MORGAN -- While Morgan School District officials are tired of scrimping to make ends meet, their state legislator is warning that upcoming budgets may be very difficult to put together.
"Putting a budget together this year will be harder than the last three years combined, because there's a little bit of money," said state Rep. Mel Brown, R-Coalville.
He said as much as $182 million in projected revenue growth may be up for grabs.
"It's not a lot of growth, but enough that every program will be wanting to get their share of it. Our economy is sustaining itself. The economy is going well enough we don't have to cut budgets."
Brown said funding student growth is high on his priority list, and he predicts public education will get a significant share of the new money.
Morgan School Board members hope that turns out to be true.
"We've been robbing Peter to pay Paul, and we don't want to keep it status quo," said board member Ken Durrant.
A recent change in the weighted pupil unit affecting special education students had a significant negative impact on the Morgan School District. Board members asked Brown to make sure things like that don't continue to happen in the future.
Brown said it can be difficult to fight for rural districts among legislators with urban interests.
"I'm a fan of rural Utah," said Brown, who lives in Coalville. "But many decisions a legislator makes, they don't have a good understanding of what the ramifications are, especially for rural Utah."
The most recent example was when 21 counties were divided into eight legislative districts in the recent redistricting effort. Morgan, which was previously represented by one senator, will be under the auspices of two senators under the new redistricting map.
"Rural Utah was under siege," Brown said. "It's difficult."
Superintendent Ken Adams called the new Senate redistricting map "one of the damnedest things I have ever seen in my life."
Morgan will likely be represented by Sens. Allen Christensen -- who will represent Lost Creek, East Canyon, Porterville and a small portion of Mountain Green -- and Stuart Reid.
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