Overshadowed by A and D, what about Utah’s other 2024 constitutional amendments?

A voter drops off his ballot at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City as votes are cast in Utah’s primary election on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

Since they’ve been overshadowed by legal fights over controversial constitutional amendments A and D, many Utahns likely haven’t heard much about the other questions that will appear on their Nov. 5 ballots. 

Amendment D — which would have cemented the Utah Legislature’s power over ballot initiatives — has been voided by the courts and any votes cast for it won’t count. And now, Amendment A — which would remove the state’s earmark currently reserving income tax revenue for education — may be headed for the same fate. 

But there are two other proposed constitutional amendments that Utah voters will be asked to weigh in on. That is, so long as they aren’t also legally challenged for failing to meet constitutional newspaper publication requirements, which is part of the reason why Amendment D was disqualified.

Up to this point, however, amendments B and C have been noncontroversial. But they would make changes that state officials have argued would be important — the first for the distribution of education funding, and the latter, to enshrine Utah sheriffs as an elected position in the Utah Constitution. 

Here’s how the questions will appear on your ballots and what you need to know about them. 

If Utahns vote to approve Amendment B, it would raise the current cap on annual distributions from the State School Fund, an endowment created at statehood to support public schools. In May, Utah Treasurer Marlo Oaks announced that the fund had topped $3.3 billion.

Currently, the Utah Constitution caps annual distributions out of the State School Fund at 4%. During the 2024 school year, schools received about $106 million under that distribution requirement.

But had that cap been lifted to 5%, as Amendment B would do, Utah schools would have received roughly $13 million more, on top of that $106 million, according to the treasurer. 

With HJR18, which the Utah Legislature approved unanimously in 2018, state leaders put Amendment B on the ballot, hoping voters would approve it to allow more budgetary flexibility for schools.

“Raising the cap from 4% to 5% does not impact Utah taxpayers and augments traditional education funding,” the Utah Land Trusts Protection & Advocacy Office said in a news release issued Thursday. Overseen by the Utah treasurer, that office’s mission is to represent and protect beneficiaries of the School and Institutional Trust, which manages a portfolio of land investments to raise money for Utah schools.

The State School Fund has “grown enormously over the past 30 years thanks to revenue produced from school trust lands, and prudent investment” by the School and Institutional Trust Funds Office (SITFO), the Utah Land Trusts Protection & Advocacy Office said. 

The office’s director, Kim Christy, said a recent SITFO analysis determined the State School Fund’s annual endowment is “currently favoring future generations more so than our current generation of students.” 

“Increasing the cap to 5% provides appropriate balance and will provide more money for today’s students, while still allowing for growth and protecting this endowment for future generations,” Christy said. 

There is no known opposition to Amendment B currently. But several organizations have expressed support for it. They include the Utah PTA, the Utah Taxpayers Association, the Utah State Board of Education, the Utah School Boards Association, the Utah School Superintendents Association, and the Utah Rural Schools Association. Oaks also supports the amendment.

“Not only does Amendment B mean more money for Utah students, these funds support teachers, and involve parents in determining how School LAND Trust Funds are used at their child’s school,” Utah PTA President Corey Fairholm said. “Utah PTA encourages Utahns to vote FOR Amendment B this November.”

This question may be confusing to Utah voters. Aren’t sheriffs already elected officials? 

Yes, they are. Utah law already requires that. But when lawmakers passed HJR10 unanimously in 2023, their aim was to simply enshrine that in the Utah Constitution to ensure sheriffs remain an elected office throughout Utah well into its future. 

Former House Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville, explained that in a legislative committee in February 2023 when he sponsored the resolution to put the question on the ballot. He noted other states have made this change in their constitutions, but Utah had not yet posed the question to its voters.

If voters pass Amendment C, it would add a provision to the Utah Constitution that specifies “each county shall have an office of county sheriff.” It would make clear they would be an “elected office,” and sheriffs’ terms “shall be four years from the first day of January next after their election.”

There is no known opposition to Amendment C.