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Show Volume 68, Number 46 Brigham City, Utah 84302, Thursday Morning, 24 PAGES November 13, 1975 A shaking Board gives support experience: Fake one mt Friday tfiru Get set for another earthquake in Box Elder county. Not the real kind . . . the pretend sort of earthquake. It will come Friday morning when the Box Elder Department of Emergency Services in cooperation with a lot of folks, conducts a simulated disaster. Purpose of the exercise is to test local readiness to meet an actual emergency. The drill will begin at 9:30 a.m. and continue until about 12:30 p.m. iowsuoft' Not only county departments and personnel will participate but also Brigham City, Tremonton, Cooley Memorial and Bear River Valley hospitals and Pioneer Memorial and Godfrey Nursing homes. In addition, students from Bear River and Box Elder High schools have agreed to e in the act as victims disaster. make-believ- Emergency Center Wilbert Cross, county emergency services director, said the county emergency operations center will function in the basement of the county public safety building in Brigham City. Manning the center will be county (Continued on Page 7) ITS NOW ESTIMATED that the new county nursing home at Tremonton will be completed by March or April with the exception of site improvements. The main entrance the facility faces west with a connection to the new community hospital on the east. The site is on lower Sixth North in Tremonton. of Aides say county cant afford sheriffs request But Box Elder county commissioners . Step Increases There would be increases in four other steps on the Box Elder deputies pay schedule, Commissioner Chase said. These salaries and comparative figures include $765 at the second step while Brigham City pays a patrolman $758 and Cache pays its deputies $750. Third-stefigures are $800 for Box Elder deputies, $785 for Brigham City patrolmen and $800 for Cache deputies. Fourth-ste- p figures are $825 for Box Elder, $812 for Brigham City, and $850 for Cache. The fifth step would pay Box Elder deputies $925 while a Brigham City patrolman at this level receives $1,025 and Cache deputies $950. Chase conceded that the proposed pay figures do not provide for a rank structure in the sheriffs department. He indicated the money proposed for higher salaries could be used to implement the structure. If a majority of the deputies want a rank structure, then we have no objections, he said. The chairman noted that the proposed rank structure has never been explained to the commission. A copy was left with the county boards secretary but nothing more. p Has No Ranks At present the sheriffs department has no ranks other than senior deputy. The only pay differential is for longer legnth of service. To establish ranks, of course, would require additional funding to accomodate differences in pay based on rank. To illustrate how expenses have climbed Concerned but not worried, Acting Superintendent David Burch of Intermountam school believes a million dollar lawsuit against four staff members and the school will be dismissed when all testimony is in. I believe the school will be exonerated, the superintendent said Wednesday afternoon. The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City in behalf of 10 students who said their constitutional rights were violated when expelled from school. The National Indian Youth council, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed the suit against the school and staff members including Burch, Charles Lewis, administrative assistant; win Young, home living specialist; and hospital lags nursing home: Ready in spring BE w.f Tuesday responded to a campaign of Sheriff Arthur Redding to pry lose more funds for salary increases and rank structure in his department next year. "Its a case of requests being made that we cant meet without raising taxes and we dont intend to raise taxes. Weve said no and we mean no, Commission Chairman Don Chase stated emphatically. This does not mean that county employes are being ignored in putting together a new budget for 1976. Were trying to figure roughly about a $50 monthly increase for all county employes next year, Chase said. In addition sheriffs deputies are slated to receive an increment adjustment which the chairman said would bring them equal to the Brigham City police department and ahead of Cache county deputies. While the current starting pay for a deputy is $620, its proposed to boost this to $685 plus the $50 raise. This would establish a starting monthly pay figure of $735 compared with $732 for a patrolman with the Brigham City Police department and $700 paid by the Cache County Sheriffs department. Dim recent years, the commissioners noted that combined budgets for sheriffs department and jail in 1969 totaled $83,525. By 1973 the figure had grown to $121,109 and this year amounted to $298,167 (which does not include radio communications). Chase said the 1976 request made by Sheriff Redding was for $540,581. We just had to say no to it. Its just a clear-cu- t case of keeping a balanced budget. We intend to live within our means, he declared. Budget Uncertain Commissioners said they dont yet know what the budget will be