SITLA Distribution & Funding

Revenues generated from School Land Trust sections are transferred directly to the School and Institute Funds Office (SITFO), where the SITFO Board at the state level manages them. When a State School section parcel of land is leased or purchased, the revenues from the sale of the property go directly to the State School Trust Lands office where they are distributed on a base plus formula based on student populations for all of the Utah public schools. It is important to note, school districts do not receive the total revenues from sales in their district, instead the money from the School Land Trust sales go directly to the state and are then redistributed to all of the public schools statewide. As a result of investments, land sales and property leases, the School Land Trust fund has increased from approximately $18 million in 1983 to over $2.3 Billion in 2017. According to the Utah Constitution, Article X Section 5 states, “Only earnings received from investments of the permanent State School Fund may be distributed from the fund, and any distribution from the fund shall be for the support of the public education system…annual distributions from the State School Fund may not exceed 4% of the fund, calculated as provided by statute.” In 2017, Utah schools received over $64 million dollars through the School Land Trust program. For the upcoming school year, schools in the Kane School District will receive approximately $320,791 in School Land Trust funds and School Community Councils will create school improvement plans to spend the allocations at the school level. The Kane County School Board reviews and approves the School Community Council plans on a yearly basis. If you would like to review the school trust plans by access the following link https://go.boarddocs.com/ut/kane/Board.nsf/, select “Enter Public Site”, “Board Regular Meeting Tuesday May 14, 2019”, “View the Agenda” and scroll down to “6. Board Action Items”, then “A. School Land Trust Plan Review”.