It's back to the drawing board for the Duchesne County School District following the voters' defeat of a $49 million bond-issue proposal to build three new schools.
School Board members interviewed for this story say a countywide anti-tax mood — coupled with a perception that the district rushed the plan through without allowing the public to help formulate it — effectively doomed the proposal.
Indeed, voters spoke loudly against the district's Nov. 3 ballot item, with 58 percent opposed compared with 42 percent in support, complete but unofficial results show.
The margin was 524 votes, with 1,699 against it and 1,175 supporting it. As many expected, voters in Altamont voted heavily in favor of the proposition while voters elsewhere in the county overwhelmingly rejected it.
School Board member Kim Harding said he thought the vote would be closer. He said the property-tax component of the plan likely was the overriding cause of the defeat. Had the plan passed, a countywide property-tax increase would have paid the debt service on the bonds over a 20-year period starting in 2014.
“I felt like the tax was probably the deciding factor,” Harding said. “But I also I know that each community had different issues. I think the School Board needs to get into a discussion now with each community and find out what voters are really wanting.”
In two other Utah school districts last Tuesday, voters passed bond referendums to build new schools. However, those plans did not call for a tax increase, while Duchesne's did, estimated at $65 annually per $113,000 of assessed value.
Roosevelt-area voters came out strong against the measure, with 408 for and 717 opposed. The outcome was similar in Myton, Tabiona, Fruitland and Neola. In fact, Altamont was the only precinct where a majority of voters supported the district's proposal, and by a big margin – 508 for, 109 against.
Countywide, turnout was around 29 percent unofficially, according to the Duchesne County clerk's office. Turnout was high in Altamont, about 47 percent, and lower in Duchesne and Roosevelt, at 29 percent and 24 percent respectively.
Had the item passed, Altamont stood to gain a new $18 million high school. In Roosevelt, a new $40 million campus for Union High School and an $11 million elementary school to alleviate overcrowding at East Elementary would have been built. The $49 million bond issue would have been combined with another $20 million to allow the school district to forge ahead with a $69 million building plan.
How the school district plans to counter the defeat has not been determined. A School Board meeting will be held at Tabiona High School on Thursday, Nov. 12.
“I'm suggesting that we put everything on hold,” Harding said. “We're really a divided county. We've still got to do something to meet our needs, and there's no money to meet them. I'm excited to move ahead, get a new plan and make some new decisions.”
School Board member Gordon Moon said he learned a few things from the election.
“Voters want a voice early in the discussion of where and when we build new schools,” he said. “They want us to be conservative with our money.”
He said it's likely that even with extra input from the community earlier this year, the school district would have come up with the same plan that was offered last Tuesday. “I feel that we would have come to the same conclusions,” Moon said.
The district's immediate needs have not changed, he said. Union and Altamont high schools are still pushing 60 years old, and a new elementary school is sorely needed in Roosevelt to alleviate overcrowding at East Elementary.
Still, Moon said, “We need to look thoroughly at all of the alternatives that were brought forward in this process.”
Conley Moon of Duchesne, a teacher and one of few people in the county to openly voice opposition to the school district's request, said to him, the whole process was rushed.
“The positive thing to come from this is that the school district will reevaluate and find out from the public what their needs are,” he said.

Duchesne County bond-issue results

Area                              For                                  Against

Duchesne City                   69                                      408
Altamont                        508                                      109
Myton                              70                                      186
Tabiona                            26                                        72
Fruitland                             3                                        60
Neola                               54                                        96
Absentee                         37                                        50
Roosevelt 1,3,4               114                                      175
Roosevelt 2,5,6               188                                      278
Roosevelt County            106                                       265

Total                         1,175                                   1,699