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Show Taxpayer Unit Charges Utah Salaries Oof of Sfen The Utah Taxpayers Association As-sociation today charged that Utah State salaries are now out-of-step with those of other oth-er states; out-of-step with those of prvate industry, and out-of-step with the state's per capita personal income. ' The tax "watch-dog" organization or-ganization based the charge on figures supplied by the Department of Employment Security which show that sal aries of Utah insured workers work-ers between 1959 and 1968 advanced 29 per cent while State non-school employees annual average salaries jumped 47 per cent from $4,068 to $5,976. And that between 1967 ami 1968, insured workers' wage increased 4.7 per cent while those of State non-school employees skyrocketed 9.5 per cent or twice as much. Their figures show that state employees in 1968 earn ed $384, or 7 per cent more than the workers in private industry ,and that last year, state average annual salaries salar-ies went up 13 per cent, from $5,967 to $6,744. This two year increase in State salaries amount to 24 per cent. Using State Financ Department De-partment data-processing information, in-formation, UTA found that in 1967 there were 194 state employees making over $10, 000 a year, and that there are now 691. They said that this amounted to a 256 per cent increase. In 1967, there were 43 state employees making in excess of $12,000. Now there are 229. This amounts am-ounts to a 433 per cent increase. in-crease. UTA analysis pointed out that the comparative salary figures include all state non-school non-school employees other than commissioners, elected officials, of-ficials, department heads, and medical specialists. If increases awarded to 2. 300 employees as of May 1 of this year were included, the increase would have been even greater, they claimed. According to the Bureau of Census figures, the average aver-age monthly State salary for the eight intermountain states sta-tes in October, 1968, was $591, and Utah's was $597. Among the eight states, we ranked fourth and were 18l.h highest in the nation. "Yet," UTA said, " In average per capita income, or ability to pay, Utah was sixth among our neighbors and 37th in the nation." The study also shows tlfat Federal employees in . Utah went from 26,442 to 42,633, or 61 per cent between October, Oc-tober, 1960, and October,' 1968 accordnig to the Bureau of Census. Local employees went from 14,544 to 33,518, or 37 per cent while state employees em-ployees jumped from 12,161 to 21,746, or an increase of 79 per cent. In 1968, Utah had 149 state employees per 10,000 of population. pop-ulation. The assocation claimed that this is 42 percent per-cent higher than the national average of 104.7. |