Utah Hive Politics logoUtah Hive Politicsfrom the publisher of The Weber County Hive
Utah Hive Politics · PAC · from the publisher of The Weber County Hive webercountyhive.substack.com ↗
Case File · Two Giving Entities, One Network

Education First Utah & Utah Behavior Services: Same Executives, Two Different Names

An "education advocacy" PAC's own founding paperwork traces to three executives of a private prison company. A separate autism-therapy company's political giving arm has no documented tie to that company — but it sent an identical $2,500 check to the same sitting MIDA Vice Chair, one week after the PAC did.

Education First Utah: DBA filed 8/9/2021, parent org organized 2011 $77,175.90 combined, 2021–2026 3 Management & Training Corporation executives on Education First Utah's own paperwork

New here? Education First Utah is a PAC/nonprofit DBA that gives to legislative candidates under an "education advocacy" banner. Utah Behavior Services is a Taylorsville-based Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy company for children with autism that separately makes its own direct political contributions. They look unrelated on the surface — but their giving overlaps on the same recipient, in the same week, and Education First Utah's own founding paperwork traces to executives at a private prison company.

1. What Are These Two Entities?

Education First Utah

DBA #12427437-0151, filed 8/9/2021

Applicant/owner is "Education First, A Utah Nonprofit Corporation" (Entity #10572869-0140). Registered address 500 N Marketplace Drive #100, Centerville — the headquarters of Management & Training Corporation (MTC), a private prison and job-corps contractor. Its own site says it was "organized in 2011" and presents itself as a bipartisan, consensus-driven education-policy advocate with "no litmus test on any issue."

Utah Behavior Services

6013 S Redwood Rd, Taylorsville

A real Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy provider for children with autism spectrum disorder, with multiple Salt Lake County clinic locations. Kerry Gibson's own 2023 lobbyist registration lists it as a client alongside Bridgeway Integrated Healthcare Services — confirmed further by a 2026 contribution filed jointly under both names.

Three separate MTC executives are tied directly to Education First Utah's founding paperwork — not an inferred connection, a documented one. The DBA's own registration filing names Michael P. Petrogeorge as the filer (confirmed VP & General Counsel, MTC), Ammaron Wolfgramm as registered agent (confirmed Director, Treasury & Capital Management, MTC), and MTC's own President, Bob Marquardt, sits on Education First Utah's Executive Committee per its own published leadership page.

flowchart LR MTC["Management & Training
Corporation"] MTC --> P["Michael Petrogeorge
VP & General Counsel
filed the DBA"] MTC --> W["Ammaron Wolfgramm
Treasury Director
registered agent"] MTC --> M["Bob Marquardt
President
Executive Committee"] P --> EFU["Education First Utah"] W --> EFU M --> EFU
Three MTC executives, three separate roles, one filing.

"Education First, A Utah Nonprofit Corporation" — the DBA's own applicant/owner — has no findable federal tax-exempt record. Checked directly against four separate sources: the IRS's own Tax Exempt Organization Search, Candid/GuideStar's nonprofit database, ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer, and the Utah Nonprofits Association's member directory. All four come back empty for this entity, while each of those databases readily surfaces other small Utah nonprofits, including several also based in Centerville. Incorporating as a "nonprofit corporation" under Utah state law is a state-law governance structure — it doesn't by itself confer federal 501(c) tax-exempt status, which requires a separate IRS application and determination. Nothing here confirms one way or the other why no record turns up — a never-filed application, a pending one, or registration under a name or EIN not yet tried are all possible — but the absence is real and consistent across every database checked.

2. Leadership Overlap — the Same Names Fund Three Different Networks

Education First Utah's own published leadership roster connects it directly to two other fully-documented networks: CMV PAC (Count My Vote) and the Clyde Companies PID development network.

Gail MillerCo-Chair, Education First Utah
↓
Also: CMV PAC's largest personal donor ($140,500) + co-owner, with Mike Leavitt, of the LLC behind CMV PAC's $280,000+ dominant funder

Rich McKeown

Education First Utah Steering Committee

Co-Founder, Leavitt Partners — and separately, per this project's own CMV PAC case file, the Director/Executive who has chaired Count My Vote since its 2013 founding.

