Land Use Planning and Management of State School Lands

At the time of statehood, all western states received land allocations for use in establishing and maintaining public schools. The checkerboard allocation system left the states with 640-acre sections scattered throughout the state in noncontiguous parcels that are at best difficult to manage. In the State of Utah, those management difficulties provide the impetus for a proposal to exchange the scattered parcels for federally owned contiguous parcels. The state's policy toward management of those lands will be an important question in the political process leading to approval or rejection of the proposal.

State land management policy will remain important whether the proposal succeeds or not, because the state will continue to be the second largest landholder in Utah.