Salt Lake Telegram | 1939-03-21 | Page 5 | Report Shows Public Costs

REPORT SHOWS PUBLICISTS The average coat of government to residents of Salt Lake City during dur-ing 1936 was $142.36 per capita. It cost residents of Utah $47 eaoh to maintain tha state government I during 1936. I Cost of maintaining tha atata government gov-ernment in 19U waa 16 times aai 'much as the cost in 1900. I These Items were contained in a report submitted Tuesday by Sumner Sum-ner G. Margetta, director of the 'utate planning board, to Governor i Henry H. Blood. The figurea were taken from the state auditor's reports, reports of the U. 8. department of agriculture. U. S. bureau of mines and the U. 8. censaa, Mr. Margetta aaid. Broken down, tha $142.26 Salt Lakers spent in maintaining governments gov-ernments went like this, the report said: Federal government. $99.14; atata government, $42.21; Salt Lake county. coun-ty. $6.18: Salt Lake City. $20.34, and Salt Lake school district, 112-91. Not including the $593,760 the state put into redemption funds and several smaller items, the state spent $24,694,000. or an average of $47 per capita during 1938, tha report re-port said. "It ia interesting to note that in 1900. a few years after Utah became a slate, expenditures amounted to $967,000. or only $3 per capita, the report stated. "This growth reproManta, no doubt, the constant demands of tha public for more and better governmental service. Whether or not tha increase in-crease can ba justified from the standpoint of ability of tha state's people to carry the increasing load is worthy of much study." The report showed that while expenditures ex-penditures increased 18 times from 1900 to 1937, industrial production, including mining, manufacturing and agriculture increased only five timea. The 1937 figure waa used in this case. Mr. Margetta explained, because the 1938 figure for Industrial Indus-trial expansion waa not available. Using tha five-year period from 1933-37 as a basis, the industrial production was only $.13 timea as great as In 1900. State expenditures during the same period averaged 19.78 times u great as In 1900, By adding cost of tha state welfare wel-fare to the 1837 figures, the figure rises to 22.17 times as great as hi 11)00, and in 1938 climbs to 2S.8 timea as much. Following la a breakdown of Industries In-dustries as shown in the report, using the 1900 figure aa 1. tha first figures represent production in 1937. while the second figure represents the production average from 19.13-37: Manufacturing. 6.88. 8.66: mining. 5 21, Hi; livestock. 4 21. 3.11; agricultural agri-cultural crops, 2.99, 2.M. Using the same basis, the population popula-tion has increased 1.86 aincs 1900 and waa 1.89 greater during the five years. The general price level Index, In-dex, aa reported by the federal reserve re-serve bank of New York City, with the 1900 figure aa 1. waa 2.12 in 1937 and 1.91 In the five-year period.