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Show ':perintendent Moody busses Need For : Vsfe Aid To Schools I BY MILTON E. MOODY i County School Superintendent Tie Utah legislature of 1937 aitted to the voters of the s for their acceptance or re- pn, two amendments to the 'ititation dealing with the & 'U of financing the public sis of the state. These amend-j-1 ds are designed to open the i J ? for some significant changes gC le system of financing the dis-f dis-f schools of the state. If ap-I ap-I . I ti by a majority of the votes 1 iE On thp flmWlTYlfltlC CIlV, -:ti may constitute one of the 1 s important steps in the de-) de-) -anient of the public school -m in Utah. Essentially, the w dments submitted to the k wiU give the legislature sl to increase the amount of ' aid to the district schools ;.v state. r our present system, the ature can provide revenue t strict schools in limited ts only as specified by the , ,Sn fa three established 'unttaued on page four) Educational Amendments j (Continued from first page) state school funds. (1) A small high school fund of approximately S2.00 per high, school student. (21 A district school fund of S25 per student between the ages j of six and eighteen years. i (31 An equalization fund of S5 j per student of school age. This provides for about four per cent for the average district schools of Utah, but for our county 69 per cent. The other 31 per cent in our county is raised by the taxation of tangible property in the local school districts. The proposed pro-posed constitutional amendments would remove restrictions on the legislature so that additional state funds could be provided and thus reduce the relative load on the local property tax. With this rigid amount of state school revenue as fixed by our present constitution the only flexible flexi-ble feature of our school finance system is the increase or decrease of revenue from local taxation of tangiable property. Small amounts of tangible property in some of the districts, in spite of high mill levies, prevents the raising of adequate ade-quate revenue and so the educational educa-tional opportunity of the children in different parts of the state is still very unequal. The adoption of the amendments' would make it possible for the legislature to deal more effectively with the problems of equalizing educational opportunities, the maintenance of adequate school standards, and the development of revenue from sources other than tangible property taxation. |