Take THAT, voters. We’re closing your schools 1 day a week because you voted against the tax hike . . .

The Iron County Utah school district has something to say: they're going to a 4-day work week because voters didn’t approve $3 million in new taxes.

$3 million may not sound like a lot, but it’s an increase of 10% over 2025. And in 2025 the school district overspent by another 10% without prior approval. Does this help explain why Utah voters are cheesed? See links below.

The population change in Iron County has averaged 2.5% for the past several decades, and it was 2.5% again in 2025. So nobody can claim a bunch of parents migrated from California, and local Utah schools need a big cash infusion to deal with that.

75% of the Iron County school budget is salaries and benefits. I don’t know how this compares to your town, but it seems in the zone. The numbers suggest that Iron County teachers will be getting 10% more salary and benefits in 2026, despite a stable student enrollment. And got 10% more the prior year . . . .

Okay, back to the 4-day school week. How exactly how does this save money? Are there going to be 10% fewer teachers? The same staffing, but teachers get paid 10% less because they have 3 day weekends all the time? The school board is blackmailing parents with the threat of school closures, and has some ‘splaining to do, on their math.

If actually happens – a 4 day school week – it means parents will have to pay for private childcare on those cancelled days. Shifting education costs away from the schools directly to the parents. In the case of middle school and higher students, I suppose the presumption is that they will simply roam the streets or play videogames at home all day.

Please let me correct any misimpression I may be giving that the Iron County Utah school district is bad at whatever it is they’re up to. A 4-day school week may sound insane, but it’s probably a more evolved tax heist than simply threatening to fire a bunch of favorite teachers. That’s the scheme which lots of other school districts try to pull . . .

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Denied its $2.8M tax hike, a Utah district considers four-day school week to save money

Notable items included in the FY2025 Amended and FY2026 Preliminary Budget

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exchrist · 36-40

If enrollment decreases school taxes should too? Therefore if this strategy is intended to reduce entitlement costs, which it appears it would; by attempting to externalize education costs onto parents. that means budget cuts MIGHT cover fewer students. Otherwise an audit will be necessary. Where did those 10% reductions go instead?
Reduction in school costs associated with the approaching wave of teacher retirements should also be welcomed. That shifts the burden of education (salary) costs to retirement payments.
Therefore more people are going to move to long established states on the coasts where schooling has been built into society for longer
If it can be demonstrated that federal funding cuts are the root cause. That will assist in ousting our tyranny

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@exchrist this is an excellent question, and one taxpayers ask regularly. variations include:

1 - if enrollment goes down, do we let some teachers go?

2 - if enrollment goes down, do we consolidate schools, and sell the empty buildings to a commercial buy who will rehab them and put them on the property tax rolls?

3 - if our town's population is decreasing, should we put a freeze on hiring police for vacant positions?

4 - if we're not a war, should we have 800+ military bases everywhere on planet earth, and do we need 838 generals admirals on active duty?

exchrist · 36-40

@SusanInFlorida those are also much more prudent questions the fed continues funding foreign wars but cuts education and infrastructure funding? Might be time to file for divorce? I know I’d want to

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@exchrist does divorce mean leaving "the union"?

its hard to see how america is going to be a better place if we are "balkanized" into odd little regions based on religious preferences and ethnicity.

i'd rather hold congress and the president accountable for reaching consensus on policies that help america regain it's footing

exchrist · 36-40

@SusanInFlorida I’d like to see reorganization as a debt reduction strategy 3 or 4 main groups. Just a reorganization of the incorporated United States of America would be better individualized based around sections and their collective needs. Water shortages in the southwest require policies and infrastructure priorities largely inappropriate for the east coast, gulf coast, or midwest
What is needed in Alaska doesn’t apply to Iowa

dale74 · M

@exchrist most of the department of education money was taged with spending on key areas those have been removedband placed on individual states to choose to fund them or not. The federal money is now block grants to the state. Now i dont know what state teacher pay is but 20% pay raise over 2 years is a lot. Means going from lets say 50k to 60k in two years.

exchrist · 36-40

@dale74 teachers are often underpaid schools underfunded imagine being paid 50k to supervise groups of 30 or more children all day everyday. Certainly daycare costs more than that per year!, especially for 30+ children.
Not the point. If inflation is routinely 3% to 7% yearly. And salary increases are few and far between. A 20 percent increase implemented over 2 years is only about half, if that, of cost of living increases over those same 2 years. Plus a 20% increase would cover only somewhere between 4 and 6 years of inflation. Teachers rarely get salary increases at all. When state or federal budgets get passed educational funding is the first to be reduced, in favor of war funding, (at the federal level). In many places federal funding is the only education funding.