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Show v By SupU Lynn Haslem 8 Superintendent of Schools O Where do schools get the operating dollars necessary to run the schools? Do local taxes supply these funds? Perhaps its liquor and tobacco to-bacco taxes? Possibly income in-come tax? Sales tax? Inheritance Inheri-tance taxes? Gasoline taxes? These are questions which should be clearly answered to all taxpayers - especially especial-ly so if taxes pay the bills -hence the thrust of this article. ar-ticle. Using approximate figures, fig-ures, for easier understanding, understand-ing, about 70 percent of the local property tax goes to the local schools. However, that 70 percent only picks up about 34 percent of the total operational costs of local schools (e.g. during the 1974 -75 school year our total budget Is $1,259,251.00 of which $431,439.00 will come from local property taxes). About 66 percent of total school revenue comes from State and Federal sources (mostly State) which are mostly tax derived. As regards the State and Federal fund sources property prop-erty tax. makes up less than 1 percent of the state revenue rev-enue source (3-12 million of a total source of 392 million mil-lion for 1974). The "big" funds are from Sales Tax -23 percent (149-12 million), Individual Income tax - 14 percent (90 million); Fuel Tax - 7-12 percent (47-12 million); Licenses - 4 percent per-cent (24-12 million); and corporation income tax with 3 percent (20 million). Lesser Les-ser tax sources include liquor, li-quor, (4 million); tobacco (7 million); utilities (12 million); mil-lion); which together total about 3 percent. A few other oth-er sources contribute in lessened les-sened amounts. The value in considering these figures Is to help understand un-derstand how the various taxes which all of us pay are used. In summary, about 34 percent of our local school needs are supplied with about 70 percent of your local property' tax dollar. The other oth-er 66 percent of our local school needs are supplied by various State taxes as indicated indi-cated above. It is interesting also to study the State expenditure pattern, but since this article ar-ticle is related primarily just to Education, let me note only that, or the total State dollar expenditure, local lo-cal schools throughout Utah receive 26 percent (167 million). mil-lion). Where do schools get the money? Perhaps these explanations ex-planations will help. |