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Show SEVERAL PEOPLE stopped to help an accident ac-cident victim about 3 miles north of Steinaker Reservoir Sunday afternoon. Emergency medical technicians with Red pine Ambulance Service were able to stabilize Larry Huber, from Lapoint, before transporting him to the hospital. He was later flown to Salt Lake City, where he is reported in critical condition. Legislature appropriates flood money, particulars yet to be worked out In a special session of the Utah State Legislature last week, $25 million was appropriated to help pay the state's portion of the recent flood damages. The Legislature passed a percent increase in the state sales tax, that would be in effect for only one year to balance the state budget for fiscal year 1983-84. A legal problem arose with that move, since part of the money raised by the state tax increase would be collected in fiscal year 1984-85, and would be needed to pay expenditures arising in fiscal year 1983-84. The sales tax bill, passed by the legislature, would collect the extra tax from Oct. 1, 1983 to Sept. 30, 1984, at which time the tax would be dropped. Since the fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30, portion of the tax would be collected in the next fiscal year. In order to resolve this problem the legislature will hold another special session this Thursday. Utah State Representative Gayle McKeachnie, R-Vernal, said the problem pro-blem the legislature had with appropriating ap-propriating money to pay for the flood damage is that no one knows how much damage, in dollars, the flooding did. The legislature was told the Uintah Uin-tah County suffered $2.5 million in damage to public facilities, but that figure is for both private and public damages. The conclusion of the legislature was to appropriate the $25 million. That amount was broken down in two areas. A total of $10 million was allocated to meet the state's portion of damage to public facilities. The federal government govern-ment is to pay 75 percent of the damages, the state is to pay 12 percent per-cent and the county and local governments govern-ments is to pay the remaining 12M-percent. 12M-percent. McKeachnie said the legislature is in hopes the $10 million will cover the state's portion. The other $15 million was allocated for state uses, to help built a road around Lake Thistle, to replace roads and bridges, and for wildlife resource 1 uses to help prevent future flood 1 damage. The percent sales tax increase 1 was expected to raise $50 million. This ! would cover the $25 million needed for j flood damage and raise another $25 ' million to balance the budget. Since the plan poses legal problems, the 1 legislature will deal with other options on Thursday. The two options most 1 likely to be given attention are to increase in-crease the sales tax by 1 percent, for only six months, or to accelerate payment pay-ment of sales tax by major retailers. McKeachnie said he prefers the option op-tion to accelerate the payment of sales tax. The plan would require retailers which pay over $100,000 per year in sales tax to pay the final quarterly payment of the fiscal year on June 15, rather than July 1, as now required by law. Sales tax would continue to be paid quarterly, but would require the final quarterly payment to be prepaid. This would not affect the other three quarterly payments during the year. The prepayment is estimated to be able to raise $45 million, which is about what is needed to balance the budget. McKeachnie said he may go along with the 1 percent increase in sales tax, but he sees some problems with that move. A sales tax increase of 1 percent on a $300,000 piece of heavy equipment would cost a buyer an extra ex-tra $3000. This may cause a buyer to postpone buying the equipment for a few months until the sales tax is lowered to the present level. This could pose problems to the economic recovery that is now being felt in the state. Even to the automobile buyer the 1 percent could pose a significant increase in cost. On a $10,000 car, the I percent increase would mean another $100. For these reasons McKeachnie said he favors the prepayment pre-payment of sales tax plan. |