for next year since the tentative budget wont be ready until the latter part of November. Chairman Chase said Sheriff Redding requested that his own salary be raised from $11,500 to $16,000 annually. At this time we are not proposing salary adjustments for elected officials. And I guarantee there is no talk of a raise for the county commissioners. Lets make that clear, he stated. Sheriff Redding in a recent letter to the editor and news story carried by the Box Elder News and Journal declared a need for greater financial support for his department than is being proposed by the commission. Commissioner Ted Burt said the sheriff had threatened to go to the public to force the additional funding. nursing home and behind on the hospital, Berrett said of the construction schedule. The total complex is expected to be completed by July 4. The two facilities are linked by a common corridor with laundry and kitchen in the nursing home also to serve the hospital. the 17-b- Robb Berrett, project superintendent for Wadman Construction company, Ogden, said only the site work will not be done by that time. The building is now enclosed. Roofers were on the job Tuesday. And sheet rock work will begin within the next couple of weeks. Winter weather will present no problem so far as the nursing home is concerned. Nothing Happening next door at the Bear Meanwhile, River Valley Community hospital, nothing much is happening. An iron framework stands silent and essentially ignored. Were having trouble getting the metal trusses and deck for the roof, Berrett said. What it means is that Wadman, low bidder on both projects, is concentrating its effort on the nursing home at the present time. The latest report on the hospital roof materials projects their arrival the week of Nov. 19-2- I guess you could say were ahead on gency expulsion. Claims Wrong Burch said claims that the school provides substandard education are wrong, that the school has been accredited by the Northwest Accreditation association and is of the same caliber as other high schools in the state. We have certified teachers who teach a certified curriculum. Our academic department is tops and our vocational trainBurch ing is the best in the state, commented. He said some students leave the school reading at an eighth or ninth grade level, which seems low. But when these students enter school with a second or third grade ability, you cant say theyve received substandard help. We have an accredited reading program and our language skills program provides help on an individual basis. In Arizona, the statq has adopted an eighth grade minimum reading level for graduating seniors, he said. And the chairman of the Inter-tribSchool board, Joel Frank, expressed support for the school and its educational programs. In a telephone interview, Frank said Wednesday, he believes there are no grounds for any allegations of substandard education. al in d Box Elder countys new nursing home at Tremonton could be ready for occupancy by March or April. This was the estimate given Tuesday as 23 men labored on the project which will cost a total of $1,105,005, furnishings, fees and other related expenses included. Dixon Smith, director of guidance. All 10 have since returned to school under school rules admittance after emer- A heating plant building now under construction to the north will be the source of heat for the nursing home and the hospital. Although linked physically and in use of core facilities, the two institutions are being constructed by different entities. The nursing home is a county facility while the hospital is being constructed by nine northern county communities. Financing for each is a combination of bonding and federal assistance. The hospital is expected to cost a total of $1,351,870. The complex is being constructed west Sixth North on Report cards out Report cards are being distributed at Box Elder High school today (Thursday) for the first quarter, a school spokesman said. National Award arts program at the school has received a national award as the most outstanding in the nation. If thats substandard then I guess the whole country is substandard, he commented. He said he could not believe, either, that accreditation would be given if the school was not up to the highest of standards. Frank said programs at the school are developing to return to students to their tribes to be the most resourceful and helpful as possible in aiding tribes progress. He said he has never received any complaints from students or parents that the education was of poor quality at Intermountain. We (the board) support the school 100 percent, Frank said. The board meets in Brigham City next Thursday and Friday and will look into the matter more closely, he said. Burch answered other charges that the school is a children industry for the employment of citizens in Brigham City, not to uplift the Indian people; the staff uses brutality; drugs to control students; function of the NIYC has been interfered with; and religious recordings have been confiscated. The superintendent said a quoted figure (Continued on Page 7) The language Differences aired All's not quiet at city library Library board meetings are usually conducted without