Utah state board of education urges veto of spending, NCLB bills
The Utah State Board of Education has urged Governor Jon M. Huntsman to veto a bill requiring outside approval for expensive federal programs and to look at exercising line-item veto power over the school's $2.5 billion budget. The board has constitutional concerns about the controversial education omnibus bill. “I would like this body to go on record ... to say that (the governor) has the power to do line-item vetoes, and because (of) such blatant abuse of items already defeated, he should seriously consider using the line-item veto,” board member Kim Burningham said. “To do otherwise encourages future logrolling, it encourages bribery, it encourages bad legislation.” The Utah Constitution prohibits "logrolling" unconnected bills into one, the board's letter to Huntsman states. "Some legislative members are claiming that the omnibus bill is an appropriations bill and thus the bills are legitimately bundled ... However, if so, then you as governor have line-item veto authority. We urge you to consider using that power to veto the language that represents the bills that were earlier defeated in the House," the letter states. "Most importantly, we urge you to take line-item veto action in order to state without equivocation that an abuse of power is not appropriate. A strong message is needed that action such as this must stop; we strongly urge you to take action on SB2 to ensure that a clarion message is sent." The omnibus bill rolled a dozen bills, some of which had been voted down earlier in the session, into the Minimum School Program Act, which includes a 2.5% boost to the state's basic student funding formula and a $1,700 raise for teachers. Those bills include $3.5 million to give software to families to prepare preschoolers for kindergarten and another to require school districts kick in a portion of charter school funding, both of which had been defeated in the House.
The board also wants Huntsman to veto SB162, sponsored by Sen. Margaret Dayton. The bill requires that the governor's office approve federal agreements that cost Utah more than $100,000 a year. Dayton has said her bill allows the state to weigh costs versus benefits of federal programs. But the state school board says a cost analysis alone will be costly. "Calculating the associated state and local costs is going to be enormously difficult, and having it come out to a number that is going to be acceptable is going to be a problem," Shumway said. "It's going to be enormously controversial depending on the program," such as educating migrant students. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Patti Harrington noted the board could seek a veto, or "a line-item veto to limit it only to No Child Left Behind." But the board voted to ask the governor to down the whole bill, also out of concerns about how it would affect existing programs.
Source: Deseret Morning News, 3/8/08, By Jennifer Toomer-Cook & Tiffany Erickson
[Editor’s Note: For more details on SB 162 and Utah’s criticisms of NCLB see below.]
NSBA School Law pages on Utah’s response to NCLB