Wilford Clyde

Education First Utah Steering Committee

President, Clyde Companies, Inc. — the same parent company already mapped in this project's Nordic Village PID research, including its 45% ownership stake via Clyde Capital Group/GWC Capital.

Blake Kirby

Education First Utah Steering Committee

Managing Director, Bandon Holdings — also Education First's own PAC Treasurer per an earlier officer filing, confirming he sits at both the PAC and the parent-nonprofit level.

Co-Chairs: Gail Miller (Chairwoman, Larry H. Miller Group of Companies), Ron Jibson (Retired President/CEO, Questar), Scott Anderson (President/CEO, Zions Bank — separately a confirmed $50,000 CMV PAC donor). Executive Committee: Jesselie Anderson (Member, Utah Board of Higher Education), Bob Marquardt (President, Management & Training Company), Nolan Karras (Former Utah Speaker of the House; Chairman, The Karras Company, LLC), Dr. Jeff Stephens (Education First Utah Executive Director; former Superintendent, Weber School District).

flowchart TB GM["Gail Miller
Co-Chair"] RM["Rich McKeown
Steering Committee"] WC["Wilford Clyde
Steering Committee"] EFU(["Education First Utah"]) CMV(["CMV PAC
Count My Vote"]) CLYDE(["Clyde Companies /
Nordic Village PID"]) GM --> EFU GM -- "largest personal donor,
$140,500" --> CMV RM --> EFU RM -- chairs --> CMV WC --> EFU WC -- President --> CLYDE
Three people, three networks — Education First Utah, CMV PAC, and Clyde Companies' PID development network.

3. The Money

$27,436Education First Utah, 2021–2026
$49,739.90Utah Behavior Services, 2021–2026
$77,175.90Combined total identified

Neither entity shows any giving activity before 2021. Utah Behavior Services' pattern is notably bipartisan and cross-chamber: both House Speaker Mike Schultz and Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla received personal checks, alongside the Utah Republican Party (State) and the Utah House Republican Election Committee.

2021
$6,739.90
2022
$12,000.00
2023
$16,500.00
2024
$23,936.00
2026
$18,000.00
Education First UtahUtah Behavior Services

Bar widths are scaled within each row to the largest single year (2024, $23,936) for visual comparison — not to the combined 2021–2026 total.

4. The Stevenson Overlap

The closest same-recipient overlap found in this dataset: Sen. Jerry Stevenson — sitting MIDA Vice Chair at the time — received the identical amount from both entities, one week apart. What would explain two differently-named giving entities reaching the same recipient, with the same amount, in the same week?

Education First Utah$2,500 — 5/10/2022
Utah Behavior Services$2,500 — 5/17/2022
↓   ↓
Sen. Jerry StevensonMIDA Vice Chair · UIPA Board
Two differently-named giving entities, identical amount, seven days apart, same recipient.

5. Who Runs Bridgeway / Utah Behavior Services Now

Utah Behavior Services was co-founded in 2008 by Natalie Whatcott and Sarah Sanders; the corporation itself, "Bridgeway Integrated Healthcare Services, Inc.," was formed in 2010 and adopted "Bridgeway" as its public name in 2025 — its own site states it plainly: "Formerly known as Utah Behavior Services." The current officer registry looks different from that founding story.

flowchart TB A["2008 — UTBS founded, Whatcott & Sanders"] --> B["2010 — Incorporated as Bridgeway Integrated Healthcare Services, Inc."] B --> C["2014 — Both Co-CEOs; expanding into St. George"] C --> D["2021 — Sanders separately incorporates 'Bridgeway Integrated SERVICES, Inc.' in St. George"] D --> E["2022 — Sanders' St. George entity goes inactive"] E --> F["2025 — Whatcott's company adopts 'Bridgeway' as its public DBA statewide"] F --> G["2026 — Sanders absent from the officer registry; Whatcott is sole President"]
A near-identical company name appears twice, in the same market, on opposite sides of a leadership change that isn't otherwise explained on either company's public materials.
flowchart TB NW(["Natalie Whatcott
President & Director"]) NW --> SW["Steve Whatcott
Officer"] NW --> RG["Rachal Green
VP & Director"] NW --> DG["Dustin Green
Officer"] NW --> CL["Camille Larson
Secretary /
VP Operations"] NW --> KG["Kerry Gibson
Government Affairs
Director"]
Current officers & directors, per Utah Division of Corporations — Sarah Sanders, the company's 2008 co-founder and former Co-CEO, does not appear.

