FARMINGTON—A long line of residents stepped up to the podium to speak during a Truth in Taxation meeting of the Board of Education of the Davis School District meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 19. The meeting was to discuss a proposed property tax increase of $12,725,298 for the 2025-26 school year. Most spoke against the increase, questioning if it was necessary and if it benefits the students. 

“The board’s goal should be to give our students the best education possible with an efficient use of tax dollars,” said one resident. “It is time for you to review where our money is being spent.”

It’s time to understand why those billion dollars are not creating a more effective teaching environment, he said. “I encourage you to do that, to ask the hard questions and give us real, transparent answers before you decide to take more money from people in these struggling times.”

 Davis School District Business Administrator Tim Leffel started out the meeting with an overview of the district revenue sources and where the money comes from. “Almost 70% of our revenue comes from the state,” said Leffel. “Property taxes represent about 21% of the revenue the district receives. Some comes from federal and some comes from other miscellaneous things. So that will be important as we look at some of the actual tax notices that you received.”

Leffel likened it to envelopes divided into operations and capital. “In the operations envelope, it’s pretty much anything you would think about. What it takes to run a school, the principal, the teachers, the curriculum, the supplies. That is by far the biggest envelope in the district. It’s about $800 million total in that envelope.”

The capital envelope is very different, he said. “There are no salaries in the capital envelope. It is for equipment. It is for maintenance of our buildings. That’s the biggest cost we have. We have 11.5 million square feet of building space in the district. So carpet, paint, roofs, boilers, all of those things are the kind of costs that go through capital, as well as large things like school buses and large equipment.”

So this is the language that was presented in your tax notice, that there’s 12.7 million new dollars and that represents a 10% tax increase, said Leffel. “We’ve had some folks reach out and say ‘why do you need 10% more income in the district?’ So we just wanted to point out that the 10% is a 10% increase in just the property tax piece of the district budget, not the entire budget.”

“I live within a few blocks of Bountiful Elementary,” said another resident. “As I’ve watched it be built I’ve wondered with the decreasing enrollment why that school needed to be more than double the size of the old school. Lot of money was spent that I don’t think we needed to spend.”

He said that his property taxes have gone up more than triple what they were. “That tells me that budgeting is not happening the way it should. I have to balance my budget at home. It’s been very difficult, but I did it. I think you guys can too without raising the taxes so much.”

“I know there’s money involved here and my property taxes will go up too, but I'm still in favor of this motion,” said one man. “It’s not about me personally. It’s not so much about the money as it is about kids. I want my grandchildren to have the opportunities I had and feel about their school the way that I did. That’s why I support this.”

After hearing from several other residents, each board member was given the opportunity to express their opinion on the tax increase. Councilmember Julie Powell proposed a decrease of $2 million from the tax increase. Ultimately, the rest of the board voted to accept the property tax increase of $12,725,298 as presented.