SANDY, Utah - At the Gingerbread Antiques shop, a solid stream of customers have one thing on their minds - and it's not antiques.

"I don't think we should be using tax money for (education) vouchers," said Joann Sorensen, who has grandchildren in public schools and signed a petition at the store seeking to repeal a new law giving parents between $500 and $3,000 per child for private school tuition. "It would be better if the money went to public education."

Utah's school voucher program is the only universal school voucher program in the country. Even affluent families qualify. Voucher programs in other states target low-income families or students attending poorly performing schools.

Nearly every education organization in the state opposed the measure, saying lawmakers should focus on improving public schools instead of funding private ones. Utah has the nation's largest class sizes and spends less per student than any other state.

Shortly after the legislative session ended Feb. 28, public education advocates filed a petition seeking to put the school voucher issue before voters. They have until April 9 to collect about 92,000 signatures, and are doing it one neighbor, one customer and one parent at a time. At the Gingerbread Antiques shop, owner Penny McLaughlin barely has time to run her store because so many people are coming in to sign a petition as word about the referendum spreads.

"I'm not able to get anything done," she said, as two more customers asked to sign.

Voucher proponents contend McLaughlin and others are wasting their time. That's because the Legislature amended the bill the public education advocates are seeking to repeal. Confusion exists between the two groups whether the school voucher program could exist if the original bill is repealed. But it may not matter.

If enough signatures are collected, money for the voucher program wouldn't be available until the issue is decided next year, effectively neutering the program and denying families the ability to use vouchers this fall.

That's because the amended bill - while possibly allowing the voucher program to technically exist - doesn't appropriate any money for the vouchers. The $9.3 million the Legislature appropriated for the program was tied to the bill public education groups are seeking to repeal.

Sen. Majority Leader Curt Bramble, a voucher supporter, contends public education advocates would be hurting public schools by repealing the bill. The voucher program could still exist, but the $3.9 million legislators appropriated for public schools that lose students as a result of the voucher program would be gone, said Bramble, R-Provo.

"That's significant," he said.

But the $5.4 million lawmakers intend to give to parents to use for vouchers wouldn't be there either.

"It would be hard to implement a bill that didn't have any funding attached to it," said Vik Arnold, a voucher opponent and director of political action and government relations for the Utah Education Association, the state's largest teacher's union.

Parents for Choice in Education, a group that lobbied for the school voucher program, said it isn't mounting a campaign to stop people from signing the petitions, although it is the primary focus of the group's Web site.

"We're not concerned, and more power to them if they want to get the signatures," said spokeswoman Nancy Pomeroy. She too suggests that a successful repeal would only eliminate the reimbursement money to public schools for lost students.

That's a popular misconception. Senate Republicans posted on their Web site, www.senatesite.com, a description of the differences between the two bills after Bramble and others discovered the voucher program could possibly still exist even if the House Bill 148, the original bill, was repealed.

It mentions that money for public schools isn't included in the second version of the bill. It also mentions that the $9.3 million appropriation isn't included. But it fails to say that the $9.3 million appropriation consists of $3.9 million for public schools and $5.4 million to award vouchers.

Pat Rusk, former president of the UEA and a spokeswoman for the education group fighting vouchers, said lawmakers and voucher proponents are just trying to scare people.

But Gary Forbush, a father of two children attending public schools, said he hasn't been scared off. He's going door to door, store to store, handing out petitions and collecting signatures.

"I'm just concerned that in a state where we already aren't well known for funding education successfully, why are we going to start having to worry about funding two?" he said. "It's very shortsighted."