Kerry Gibson appearing as the company's own in-house Government Affairs Director — not an outside lobbyist with them as one client among several — is worth noting alongside his other roles documented elsewhere in this project's research (Xalisco LLC, the Sawyer vendor network, the Nadolski/Ogden ties).

Employment litigation, on the public record

Utah Investigative Journalism Project and the Salt Lake Tribune (Taylor Stevens, Nov. 2022) reported that Utah Behavior Services has pursued noncompete enforcement against numerous former employees over several years, including a case against a competing clinic that hired some of them. Parents quoted in the reporting said they worried the disputes could disrupt their children's care; the company's public response to the coverage called it "vicious and personally motivated." A federal court record from 2017 separately confirms Whatcott and Sanders were both "Co-CEOs" as of 2014, in a dispute connected to the company's expansion into St. George — the same market where Sanders later incorporated her own similarly-named company.

6. Why These Recipients?

Cross-checking every name on Education First Utah's own 42-name endorsement slate against both entities' full itemized contribution data turns up the sharpest pattern in this dataset: an endorsement and an actual check are two very different things.

8 of 42Endorsed names who received direct dollars (19%)
34 of 42Endorsed names who received nothing (81%)
3Sitting Senate Education Committee members endorsed but unfunded (Fillmore, Hinkins, McKell)
Endorsed vs. actually funded
All 42 names on the endorsement slate
19% — received direct dollars (8 names) 81% — endorsed only, no dollars found (34 names)

The 8 who received money: Logan Monson ($5,000, EFU), Jake Sawyer ($4,500, EFU+UBS), Dave Shallenberger ($2,936, EFU), Mike Schultz ($3,000, UBS), Jefferson Moss ($1,500–$4,000, UBS + likely EFU), Christine Watkins ($500, UBS), Derrin Owens ($2,000, UBS), Don Ipson ($500, UBS).

Committee membership alone doesn't predict funding either. Three sitting Senate Education Committee members on the endorsement slate — Lincoln Fillmore, David Hinkins, and Michael McKell — received zero dollars from either entity, same as everyone else on the endorsed-only list. So the real dividing line isn't "relevant committee" — it's something narrower: a leadership role (Monson is Vice Chair), an existing multi-year relationship, or a specific piece of legislation. An endorsement looks cheap to hand out broadly; an actual check is a separately-targeted decision.

Layering the committee data in anyway still shows where the funded names sit:

