This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The conclusion of this year's legislative session marks another missed opportunity to significantly support public education. Making the necessary level of investment in Utah children and grandchildren is only going to happen at the ballot box. The proposed 2018 ballot initiative is our best chance to bring meaningful investment to Utah classrooms.

This legislative session did provide funding for new students entering Utah classrooms. In addition, they provided a four percent cost of living adjustment. Considering that school districts require a 2.5 percent increase in order to maintain basic operations, that leaves approximately $68 in new funding for each Utah student. No matter how you look at it, $68 is not enough money to keep effective teachers from quitting or reduce overflowing classrooms.

Utah's economy is strong. Why aren't we able to find new money while we are doing well to make the investment that polls say 89 percent of Utah voters want? Tax cuts over the past 20 years have taken $1.2 billion from our schools. Small education funding increases will not dig us out of this hole.

We've been told that those tax cuts drive business expansion. But while we have brought back the 54,000 jobs that disappeared during the economic recession, the average wage of those jobs is $10,000 less than they were before the recession.

Though new education funding sources couldn't be found, the Legislature did find $1 billion to expedite road projects by a few years. We were told that investing in roads will trickle down to education one day. A better approach would have been an investment in education to drive economic growth.

Businesses aren't flocking to Wyoming because they have no income tax. The driver of entrepreneurial success, wealth creation and large scale business growth is education. The economic hotbeds are places like Silicon Valley, Calif., and Boston, Mass. The investment they've made in public and higher ed has paid dividends many times over.

To make teachers successful in educating our kids, more money will have to go to increasing teacher salaries, reducing classroom sizes, bringing back professional development opportunities for teachers, putting new technology in classrooms and providing more opportunities for early learning.

For instance, as our state struggles with a serious teacher shortage, Salt Lake City School District received funding to lessen the departure of talented teachers. Over a three-year period, the district's new teacher mentoring practices resulted in a 90 percent success rate. But instead of expanding on this success, it was not included in lawmakers' budget.

Our children can't afford to wait for improved education in Utah any longer. Each year that passes by with insufficient investment leaves students less prepared for the high skill high wage jobs that should be Utah's future. Twenty years of tax cuts and education funding decreases have contributed to lower wages, not economic security.

I will be gathering signatures for the ballot initiative this summer, and for the sake of our children's future, I encourage each of you to do the same.

Mark Bouchard is the senior managing director of the Salt Lake City office of CB Richard Ellis.