Show SAN JUAN legislator WOULD HAVE STATE MAINTAIN SCHOOLS TAKES ISSUE WITH TIMES independent SIS OF QUESTION SHOWS HOWEVER THAT IT HAS TWO SIDES recently the times independent published a word of commendation of the action of the legislature in killing the proposed bennion resolution which sought to increase the per capita distribution of state school funds from 5 to 35 the resolution if passed by the legislature and subsequently approved by the voters of state would have increased the tax burden in sixteen counties while it would have benefited the remaining counties grand county of instance would be compelled to pay into the state treasury tor the support of the schools of other counties over and above the amount its own schools would receive in the pei capita distribution one of the chief supporters of the bennion resolution in the house was charles redd of la sal representative from san juan county mr redd favored the bill for the very natural reason that his own county san juan would have benefited through its approval in the following letter to the editor of the times independent he takes issue with the stand this paper took and makes a strong defense of the proposed ben nion resolution which the legislature killed arch 24 1927 mr L L taylor moab utah dear bish i hope you will forgive me for differing with you proposed benmon resolution aich would have increased the school per capita allowance from 25 the declaration af pf independence holds this fact to be self evident that all men are created equal since men are not created equal neither mentally physically or financially then this statement must refer to the opportunities which our government gives to jag people the chief service that a state and government render to its people is that of education I 1 think you will agree further that there should be no mason and line in school problems of the state A condition that will permit the children of bo elder county to be educated abundantly while the children in kane county have only meager chance for school training is fundamentally continued four f J SAN JUAN legislator WOULD continued from first page wrong and must be corrected I 1 think you will also agree that education is a state and not a bocal problem considering the future of the state we should adopt a policy that would give ug citizens with a well balanced bajan ced education the 1925 legislature authorized a survey of educational system chis survey at a cost of was made by a corps of national educators after carefully measuring the resources and studying our conditions dit ions they recommended that 70 per school child should be distributed from state taxes originally the bennion resolution earned this provision As a matter of expediency the amount was reduced to 35 for each school child under the present system most unfair conditions exist kane county with a 12 mill local levy together with the 25 from the state have a total of 43 per child the jurdon district with a 48 levy plus the states 25 raises a total of 93 per school child jordon has an additional advantage of a thickly populated district which greatly reduces the per capita coat of education kane with her exorbitant tax can have only six and one half months of school while I 1 have cited you two of the most ex cases the comparison between a great many other counties is much the same A tax that is paid by the large public utilities that serve the entire state should be contributed tri buted to the education of utah children without regard to county lines through a caprice of nature a favorable power site is made on bear nver in box elder county the utah power light company have just completed a power plant in box elder county this county has an abundance of tax money far more than is necessary to maintain a public school system and they have just petitioned the legislature to allow to establish junior colleges while there are some sixteen other counties in the state that are unable to maintain a creditt ble public school system even after making a high tax levy perhaps less than one thousandths part of the power furnished by the cutler power dam in box elder will be used in that county yet they enjoy the part of the taxes coming from this utility in the case of grand county over is paid into your treasury by the denver and rio grande railroad company simply because you happen to have a many antiles of within your boundary san juan perhaps contributes as much live stock and other freight to the railroad as does grand abut we have no direct share in the taxes from this system during the last two years since I 1 have been discussing this matter I 1 have not found one person who defends our present practically every one agrees that public school education should be distributed equally between the counties as far as possible the chief argument against the bennion resolution in the legislature is that it would increase taxes I 1 agree that we are spending enough money for school purposes it is not the intention to increase taxes it was expected that the additional amount raised by the state would be offset by the reduced taxes in the local school districts it is my opinion that to adjust this matter it will be necessary to consider the state as a single public school unit by this oceans we can limit the tax levy and secure a fair distribution of school opportunities 1 I assure you that the matter is not settled with the killing of the bennion resolution yours very truly CHARLES REDD the times independent does not wish to engage in any controversy with mr redd concerning the bennion bill now defunct grand county however has a school problem which is to some extent as trouble bomb as that of san juan it has perhaps the most widely scattered ool copula op ula on cf in district in the state about 80 per cent of its schools are one teacher schools and the attendance in these one teacher schools could be doubled without any increase in the per capita cost of maintaining them by reason of the large number of small schools and the small attendance in these schools the per capita cost of education in the county is high there are only two schools in the county namely those of moab and sego which can be maintained at the per capita cost per school child provided for in the bennion bill as originally introduced trod A report of the survey which mr redd refers to was made by J hn J algert U S commissioner of education and was published by the bureau of education early this year this report showed that e to maintain its grand county levied in 1925 8 2 mills per dollar of valuation it contributes through 1 state aid given to every mothr district in the stabs except four san juan county in 1925 levied only 8 wills for district school purposes keeping these things in mind it is easy enough to understand how a more or less interested taxpayer of grand county looks with disfavor upon a plan which requires grand county to contribute to the tion of children of park city whose schools in 1925 levied only 4 4 nulls on the dollar valuation or jordan district which levied 4 55 or box elder levying only 5 4 or juab levying 5 4 thoele tooele 5 37 cache 5 65 davis rich 64 wasatch 65 millard 6 4 or any bof the other 15 counties whose levy for 1925 was under that of grand county these were some of the things which representative hammond sought to tell the hous of representatives when he was arbitrarily shut off from debate by acting speaker woodruff when the bennion bill was under consideration there is no ment to mr redds suggestion that grand county received in taxes from a public utility A levy falls no less heavily on the shoulders of a taxpayer because a public utility has to pay the same levy and no one is better able to appreciate this than mr redd by reason of his business training and financial interests notwithstanding his advocacy of complete state maintenance of public schools commissioner ad blits the fallibility of the plan he i admits that it is an experiment when he says that no state has yet accepted it except delaware and that state not on the basis of property taxation but on an income tax plan he admits it again in his discussion of the gross inequality of the distribution of the present state aid which distribution is made on the school census and not on the average daily attendance of students he shows that I 1 in 1925 san juan county received etore money for each school child in I 1 average daily attendance than did any other district of the state this was due he points out to the fact that san juan with an average attendance of students had in ad edition thereto students on the I 1 census roll for which it received As a result of this the survey points out san juan actually received per school child in daily attendance whereas the amount provided for was 24 25 by a table published an fn the report it is shown that grand county notwithstanding it contributed heavily to all of the other districts of the state except four through the state aid plan ranked thirty third in the matter of distribution of school funds on the basis of its average daily attendance I 1 receiving for each child actually attending school 27 66 as against san juans 43 64 obviously state maintenance of public schools is a question which has two sides |