He and his wife Vickie raised four children in Davis County over the past 34 years and are the proud grandparents of five g Critical Issues
EDUCATION
The education of our children and grandchildren is the most important role of state government. Over the past 16 years Republicans have thrown education into the backseat to other interests. We need to gradually restore the $1 billion per year in rev
enue cuts to fund adequately our K-12 students. This will take shared sacrifice and commitment, but it will bring immediate positive results for our kids. Below are the findings from various studies documenting the dangerous state of affairs in Utah’s public education.
1. Public education spending for grades K-12 has fallen $880 million per year from 4.01% of personal income in 1997 to 3.13% of personal income in 2013.
2. K-12 spending fell 1% of personal income between 1992 and 2009, amounting to a reduction in spending of $1 billion per year on its $3.6 billion operating budget.
3. Compared to average spending nationwide Utah’s spending fell from 16% above average to 6.1% below average between 1992 and 2009.
4. Since 1996, the legislature reduced revenues to public education between $1.01 billion and $1.38 billion per year by cutting property and income taxes and by shifting education funds to other areas of the budget.
5. Utahns spent less per pupil than any other state -- $7,841 in 2010 compared to an average of $12,098 nationally.
6. Despite a revenue forecast of 6.3% growth for 2013, the legislature appropriated only 2.8% growth to K-12 education. The results of these serious, significant and debilitating spending cuts have had the following consequences:
1. Utah’s class sizes are the highest among to our neighboring Western states and also our “peer” states (with similar demographics, e.g., Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin and South Dakota).
2. Nationwide our test scores still rank close to the average, but the U.S. ranks in 19th relative to economically developed countries.
3. Compared to “peer” states Utah 8th graders rank last in math, reading, science and writing.
4. SAT testing indicates that Utah lags its peer states by 5%. For the ACT, Utah college-bound students scored only slightly below our peer states. BETTER JOBS
In order to attract better jobs we need to deploy our strongest economic development tactics to clusters of strong, high paying economic activities. Hill Air Force Base is at the same time a challenge and a great resource for northern Utah in creating a cluster of high-level engineers and scientists. Currently, Utah State University and Weber State University are working to supply training for Hill’s needs. We need to make sure these relationships stay financially strong and then develop engineering skills right down into the high schools as is being done in Silicone Valley. CLEAN AIR, CLEAN WATER
As we bring businesses here to look over our county, the first thing they see is air quality. We need to discourage Davis County from expanding air polluting oil refineries. And, as automobile drivers, we need to own up to the fact that we should be responsible for reducing our own pollution. Cleaning up polluting cars or getting them off the road will help. High levels of mercury have been found in many of our streams where we fish. We need to identify business activities that pollute toxic chemicals into our air and encourage them to change their ways.
