OCR Text |
Show mm urges UNIFIED GOilTROL Dfl TAXJQUTLAYS Suggests Board Composed of State Officials to Approve or Disapprove AH Expenditures Expen-ditures of Public Moneys The centralisation of taxation au thorlly, with a veto power on projected project-ed public expenditures, la advocated In the suggestion of Lafayette Hanchett, preaident of the Utah Power and Light company. A bard of control connmt-Inir connmt-Inir of the governor of the etate, tha atate treasurer and the attorney gen-eral, gen-eral, all aervtnjr without additional pay, should he created by leglaiativa anolmtni." T ihk exwtrd of control - should be delegaled the absolute final authority of approval or disapproval on all expenditures of public tnonfyi for permanent Improvements, he urges. 'The point rniaed by tha report of the tax commission. satd Mr. IMn-cheft, IMn-cheft, "relative to the need for tax control is correct, but no solution .a ugaratedT. "The necessity for some sort of rcn-tralisation rcn-tralisation la plainly ahown by th recent re-cent exnerlencea right here at home. We have under construction at the same time here a new hlsh srhnnl at a cost to the taxpayers of $6ito.fi. a municipal bathhouse at a coat of $.'iH). -000, and a new poorhouee at a coat now In excess of $470 00t. That represents rep-resents a total of better then $l,4yt-000 $l,4yt-000 this year. UNIFIED CONTROL NEEDED. 7 t do not mean to say that I anV f"r or asalnst any one or all of then Improvements. Im-provements. But had there been aomn sort of unified control over this sort of expenditure It la entirely poaihle that one or two of theae would have been put over. "The governor, treasurer and attorney attor-ney general could pans uim the ne. easily ea-sily for all public improvements. Vn-der Vn-der the present statutes the taking power represented la the power u spend lies with tne school (tiatrirt boards, with the county commlxKioni snd with the cliy comm unions or town boards. Theae ere independent bodies, not responsible to eacn oili-r In sny way, neither do they necessarily, neces-sarily, or In fact, work together. Vet the coat of their work In the form of expenditures comes from the siima general aginma, pmly, liiM GOVERNOR LACKS AUTHORITY. "If a law could be enacted in this slate to centralise or unify taxation. It might be possible to make suh a hoard consist of the governor, treasurer treas-urer and attorney general. They ars on the payroll of the state and are responsible re-sponsible to ths citizenry directly. Jt d'es little goo, for the governor of tha stste to urge the saving of money, the lowering of taxation. If he is given no authority any place to bring about such reduction. "Very often public Improvements are saddled upon the peopl merely for the satisfying of some Idea of some local body. Hut all tha people pay the Mil. The state board of control ahcuid b given authority over all tax -levy lug bodies and in this way there would be some unity to th work and some means of conserving expenditure. "We have about reached the limit of taxation and something must be done to call a halt or at least to carry on public work along sane and conservative conserva-tive lines." |