The consequences could be layoffs of literacy specialists and, possibly, lower test scores.

Districts may have to make those cuts after lawmakers discontinued $2.5 million in one-time funding, which was part of former Gov. Olene Walker's $30 million K-3 reading initiative. The projected losses range from $4,878 in Rich County to $357,803 in Granite School District.

Some districts expect those holes to translate into staffing cuts. For example, Utah's largest school district, Jordan, used its share of that one-time infusion to staff each elementary school with a literacy specialist who trains teachers in the best practices and works with students who failed last year's state reading test.

The district's projected loss of $268,100 covers the salaries of five specialists. It is money district officials and principals say is critical to improving student achievement.

"The literacy specialist is one of the very best - if not the very best - ideas that has happened in this school system since I've been here," said East Midvale Elementary Principal Jean Gordon, a 22-year veteran. "I'm anticipating that we will see positive student outcomes as a result of our specialist."

District leaders were working Friday to juggle numbers and preserve those positions.

"What do I eliminate to try and keep the literacy specialists?" asked Brenda Hales, Jordan School District's executive director of curriculum and staff development. "What it comes down to is I may be able to afford to keep the specialist but not do any assessment to see if what they're doing is working."

The rest of the district budget is for enrollment growth and other expenses.

"Most money is tied up in personnel, so to help me hurts someone else," Hales said.

But lawmakers say educators should not have expected the $2.5 million to become ongoing funding and, therefore, shouldn't have used it for ongoing expenses such as salaries.

"It certainly wasn't a surprise that one-twelfth of that $30 million was one-time money, and so local school boards should have used prudence in how they allocated those funds," said Sen. Howard Stephenson, co-chairman of the public education appropriations subcommittee.

The Draper Republican acknowledged, however, that he was disappointed the money couldn't be converted to ongoing funding.

The loss is just one component of the budgetary fallout the state school board evaluated in a legislative "post-mortem" Friday.

State schools Superintendent Patti Harrington lauded the 4.5 percent increase in Utah's per-pupil funding formula - some of which will go to boost teacher pay. She lamented, however, the Legislature's unwillingness to provide money to tutor students who failed the high school exit exam or money for a math initiative in grades four to six.

"It's surely better than nothing, which is what they've seen the last three years," she said. "I'm very disappointed they ignored our needs for kids directly."

Board members criticized what they see as a sleight of hand with $900,000 that will be taken from the public education budget to help cover vouchers for students with disabilities to attend private schools.

Rep. Merlynn Newbold, R-South Jordan and sponsor of the Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarship measure, had promised the entire program would be funded out of the state pot, not public education's.

"Many of us were very disappointed that we were led to believe that money would be replaced by general fund money," said state school board member Tim Beagley.

rlynn@sltrib.com