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Vouchers Will Be on Ballot

None by KCPW

State School Board Has Next Move

Lieutenant Governor Gary Herbert stands next to dozens of boxes filled with voucher referendum petitions.

(KCPW News) The Lieutenant Governor has confirmed that vouchers will be on the next statewide election ballot. Referendum sponsors collected 32,000 more signatures than they needed to force the referendum. Governor Huntsman says he'd like to wait until next year to put the issue to a vote. Meantime, pro-voucher groups believe a second measure passed by lawmakers should make vouchers available for the coming school year:

"We're gonna do whatever it takes to give parents the choices they deserve," says Elise Peterson, director of Parents for Choice in Education, which may have to file a lawsuit if it wants vouchers available this year. "Clearly the law is on our side that a voucher program should be started this fall."

The referendum puts the original voucher bill on hold until the election called by Governor Huntsman. But legal experts disagree on the whether the second bill should take effect. That decision lies with the Utah State School Board, which meets Thursday. Board Chair Kim Burningham is an outspoken opponent of vouchers:

"The board has taken no position, they will clearly be discussing it this Thursday," says Burningham. "I have an opinion - and this is my personal opinion - that the amendments cannot stand if the main bill is on hold or is ultimately defeated by the public."

The State School Board has discussed the referendum effort in previous meetings without taking a vote. A majority of board members in those meetings appeared inclined to support the referendum effort. Utahns for Public Schools collected a record 124,218 signatures, making it the first referendum to land on a statewide ballot in 33 years.


Email to a friendPosted in KCPW Newsroom. Copyright 2008 KCPW

1. June Taylor said:

I wish you would stop referring to "a second bill" on vouchers and call it "the amendment bill" , and add that the second bill was necessary because the original voucher bill was so poorly written that it lacked some elementary public safeguards, like mandating criminal background checks for employees in schools receiving vouchers, and the Governor was not likely to sign it in that form. The Republican leadership, instead of bringing the original bill back & amending it, generated a separate "amendment bill" to patch up the most glaring faults in the original bill. The average citizen would never get this context from the ongoing news coverage, which keeps rabbiting on about "a second bill" without explaining what the heck that means.

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