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Riverton • It's a request state education bosses haven't accepted just yet.
The Utah Board of Education is taking more time to decide on a possible $260 million in tax breaks designed to lure a Facebook data center to what is now a sprawling wheat field 25 miles south of Salt Lake City.
The elected panel that oversees Utah's public schools is set to cast the fate of the incentive plan in a Monday vote as other members of a local tax committee sit divided.
The Salt Lake County Council voted no on the deal, backing Mayor Ben McAdams' argument that it would waste water and space. The Jordan School District's governing board bought in, agreeing with West Jordan that Facebook's star power would drive business and bring in more tax money. A delegate for Jordan Valley's mosquito-control and water districts is leaning toward approval.
That means the plan likely has five of the six votes it will need in order to become an offer.
Meanwhile, the education board is teetering.
"We're just not sure," said spokeswoman Emilie Wheeler. The board is crunching data to determine how the deal could affect Utah taxpayers, who will contribute a collective $3 million to Jordan schools this year.
"It's not just Jordan" that's affected by the proposed deal, said State Board of Education Chairman David Crandall. "It's anybody that has a tax revenue."
A 2015 law, Crandall notes, takes money from statewide property tax hikes and passes it on to fast-growing school districts.
The Jordan School District Board of Education is done mulling. Board members on Tuesday voted 5-1 in favor of the plan, characterizing it as a commercial jump-start to the district that comprises 52,000 students, many who have spilled into dozens of trailers parked in schoolyards, serving as ersatz classrooms.
"It's good for the district. It's good for the children," said Susan Pulsipher, the district board's president.
But it's a "real tough decision," she said, because "the terms are not fair to taxpayers in Jordan School District."
West Jordan Mayor Kim Rolfe was more resolute. A yes vote, he said, was "the responsible thing for this board to do."
Some Jordan board members said city officials cut them out of negotiations that put the district on the hook to give back $93 million out of a projected $111 million in revenue over a 20-year period.
But City Manager Mark Palesh said the big breaks were needed.
A New Mexico site also is vying to host the data trove that would be similar to facilities in North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Oregon and Sweden.
An estimated 130 Utah workers would tend the vast digital farm of computers, generators and backup batteries storing information from Facebook's 1.5 billion users.
Jordan board member Matthew Young said he learned of West Jordan's talks with Facebook about a year after they began — a delay he called "tone deaf and wrong and arrogant on the city's part."
Young, the sole board member to vote no, said he feared the incentive set an expensive precedent.
"We have got to stand up and say no," he said.
In Copperton, several residents told board member Kayleen Whitelock they didn't know about the proposal until they thought it was too late to weigh in.
"They feel like you don't care about them at all," Whitelock told city officials.
Whitelock, for her part, is looking past the oversight. She said South Jordan, Herriman and Riverton schools would recoup an extra $17 million in property-tax revenue over two decades.
The tech titan's cachet also is a draw.
"Companies want to cluster around this big name," said Susan Becker of Zions Bank, the entity that completed the financial analysis for the plan. Becker envisions other companies coming to 800 acres bordering the project, bloating tax revenues by up to $1 million more per year than a residential neighborhood of the same size.
For now, Jordan schools are turning to voters for help coping with growing enrollment, asking them to approve a $245 million bond on the Nov. 8 ballot that would raise property taxes by $16.80 per year on a $300,000 home and level off over a 20-year period.
Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, who ushered legislation through the 2013 Legislature that grants tax breaks for online businesses, said he "would have thought twice" about that move if he had known deals could be as "egregious" as the Facebook plan.
"To me, it's like rolling schoolchildren under the bus," said Stephenson, also president of the Utah Taxpayers Association.
Heather Reich, a sixth-grade teacher at Jordan's Majestic Elementary, agreed. "It just is too much to ask from our kids and our schools."
The 232-acre swath identified as Facebook's first building site is located on a larger 1,900-acre plot that has belonged to Michael Jones' family since 1945.
"We're not short-term speculators," Jones told the Jordan board, "and we're under no pressure to sell."
Dave Martin — who votes on behalf of the Central Utah and Jordan Valley water conservancy districts and the South Salt Lake Mosquito Abatement District — said the projected water needs are reasonable. Estimates put maximum usage at 5.3 million gallons per day.
"I guess you could say I'm leaning toward yes," said Martin, the Jordan Valley district's CFO.
The State School Board is expected to meet later this week before the tax panel vote Monday.
Tribune reporters Matthew Piper and Mike Gorrell contributed to this article.
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