flowchart TB subgraph SE["Senate Education — 7 members"] SE1["Balderree — Recipient"] SE2["Fillmore — Endorsed only"] SE3["Hinkins — Endorsed only"] SE4["McKell — Endorsed only"] SE5["Wilson — Recipient"] end subgraph HE["House Education — 15 members"] HE1["Defay (Vice Chair) — Endorsed only"] HE2["Miller — Endorsed only"] HE3["Carol Spackman Moss — Endorsed only"] HE4["K. Peterson — Endorsed only"] HE5["Thompson — Endorsed only"] HE6["Welton — Endorsed only"] end subgraph SH["Senate Health & Human Services — 7 members"] SH1["Jerry Stevenson — Recipient"] SH2["Escamilla — Recipient"] end subgraph HH["House Health & Human Services — 13 members"] HH1["Monson (Vice Chair) — Recipient"] HH2["Barlow — Endorsed only"] HH3["Eliason — Endorsed only"] HH4["Ward — Endorsed only"] end SE ~~~ HE HE ~~~ SH SH ~~~ HH
Committee membership is common to both groups — it's not what separates a funded name from an endorsed-only one.
Full committee-by-committee breakdown (23 members across 4 committees + 1 bill sponsor)
CommitteeMemberRoleStatus
Senate EducationJohn D. JohnsonChairNeither
Senate EducationHeidi BalderreeMemberRecipient — $2,500 UBS
Senate EducationLincoln FillmoreMemberEndorsed only
Senate EducationDavid HinkinsMemberEndorsed only
Senate EducationMichael McKellMemberEndorsed only
Senate EducationKathleen Riebe (D)MemberNeither
Senate EducationChris WilsonMemberRecipient — $1,000 UBS
House EducationR. Neil WalterChairNeither
House EducationAriel DefayVice ChairEndorsed only
House EducationTracy MillerMemberEndorsed only
House EducationCarol Spackman Moss (D)MemberEndorsed only
House EducationKaren PetersonMemberEndorsed only
House EducationJason ThompsonMemberEndorsed only
House EducationDoug WeltonMemberEndorsed only
Senate Health & Human ServicesKeith GroverChairNeither
Senate Health & Human ServicesJerry StevensonMemberRecipient — $5,000 combined, both entities
Senate Health & Human ServicesLuz EscamillaMemberRecipient — $2,500 UBS
House Health & Human ServicesKaty HallChairNeither
House Health & Human ServicesLogan MonsonVice ChairRecipient — $5,000 combined EFU; presented HB471 in 2026
House Health & Human ServicesStewart BarlowMemberEndorsed only
House Health & Human ServicesSteve EliasonMemberEndorsed only — sponsored SB241/SB204 autism-Medicaid bills
House Health & Human ServicesRay WardMemberEndorsed only
Bill-specificCory MaloySponsor, HB0269 Ambulance Provider PaymentRecipient — $1,000 UBS

Two names outside the 8/42 pattern are worth a closer look for the opposite reason — a values-fit or funding relationship with no clean structural explanation. Stacy Bernal (SD-3 candidate, Democrat) is a sitting elected member of the Ogden School Board, founder of Awesome Autistic Ogden, and partnered with Ogden PD on an autism safety registry — an actual education policymaker with the clearest values-fit of anyone on the slate, and still endorsed-only, no dollars. Bob Stevenson (HD-16 candidate, $7,500 from EFU — tied with Jerry Stevenson for the largest combined individual total identified anywhere in this dataset) isn't on the 42-name endorsement slate at all — he's funded without a public endorsement, the reverse of Bernal's situation. He does hold an education degree and taught school before entering local government, though education isn't among the four priorities on his own campaign site. If values-fit predicted funding, Bernal would be funded; if funding predicted endorsement, Stevenson would be on the list. Neither holds.

7. Testing the Claim

Education First Utah's own site states its standard plainly: "Education First Utah supports candidates for the Utah legislature who are open minded, smart and reasonable in their approach to decision making. Education First Utah does not have a litmus test on any issue for candidates to gain our support. Incumbents with a history of supporting educators and students in their past voting are appreciated." — educationfirstutah.org

That claim is specifically about incumbents' past voting — so it's only fair to test it against sitting legislators who have an actual voting record, not against genuinely new candidates. Of the 42 names on the slate, three have never cast a state legislative vote at all: Stacy Bernal (SD-3, currently Ogden School Board only), Linda Hanks (HD-66), and Mike Bird (HD-35). The claim doesn't apply to them one way or the other. That leaves 32 sitting incumbents with a real record to check against the Utah Education Association's own 2025 legislative scorecard — the most direct, independently-sourced measure of "supporting educators and students in past voting" available.

51%Average UEA score across all 32 endorsed incumbents
40%Average UEA score among the 8 who are actually FUNDED
55%Average UEA score among the 24 endorsed-only incumbents

The four highest-scoring incumbents on the whole slate — Ray Ward, Tracy Miller, Paul Cutler, and David Hinkins, all at 83% — receive no money. Two of the lowest-scoring incumbents on the whole slate — Jake Sawyer and Jefferson Moss, both at 20% — do. If a legislator's actual record of supporting educators explained who gets paid, this would run the other way.