much attention. But a number of citizens gathered for the boards latest session Monday. The reason? Word had spread that the board was planning to take action on a request for resignation by Librarian Fern Tovey. Following the presentation of regular business, member Herbert Blue presented a general summary of the differences between the librarian and the board which he indicated had served to bring about the present stalemate in effective relations. Blue pinpointed problems concerning the purchase of a chair for an individual, which was shipped along with a shipment of library furniture bought through a donation of a local club. Although the chair was paid for by the individual, it was felt by Miss Tovey that it should not have been included with the library shipment and had been raised as an issue by the librarian several times. In addition, Blue cited a complaint by Miss Tovey that a daughter of a board member had been approved as a summer employe and that funds collected in the library are not being handled correctly by the board. In the presentation, he stated that the board agreed that these had been errors of judgment and that a precise policy should be set on such matters. Final Authority Board members also agreed that the board does have some responsibility and is the final beyond a policy role , also stating authority on library-mattersthat they felt that the librarian input at board meetings was too detailed and lengthy. Blue stressed that this was not a hasty action, but that the board felt that these problems seemed to show that the board and librarian cannot work together effectively due to the continuing tense situation. Board members stated agreement with the prepared statement read by Blue, adding that they had received complaints that the recordjibrary had been received (Continued on Page 7) Article first in a Taxes The following Is the first In a series of three articles on the property tax system and how it works In Box Elder county. Authored by County Assessor Clifton G.M. Kerr, the series Is Intended to better acquaint the readers with the why and how of property taxes. Since coming into the assessor's office eight years ago, I have become increasingly aware of the need for taxpayers to become better informed concerning property tax procedures. One of my most pleasant experiences has been to explain to hundreds of taxpayers how the system works in valuing their property tax purposes and how mill levies are arrived at and applied. In this and subsequent articles I hope to answer many of the questions that we are frequently asked. It is interesting to note that taxes are as old as civilization itself. As soon as there was an organized community, series ... as old as civilization to be taxes in some form or other for its support. And in all ancient civilizations land was the main source of revenue. The more civilized we become, the more service we demand, and the heavier the tax load becomes to supply those services, and the more diversified have become the methods of levying there had taxes. Today the income tax is the major source of revenue for the federal government. The sales tax has become a major source of revenue for the states, and the property tax is the chief source of taxation for counties, cities and school districts. There are those who make a good case for the inequity of the property tax, and politicians occasionally run on a platform to abolish it. But a realistic approach would seem to indicate that in the foreseeable future it will continue to be the main source of revenue for local government and schools. Property tax laws have their origin in the state constitution and the tax laws enacted by the state legislature. Under these laws the state tax commission is charged with the duty of carrying out these mandates of the legislature. The duties of the county assessor are likewise spelled out in the law, and his oath of office requires that he faithfully uphold the law. One of the most important functions of the tax commission is to see that property is assessed on a uniform basis in all 29 counties. If this is done, then any difference in taxes on like property in various counties would result solely from the mill levy imposed by local government. The amount of taxes anyone pays on his or her property is based on the assessed value and the number of mills applied against that valuation by the various taxing bodies in the district or city where you live. In 1975 the tax dollar was levied and spent as follows: Outside of the incorporated areas the schools received 76.26 cents; the county, 21 cents, and the mosquito abatement district, 2.74 cents of every tax dollar. If you live in Brigham City, it breaks down as follows: Schools, 62.91; county, 17.32; Brigham City. 17.5; and mosquito abatement. 2.26. If you live in Tremonton city, it breaks down to: Schools, 58.23; county, 16.63; city, 23.65; and mosquito abatement, 2.09. From the foregoing figures it is evident that any effort to decrease taxes would have to take into consideration how percentages of the tax dollar going to the various taxing bodies of the county. In the next article we will discuss how appraisers arrive at the assessed valuation of a property. |