Utah lawmakers are considering allowing voters to overturn local school board decisions, a move that education groups are warning could grind school district operations to a halt.
HB408 would allow residents to petition for a local referendum on any local school board action — unless board leaders passed it with a supermajority vote. This would apply to proposed school closures, property tax levies and decisions like changing a school mascot.
A referendum is a petition to let voters decide whether to keep or reject a law or policy that has already passed.
Bill sponsor Rep. Rex Shipp, R-Cedar City, explained that local school boards are “the only legislative body in our state” that aren’t subject to referendums.
“If something rises to the concern enough that the people want to refer it, I think they need to have that opportunity. And school boards ought to be included in that,” Shipp said during a House Government and Operations Committee hearing Feb. 19.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rep. Rex Shipp, R-Cedar City, during a House committee hearing at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025.
Referendums are not easy to get on ballots. Petitioners must gather a specific number of handwritten signatures, which is based on the number of active voters in a given jurisdiction. “Area requirements” may also apply, meaning signatures would need to be collected from a certain percentage of different areas rather than just one location.
For instance, in a county with a population between 175,000 and 1,000,000, a local referendum would require signatures from 16% of active voters in at least 75% of all designated areas.
Concerns over the bill’s impact emerged during the Feb. 19 hearing.
“I think there are parts of this bill I can get behind related to taxes,” said Rep. Andrew Stoddard, D-Sandy, last week. “But I worry that what this bill does is open up every school board decision to becoming a political decision.”
Rep. Anthony Loubet, R-Kearns, raised the issue of school closures, asking the bill’s sponsor what would happen if a referendum overturned a local school board’s decision to close a school. In Salt Lake City, school board members voted in January 2024 to close four elementary schools, leaving many parents and community members feeling disheartened. The move came after state auditors in December 2022 criticized the district for spending money to keep schools open that were losing students, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
“That tends to be a really hot topic for people and they get very passionate about it,” Loubet said.
Shipp responded that while school closures would be subject to referendums, a school board could avoid that by securing a supermajority vote.
Educators also pushed back against the bill last week.
Ben Horsley, superintendent of the Granite School District, argued that school boards often pass policies to comply with state mandates and questioned what would happen if a referendum left a district out of compliance.
“It’s important to understand that the bulk of our policies are state requirements, and if we can’t pass policies as required by those state statutes — because there’s a potential split on the vote — and that becomes subject to referendum, you can see the challenges there,” Horsley said.
Todd Hauber, business administrator for Granite Schools, also raised concerns about logistical issues, particularly with tax increases. Those increases must be approved by June 22 for notices to be sent in July, Hauber said.
If HB408 passes, he questioned whether the process could move forward as usual while awaiting election results or if it would need to paused until a vote.
If it’s the latter, he warned, a referendum could still fail, but the delay might cause the district to miss critical deadlines, preventing a tax increase from being implemented.
Shipp said he was open to amending the bill to address some of the issues raised, but he added that school boards “ought to be careful enough on issues” and ensure they have a supermajority before making critical decisions.
The bill narrowly passed the House on Tuesday in a 40-33 vote and now awaits a Senate committee hearing.
