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Show UTAH IS ONLY WESTERN STATE TO LOWER COST OF GOVERNMENT IN 1959 Utah, according to the United States Department of Commerce, operated its government during the fiscal year ended June 30 last with expenditures 6.7 per cent less than in the previous 12-month period. Total expenditures, expend-itures, including capital outlay, aid to local governments such as counties, cities, towns and school districts, payment pay-ment cn state debt and other payments, were 2.2 per cent less in Utah than in the preceding year. Tn these features Utah reversed a national trend. All the states in the aggregate spent 9.7 per cent more in fiscal 1950 than in fiscal 1949 for operations of their governments gov-ernments on the state level, and total expenditures were 11.9 per cent higher for all the-states in 1950 than in 1949 1 1 seal years. Louisiana was the ony other state west of the Mississippi , river which showed expenditure expendi-ture trends similar to Utah, and I Ohio and Illinois were the only , other states with both total ex- j penditures and expenditures for j operations less in 1950 than in i 1949. j State expenditures for fiscal 1949 in Utah were from amounts appropriated by the legislature of 1947. Gov. J. Bracken Lee came into office in the middle of the fiscal year 1949; and fiscal year 1950 was the first complete fiscal year to show the results of his control and that of the legislature, of 1949. ' Examination of the department's depart-ment's publication develops the fact that the economy knife did not reduce appropriations for education, either for the state-operated state-operated institutions of higher education, nor for the financial aid from the state to the school districts. Expenditures for highway high-way construction in 1950 exceeded ex-ceeded that of 1949 by more than one million dollars, or by 17. This is classed as capital outlay. State aid to local governments gov-ernments increased in this year $700,000, or more than 4. "The government publication does not state any explicit reasons reas-ons for the reduction in Utah expenditures," said Pat Healy Jr., chairman of the state tax commission which has analyzed the report, "but analysis of the figures and examination of state expenditures in greater detail will show that the installation of modern methods and mechanical mechan-ical aids to administration, together to-gether with the requirement that each state employe give an honest full day's work, are among the main reasons for the savings in public funds and for making larger amounts available avail-able for the benefit of the general gen-eral public." |