The people EFU actually pays score lower, on average, than the people it merely endorses. Jake Sawyer and Jefferson Moss — two of the 8 funded recipients — tie for the lowest UEA score (20%) of anyone on the entire slate, matched only by two unfunded names (Walt Brooks, Lisa Shephard). Meanwhile several of the highest-scored incumbents on the whole list — Ray Ward (83%), Tracy Miller (83%), Paul Cutler (83%), David Hinkins (83%) — are endorsed and receive nothing. If "history of supporting educators" were the operative standard for money, the ranking would run the other way.

Full incumbent scorecard (32 names with a UEA record, plus 3 with no legislative voting record)
NameChamberUEA ScoreFunding Status
David HinkinsSenate83%Endorsed only
Lincoln FillmoreSenate50%Endorsed only
Michael McKellSenate33%Endorsed only
Cal MusselmanSenate33%Endorsed only
Don IpsonSenate33%Recipient — $500 UBS
Derrin OwensSenate33%Recipient — $2,000 UBS
Carol Spackman Moss (D)House100%Endorsed only
Ray WardHouse83%Endorsed only
Tracy MillerHouse83%Endorsed only
Paul CutlerHouse83%Endorsed only
Christine WatkinsHouse75%Recipient — $500 UBS
Steve EliasonHouse67%Endorsed only
Karen PetersonHouse67%Endorsed only
Tom PetersonHouse67%Endorsed only
Doug WeltonHouse67%Endorsed only
Norm ThurstonHouse60%Endorsed only
Melissa BallardHouse50%Endorsed only
Stewart BarlowHouse50%Endorsed only
Tyler ClancyHouse50%Endorsed only
Logan MonsonHouse50%Recipient — $5,000 EFU
Dave ShallenbergerHouse50%Recipient — $2,936 EFU
Jason ThompsonHouse50%Endorsed only
Clint OkerlundHouse50%Endorsed only
Carl AlbrechtHouse40%Endorsed only
Ariel DefayHouse40%Endorsed only
Mike SchultzHouse40%Recipient — $3,000 UBS
Stephen WhyteHouse33%Endorsed only
Rex ShippHouse33%Endorsed only
Jefferson MossHouse20%Recipient — $1,500+ UBS, likely EFU too
Walt BrooksHouse20%Endorsed only
Jake SawyerHouse20%Recipient — $4,500 EFU+UBS
Lisa ShephardHouse20%Endorsed only
Stacy BernalSenate—No legislative record — claim doesn't apply
Linda HanksHouse—No legislative record — claim doesn't apply
Mike BirdHouse—No legislative record — claim doesn't apply

Jeff Stenquist and Rosemary Lesser are on EFU's slate but have no 2025 UEA score in the source scorecard (Stenquist: gap in the source, not investigated further; Lesser: not currently serving after her 2024 loss) — both omitted from the table above rather than guessed at.

One caveat worth stating plainly: UEA is itself an advocacy organization — a teachers' union — and "UEA's position" reflects its own policy views, not a neutral referee's. On the six bills tracked in 2025, UEA's positions happened to align closely with the Democratic caucus, who score almost uniformly near 100%. That's a real limitation of using this scorecard alone. But it doesn't change the internal comparison that matters here: among Republican incumbents endorsed by the same PAC, funded recipients still score meaningfully lower than endorsed-only ones — a pattern that isn't explained away by partisan lean, since every name in that comparison is the same party.

So what does predict it?

Not a pro-education voting record, and not committee membership alone — three sitting Senate Education Committee members (Fillmore, Hinkins, McKell) get zero dollars. Laying every factor found across this page side by side, actual money tracks a different, narrower set of things than the broad endorsement list does.

