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Senate passes substitute SB 61 to give local school boards a temporary growth-management tool
Summary
First substitute Senate Bill 61, creating a local-option certificate to move a student’s weighted‑pupil funding to an approved private school temporarily to relieve overcrowding, passed the Senate after extensive debate about equity, oversight and cost (16 ayes, 12 nays, 1 absent).
The Utah Senate passed the first substitute to Senate Bill 61 on Feb. 27, 1997, approving a limited, local‑option tool intended to relieve acute school overcrowding by allowing local boards to grant certificates that shift the weighted pupil unit (WPU) to approved private schools for a limited time.
Sponsor Senator Ann Stevenson framed the measure as "a school board growth‑management tool," not a broad tuition tax‑credit program for parental choice. "This bill that's before you is not an educational choice bill," Stevenson said on the floor, stressing the substitute narrows the authority to locally adopted, temporary certificates and removes parochial schools…
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