for a $11.3-million loss.

A different version of the plan with less egregious consequences came to light Wednesday. However, legislators backed off.

"We were prepared to do this as a first step. But the Senate's goal was statewide equalization," said Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem. "And that's still our goal."

Valentine said the Senate would like income tax to be part of a statewide equalization formula to avoid the "big aberrations" that a property tax-only solution threatened.

"We would like to use income tax to soften the impact," he said.

Sen. Dan Eastman, who will be Senate chairman of the task force, described the fairness issue as real.

"That's one of the things we will be talking about," he said. "It's as important to sell that as it is to sell a formula."

House Speaker Greg Curtis said Republican House members were concerned with approving a countywide solution only to have to reconsider it on a statewide basis.

He said support for the bill eroded last week when Salt Lake business interests began lobbying House members. "We finally kind of woke the sleeping giant last week," he joked.

Curtis said he could have gotten consensus in the House, but "I just didn't want to do head thumping to get it."

Discussed for years, the push to equalize school building dollars had become more pressing in recent months as the school district division issue evolved. Whether the potential of a greater tax burden for residents in remaining west-side districts will affect east-side residents' vote this November remains unknown.