This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated.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.

Per-student investment in Utah's K-12 education system remained 4 percent below pre-recession levels last year, after adjusting for inflation.

This disappointing statistic was one of the most significant findings of the new Utah Children's Budget Report published by Voices for Utah Children last month. Disappointing because the Great Recession ended in 2009, so the 2016 data reflect seven full years of economic expansion. By all accounts, our economy is booming. So why has our education funding still not caught up?

The answer lies in a combination of economic, demographic, and budgetary factors.

Economics: Data from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis indicate that Utah's recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-2009 has been slower than that of the nation as a whole. For example, our real per-capita GDP remained 3.5 percent below its pre-recession level in 2015, when that of the nation as a whole was already 1.9 percent ahead of the pre-recession peak. By this metric, Utah ranks 41st in the nation for the strength of our economic recovery.

But our education investment recovery has lagged even behind our relatively slow economic recovery. In 2015, as our per capita GDP remained 3.5 percent below its pre-recession level, our per-student K-12 education investment was 8 percent behind its pre-recession peak. One important reason for this appears to be demographic.

Demographics: Even though Utah is behind in our public investment as measured on a per-student basis, the Utah Children's Budget Report found that we are ahead on a per-child basis. In other words, when we add up all of the state revenues devoted to children (education, health care, juvenile justice, etc., totaling $5.7 billion in FY2016) and divide it by the total number of children in Utah, we were, for the first time, substantially ahead of our pre-recession peak — by 5.5 percent after adjusting for inflation.

The source of this seeming contradiction is that we have experienced a significant demographic shift since the recession. The percent of Utah children who are students in our K-12 public education system has risen over the last decade from 63 percent to 69 percent. This can be attributed to the state's declining high school dropout rate as well as to our declining fertility rate since the recession struck.

Budgetary Factors: The last of the three major factors explaining why it has been so difficult to restore pre-recession public investment levels is the budgetary decisions made by state policymakers. Specifically, the decision a decade ago to reduce our overall level of taxation to a multi-decade low has hobbled our ability to make upfront investments in areas like education that most Utahns recognize are needed to keep our workforce productive and competitive.

These public investments are especially important as our state welcomes immigrants and refugees and becomes more diverse. One quarter of all Utah children are now minorities, and our minority communities have very different family and workforce characteristics from the Utah majority – such as more single-parent families, lower education and wage levels, and higher poverty rates.

The result is growing majority-minority gaps at a level previously unseen here that threaten our future competitiveness if we don't take preventive action. Historically speaking, the current era is the worst possible time to have reduced our investment in Utah's children.

Next month the U.S. Census Bureau will release its annual state rankings for per pupil K-12 education spending. Since 1988, Utah has ranked dead last, 50th place. Perhaps the best news from the new Utah Children's Budget Report is that, if the trend of recent years continues, this could well be the year that we finally surpass Idaho and climb into 49th place, a very welcome development. And for some, that will be good enough.

But the question we should ask is this: Can we, and should we, aim higher than next-to-last? And by doing so, by making the decision to restore our upfront investment in our children, in their education and otherwise, could we actually improve our economic performance, enabling us to reap handsome profits as a state in the long run?

Matthew Weinstein is State Priorities Partnership Director at Voices for Utah Children. The new "Utah Children's Budget Report 2017" is available at http://www.UtahChildren.org.