By Rosalie Westenskow
Deseret Morning News
Monday, February 12, 2007

PROVO - School vouchers, Utah Valley State College and abortion were among the topics discussed Saturday morning as Utah County legislators met with local leaders and residents.

With a flurry of important bills appearing on the Legislature floor last week, the representatives and senators present at the "eggs and issues" meeting touched on a variety of issues.

"This has been quite an historic week in the Legislature," said Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem. "The issue of Real Salt Lake, the issue of (college) tuition, of school vouchers — certainly the issue of UVSC."

Dayton called the school voucher discussion the "most emotional" of all the issues discussed at the capital last week and said there have been misunderstandings about the voucher system.

"I think it's essential that everyone understand that those who voted for the vouchers weren't voting against public schools," she said.

The bill, "The Parent Choice in Education Act," passed in the Senate on Friday and gives interested families private school tuition vouchers that range from $500 to $3,000, depending on income.

The $9.2 million needed for the vouchers will not come out of the education budget but from general funds.

"This voucher bill takes money from the general fund and puts that money into education," she said. "We have increased the size of the education funding pie."

Another education issue discussed was the pending university status of UVSC.

The school's president, William Sederburg, said the main issue facing legislators right now as they decide whether to grant UVSC university status is the price tag for the name change.

"We decided some time ago that it wasn't fair to just change a name without being able to absolutely guarantee the citizens of the area that we were getting the same resources and quality of instruction when we change the name to university," he said. "The price tag to do that is $10 million."

The money may come mostly from private sources, Sederburg said, with the help of millionaire Ira Fulton, who has agreed to match up to $5 million in private donations.

"We already have about $3 million of that $5 million raised," Sederburg said.

Attendees at the meeting asked questions about a variety of bills, including one that would ban almost all abortions in Utah. The bill is due to appear on the House floor today, but Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem, said he's worried about whether it will pass.

"I got some quite upsetting news on Friday," he said. "I was told by the speaker of the House that there has been a very significant amount of Republicans, some of my Republican counterparts, who have talked to him privately and said they don't want this bill to go forward."

Sandstrom said he thinks some Republicans will try to turn the bill back into a "trigger ban," which would only make abortions illegal in the state if Roe vs. Wade were overturned. He said his colleagues who don't support the bill are caving in to political pressure.

"If you look at our county platform, our state platform, our national platform as Republicans, we are pro-life," he said. "I think that if we can spend — and I know it's not the same money — but if we can spend $35 million on buying a parking structure for a (soccer) stadium, then we should be able to take $1.2 million to take this bill and defend it (in the court system)."