What predicts an endorsement

All 42 names, low cost to grant
  • Being on the ballot in a legislative or State Board of Education race
  • No litmus test — genuinely bipartisan, includes sitting Democrats
  • No measurable correlation with UEA voting score (highest and lowest scorers both appear)
  • No measurable correlation with committee membership (some committee members endorsed, most aren't)

What predicts actual money

Only 8 of 42, a separately-targeted decision
  • Committee leadership, not just membership — Logan Monson is Vice Chair of House Health & Human Services; ordinary committee members get nothing
  • Top institutional position — Speaker Mike Schultz
  • A multi-year, repeat relationship — Jerry Stevenson (both entities, 2021-2022), Logan Monson (2023 and 2026), Jake Sawyer (both entities, multiple years)
  • Proximity to a specific high-value policy fight — Dave Shallenberger (SB284/Stratos), Jefferson Moss (Privacy Governing Board predecessor)
  • A genuinely competitive race — Jake Sawyer's HD9 seat also drew Meta's $98,942.90 same-day spend

Put plainly: one list is broad and costs nothing to extend across party lines; the money is narrow and goes to people who can move a bill, chair a vote, or decide a contested seat — regardless of how they've actually voted on the causes the PAC claims to care about. Is a broad endorsement list and a narrow, targeted set of checks two arms of the same strategy, or two different purposes sharing one name?

8. The Endorsement Slate

Education First Utah's own published "Candidates Receiving Support" page — its full current slate, per its own site.

Education First Utah's site was being updated on roughly a weekly basis with newsletter content — that pace appears to have stopped sometime in 2025. Mike Bird's entry on this slate lists him under House District 35, the race he ran in 2024; his current 2026 race is for Salt Lake County Council District 3. Worth keeping in mind when reading any other entry on this page as necessarily reflecting the live 2026 cycle.

Utah State Senate

Utah State Senate (7 names — 2 funded, 5 endorsed only)
NameDistrictStatus
Derrin Owens27Recipient — $2,000 UBS
Lincoln Fillmore17Endorsed only
Michael McKell25Endorsed only
David Hinkins26Endorsed only
Stacy Bernal (candidate)3Endorsed only
Cal Musselman (candidate)4Endorsed only
Don Ipson29Recipient — $500 UBS

Utah State House

Utah State House (30 names — 6 funded, 24 endorsed only)
NameDistrictStatus
Melissa Ballard20Endorsed only
Paul Cutler18Endorsed only
Steve Eliason43Endorsed only
Carl Albrecht70Endorsed only
Stewart Barlow17Endorsed only
Jefferson Moss51Recipient — $1,500 UBS + likely $2,500 EFU
Jeff Stenquist46Endorsed only
Ray Ward19Endorsed only
Christine Watkins67Recipient — $500 UBS
Stephen Whyte63Endorsed only
Rosemary Lesser (D)10Endorsed only
Karen Peterson13Endorsed only
Tracy Miller45Endorsed only
Carol Spackman Moss (D)34Endorsed only
Speaker Mike Schultz12Recipient — $3,000 UBS
Walt Brooks75Endorsed only
Tyler Clancy60Endorsed only
Ariel Defay15Endorsed only
Linda Hanks (candidate)66Endorsed only
Logan Monson (candidate)69Recipient — $5,000 EFU
Tom Peterson1Endorsed only
Jake Sawyer (candidate)9Recipient — $4,500 EFU+UBS
Dave Shallenberger (candidate)58Recipient — $2,936 EFU
Lisa Shephard (candidate)61Endorsed only
Rex Shipp71Endorsed only
Jason Thompson (candidate)3Endorsed only
Norm Thurston62Endorsed only
Doug Welton65Endorsed only
Clint Okerlund (candidate)42Endorsed only
Mike Bird (candidate)35Endorsed only

Utah State Board of Education

Utah State Board of Education (5 names — 0 funded, all endorsed only)
NameDistrictStatus
Amanda Bollinger9Endorsed only
Carol Lear6Endorsed only
Matt Hymas10Endorsed only
Randy Boothe13Endorsed only
Molly Hart7Endorsed only

Steve Eliason (HD-43) is the one name on this slate worth watching closely: he's the House Sponsor on both of Utah's Medicaid autism-coverage bills, SB241 (2022) and SB204 (2023) — the exact legislation that would explain why an ABA therapy company gives money to legislators in the first place. He hasn't shown up in either entity's direct contribution data pulled so far, but he's on the endorsement list.

