Teacher paychecks in polygamous school district again honored
 
The Associated Press
East Valley Tribune
 
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A school insurance company has agreed to back the paychecks of teachers and staff at the financially troubled school district in the polygamous town of Colorado City, Ariz., on the Utah border.

Payroll checks began to bounce in mid-October after the school district maxed out its credit limit at Wells Fargo and expected federal funds were slow in arriving, said Jeffrey Jessop, the district's business manager.

District employees can now endorse their payroll checks over to the Arizona School Risk Retention Trust, which will then honor the checks and hold the warrants for future payment by the school district.

Jessop said declining enrollment and a poor tax base put the district in financial trouble.

Further, a legislative change in the formula funding a rapidly declining enrollment coffer - which kept the school running - will cost the district at least $70,000 this year.

School board president F. Lee Bistline said he believes the district's assessed property values were the lowest in the state of Arizona.

"Lake Havasu Unified could put on a 50-cent tax and get $45 million. If we did that we'd get about $6,000," Jessop said.

Critics of the school board say the district has too many employees, pointing to a high student-to-teacher and staff ratio of about 15-1.

The district's purchase of a single-engine airplane, which superintendent Alvin Barlow said is used to cut expenses and travel time to various meetings, is another sore point.

But Barlow said those outside the district don't understand the unique challenges of the Colorado City Unified School District or its history.

"We are trying to make this work for the children, and we appreciate the dedication and professionalism of our teachers and staff," Barlow said.

The district currently enrolls about 360 students, and administrators predict that could decline slightly during the next school year. There are 30 certified employees, 73 classified employees and 17 special-education employees.

Colorado City and neighboring Hildale, Utah, are heavily populated with members of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a splinter offshoot of the mainline Mormon church, which disavowed polygamy in 1890 and excommunicates those who practice plural marriage.
 
EastValleyTribune.com
Originally published December 19, 2004
 
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