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Show o voeoooceooeooocee It is extremely difficult dif-ficult to judge the relative rela-tive importance of the actions of the 40th Utah Legislature in less than a week after the session ses-sion closes. A true assessment could be better made after legislation has . been tested for several aoeooaaeeoooscoocoaeooooc Report from the Statehouse Sen. Omar Bunnell years, but we did make some significant changes chang-es in the Utah Statutes: some of which will influence in-fluence the lives of citizens cit-izens of Utah for a long time to come. The generous increase in state support for public pub-lic schools in addition to a basic change in the method of distribution of these funds to school districts, should more nearly provide equal educational opportunity for every child in the state of Utah. At least that is the hope of the legislative council education ed-ucation committee and its staff which studied the formula for two years and wrote the legislation. The schools ofhigher education and the College Col-lege of Eastern Utah in particular received substantial increased funds with which to operate op-erate during the coming com-ing year. A S10. 000 item for the support of the prehistoric museum, a S40.000 appropriation for scholarships for minority students and ' the authorization of a planning grant for a new career center on the campus constitutes a very favorable financial finan-cial package for the college. Substantial raises in workmans compensation compensa-tion benefits and the extension of payments for life to others. Each is standard recommended recom-mended by the Federal government and record for the improvements within the state. The resolution, requiring re-quiring the University of L'tah to maintain their separate school of mines, came as a result re-sult of demands made by the mining engineers in the coal fields. Ray Bowen. formerly of Dragerton. spend con-' siderable time helping to lobby this measure through the two houses. The Reclamation Act attracted a great deal of attention from the small, mine operators, mostly uranium producers produ-cers in eastern Utah. The Bill was amended several times and finally fin-ally was buried in the house shifting committee. commit-tee. We have not solved this problem, onlypost-poned onlypost-poned it. because the Federal government is going to insist on some regulations in this area and it will be much better to have state than Federal control. State taxes would be much lower, not much, but lower. The new income tax bill makes reporting easier and will provide some relief in the lower income brackets. The state property tax will Ibe three mills lower than this vear; about S12 less on a S20.000 dollar home. Citizens over 65 with lower income can be granted an exemption of $100 instead of S50 for their property tax k by the county eommis- sioner. A measure providing pro-viding a token sales tax on rebate of S6 per person was lost in the last few minuts of pres: sure to get the session over by midnight of the last day. but it will probably be approved in ' the budget session next January, in time to be effective in time for 1974. just as the original bill provided. In addition, the exemption exemp-tion on state inheritance taxes was raised from $40,000 to .S60.000. A special interest to the citizens of eastern Utah was the approval by the Senate of Sam Tavlor. the publisher of the Moab Times -Independent to the Utah State Road Commission. Commis-sion. Our area has been represented on this very important state commission by a commissioner com-missioner from Uintah County for as long as I can remember. Sam was a former state Senator, Sen-ator, president of the Grand County School Board and a willing and able public servant. I am certain that he will represent all the citizens citi-zens of this district. Governor Rampton deserves de-serves our thanks for obtaining a man with Sam Taylor's qualifications qualifi-cations for the road commission. Robert Xorman of Grand County was reappointed to the oil and gas commission com-mission and Jessie Conover of Ferron's membership on the board of expositions was extended for another an-other year. The adoption of the new criminal code was significant and the approval ap-proval of a watered down no fault insurance bill established principles princi-ples in this field which will need to be developed develop-ed in future years. In addition, we finally approved ap-proved Walt Axelgard's studded tire bill and attained a $100,000 appropriation ap-propriation for the support sup-port of the senior citizens citi-zens program throughout through-out the state. The Carbon Car-bon chapter should re- ceive around $25,000 in state and Federal support. This was a very different dif-ferent session, because the decision required to distribute available surplus funds are much more demanding than those made in a session when funds are limited. Much of our time and energy was spent in denying the proposals of many special interest inter-est groups w ho demanded demand-ed new expanded programs pro-grams or tax reductions reduc-tions for their special benefit. We worked long and hard and we will be back at it again in just ten months. If you have any suggestions we would certainly be happy to receive them. |