"Raising taxes at this stage is not an option and would, in fact, be counterproductive," said Herbert, addressing the crowd of about 500 at the Little America Hotel on Saturday afternoon.

But how do you raise money for a system that badly needs it?

Some in the crowd asked whether cutting corporate taxes and giving a tax break to those who already have more than enough money would take away badly needed revenue for a struggling public education system.

According to Herbert, people will use the money they would pay in taxes to buy more and the state will receive the money through sales taxes.

Herbert also said the Jon Huntsman Jr. administration would move toward getting more money by putting Utah's school trust lands to use.

"[The school trust lands] are very much underutilized in this state," he said. "We favor the removal of caps on trust lands. There's no reason to have caps."

Revenue from oil and other natural resources that can be extracted from school trust lands in places such as the Uinta Basin can yield between $40 million to $60 million a year for public education, he said.

Herbert also said the Huntsman team favored tuition tax credits, which made many in the room nervous.

"We fear it will take away from public education," said Wayne Gurney, superintendent of the Uintah School District.

Gurney, however, said that like other members of the school board association, he was willing to work with the Huntsman team and the Legislature to find a solution to problems afflicting public schools.

Herbert said while there is no absolute answer as to what tuition tax credits would do to public schools, the Huntsman administration would like to experiment with the credits as long as they could ensure that the public education system would remain unharmed.

"We need to test-drive the system," he said. "There appears to be a pro-side to try it out."

Keith Swain, vice president of the Alpine School District in American Fork, said there were no surprises. Much of what Herbert said was pretty much what the Huntsman team campaigned on.

Herbert said the Huntsman administration put "a solid effort" toward education into the proposed budget unveiled on Friday.

The Republican administration proposed $15 million for beginning teacher compensation, $14 million for Performance Plus II to help students in grades four through six with math, and $10 million for literacy and math materials, among other increases for education, Herbert said.