9. Transaction Explorer

Every contribution found from both entities, 2021–2026 (none found before 2021 for either). Search by name, or filter by entity.

DateEntityRecipientAmountNotes

10. Worth Asking

  • An "education advocacy" organization whose registered agent, filer, and Executive Committee President all work for a private prison company. Does that change how a reader should weigh its self-description as a bipartisan, consensus-driven education group?
  • Two differently-branded giving entities sending an identical $2,500 to the same sitting MIDA Vice Chair, one week apart. Coincidence, or two channels used by the same small group of people to reach the same relationship without it showing up as one large check?
  • Utah Behavior Services gave $3,000 to House Speaker Mike Schultz. Schultz separately personally funded Preserving Utah Values PAC with $120,000 — a PAC that ran attack ads against Democratic candidates Angela Choberka, Scott Stephenson, and Rosemary Lesser in 2024 and 2026. UBS's money didn't go to that PAC directly, but it did go to the person who bankrolled it. Does giving money to a legislative leader carry any responsibility for what that leader does with his own resources afterward — or is that too many steps removed to matter?

11. Research Status

Resolved since this page was first built:

  • Mike Bird — confirmed the same person as the Salt Lake County Council District 3 candidate tracked elsewhere in this project. He ran for House District 35 (Murray) in 2024, the race listed on EFU's endorsement page; his current 2026 race is for county council. EFU's own site appears not to have been updated since sometime in 2025, which explains the outdated district listing.

Still being checked — not yet confirmed one way or the other:

  • The 2024 Education First Utah contribution recorded as "Moss, James" — the endorsement slate names Jefferson Moss (HD-51) as a supported candidate, and Jefferson Moss separately received $1,500 from Utah Behavior Services in 2023, which points toward this being the same Jefferson Moss rather than James Moss Jr. — but the contribution record itself says "James," so this isn't fully closed.
  • Whether "Bob Stevenson" ($7,500 from Education First Utah, 2026) is related to Sen. Jerry Stevenson — no confirmed family connection yet.
  • Todd Weiler's two 2021 Utah Behavior Services payments ($829.80 and $1,410.10, same day) — non-round amounts that may indicate in-kind contributions rather than checks; not yet confirmed against the "I" (in-kind) field on the original filing.

12. The Parent Organization's Other PAC

While building this page, a records trail led to something bigger than a related organization: Education First Utah's own parent nonprofit — "Education First, A Utah Nonprofit Corporation" — also directly owns a second political giving vehicle, "Our Schools Now PAC." Same registered agent (Ammaron Wolfgramm), same 500 N Marketplace Drive address.

Our Schools Now was a real, high-profile 2018 Utah ballot campaign — also known as "Our Kids 1st" and "Utah Students for Question 1" — built to pass a citizen's ballot initiative raising taxes to fund Utah schools. Its own Articles of Incorporation state that purpose explicitly. It raised $2,029,434.54 in 2018 alone, with Gail Miller as its single largest donor at $250,000 — the same Gail Miller who chairs Education First Utah and tops CMV PAC's own donor list. Management & Training Corporation gave $101,046.32 directly. Its own officers — Scott Anderson (Chairman, Zions Bank), Robert Scott Marquardt (Secretary/Treasurer, MTC CEO), Nolan Karras, and Jesselie Anderson — are the identical four people who make up Education First Utah's Executive Committee.

Most tellingly: Our Schools Now's own official state filing lists "Education First" as its formally declared Affiliated Organization — not an inferred connection, a stated one, on the record with the Utah Lieutenant Governor's office.

The same parent entity behind a PAC that states on its own site it is "not advocating any tax increases" also directly owns a PAC built to pass one of the largest tax increases for education in recent Utah history. Full breakdown, funders, and officers on the dedicated case file.

Sources
Utah Hive Politicsfrom the publisher of The Weber County HiveIndependent · Accountability · Journalism