SALT LAKE CITY — With the looming possibility of at least one new national monument in Utah, education officials are worried such a designation could negatively impact funding for schools.

This year, Utah's School Institutional Trust Fund generated its largest payout to date of $45.8 million, all of which went to school community councils to use as they wish.

The revenue comes from interest on a $2 billion permanent account as well as revenues generated by 3.4 million acres of state land managed by the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, known as SITLA.

In an effort to protect the funds, the Utah State Board of Education this month unanimously adopted a resolution asking lawmakers to hold school trust lands harmless should the president or Congress designate wilderness areas or create a new national monument in the state under the Antiquities Act.

That would likely include swapping school trust land with federal land elsewhere, similar to an exchange that occurred following the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument designation, according to Tim Donaldson, director of the School Children's Trust at the Utah State Office of Education.

"There's discussion about the possibility, or even probability, of similar designations in 2016, whether they're monuments or wilderness," Donaldson said at a December State School Board meeting. "We want the schoolchildren of the state to be held harmless financially and for those impacts to be considered and fully mitigated."

Possible monument

What has education leaders worried is the possibility that President Barack Obama would designate a national monument in the Bears Ears, about 1.9 million acres of archaeologically sensitive land in San Juan County. That designation would likely collapse a developing public lands initiative headed by Utah Reps. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz that would bring many other changes to public land management in Utah.

While Bishop's proposal also includes a monument designation, as well as a new national park and designated wilderness areas, it involves months of collaboration with local stakeholders, including SITLA, where an executive designation would not.

SITLA doesn't inherently oppose monument or wilderness designations in the state, but the administration has voiced its support for the State School Board's resolution to find suitable trades in advance of a designation, according to Kim Christy, deputy director of the Trust Lands Administration.

"We wholeheartedly applaud the State Board of Education for acting on this resolution, because it definitely represents our perspective on the issue," Christy said Wednesday. "If, in fact, a monument designation is going to take its course, we want to make sure that the consideration for trading out these lands occurs upfront in this process, rather than after the fact."

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Two years following the designation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by former President Bill Clinton, federal and state leaders agreed on a land exchange for school trust lands that earned about $300 million for the state's school trust fund and unlocked thousands of acres of trust lands in other areas, according to Donaldson.

But future designations may not end up so favorably, according to Utah Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, who also endorsed the State School Board's resolution early this month.

"We were not only made whole; we came out very, very favorably with the Clinton administration. But we're not dealing with the Clinton administration anymore," Weiler said. "There's no guarantee that lightning will strike twice."

Weiler said he and Rep. Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, are considering bringing a similar resolution before the Legislature early next year.

"If we do have another national monument come next year, we should be united as a state and as a Legislature and as a school board that it should not capture and diminish our school trust lands," he said. "We need to trade out or be financially compensated with money to go into the permanent school fund to hold us harmless if that happens."

Related topics