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Show Utah Should Be Able To Finance Stale Operations for Coming Fiscal Year with No Major Tax Raises $6,613,200 from this ending surplus sur-plus for state building projects and authorized a construction contract foran additional $1,950,000. UTAH SHOULD BE able to finance state operations during the forthcoming (1973-74) fiscal year with no major tax increase . for the fourth consecutive year. In fact, there is a possibility that a tax reduction may be, possible next year. This was the conclusion reached by Utah Foundation, the private tax research organization, organiza-tion, in their latest analysis of the condition of Utah state finances. fin-ances. According to the Foundation's "middle assumption" of revenue growth, Utah should have more than $81 million in added funds' available next year for general fund and uniform school fund purposes. Included in this total are $29 m illion in increased revenue rev-enue from present general fund and uniform school fund taxes, $25 million that will be realized by the end of the 1973-74 fiscal year from the recently enacted Federal revenue sharing legis- be available." A new factor in the Utah financial fin-ancial picture this year is the recently -enacted Federal revenue sharing program. This legislation will provide Utah with $31.4 million this year, with approximately one-third of this sum allocated to the State and two-thirds distributed to cities and counties. By the end of the 1973-74 fiscal year, Utah will have received re-ceived approximately $25.3 million from this source for state government purposes. Foundation analysts warn, however, how-ever, that the present Federal revenue-sharing program is scheduled only through 1976 and could be modified or curtailed by a future Congress. The state general fund was able to conclude the 1971-72 fiscal fis-cal year with a balance of more than $17 million. The 1972 budget bud-get Session appropriated lation, and $27 million from surpluses and adjustments in fund balances. THE REPORT OBSERVES that general purpose and administrative admin-istrative appropriations would increase by about $11 million next year if state expenditures were to follow the trends of the past five years. This would leave more than $70 million that could be used for tax reduction, re-duction, bonded debt retirement, retire-ment, adjustments in the school program, new buildings and other capital outlay needs, and other new or expanded state programs. A potential hazard in the present affluence in Utah state finances, according to the report re-port is that there may be a temptation to expand continuing expendure committments to a point re these could create a ser cus financing problem when the rate of revenue growth slows down. The present high growth rate in state revenue collections has been in significant measure the result of inflation and an unusually un-usually large volume of construction con-struction in the State. In addition, ad-dition, public school enrollments enroll-ments which have leveled off during recent years are expected expect-ed to begin a new upward trend during the latter part of the 1970 decade. UTAH'S GOVERNOR also has cautioned against the use of surpluses sur-pluses from one year for new or expanded continuing programs in a succeeding year. In his message to the 1972 BudgetSes-sion BudgetSes-sion he noted that if this were done a level of expenditure is established which is difficult dif-ficult to sustain in following years when no surplus may |