| Show SCHOOL TAXES UNDER the practical operations of the present revenue law a result la Is re keched ched in respect to taxation for schools the J ustice of which is open to question A territorial tax of three milts mills to Is collected and distributed to the several counties according to their school population it thus happens that three or four counti espay into this school fund ture more than they draw out of it and 13 that a number of the poorer counties draw from it from lo 10 to 69 59 per cent more than they contribute salt lake county pays under this three mills assessment about per year more is returned to her district schools and other counties couil tim get the benefit of that sum part paid by citizens of tb this is this looks at first view to be un just but there exist arguments in ill support of this system one of these is that the education of the children of th commonwealth is the concern of the entire community and not exclusively of such subdivisions of it as counties and school districts without passing upon the validity of this argument one thing may confidently be asserted respecting ing it it must not be carried too far if the territorial school tax shall be permitted to remain at three mills the people of all the counties will probably submit without very great complaint but an attempt to double the burden borne by a few counties to the profit of the rest will certainly meet with resistance yet the house has made this attempt mr allen alien in ia preparing his bill for a school code adapted that drawn by ex school babool commissioner williams and introduced at the last session by inadvertence a section was allowed to remain providing for a 8 three mill territorial tax it could never have been the intention in framing the bill to doule the territorial tax already provided for in the revenue law mr allen alien made this explanation and moved to so amend the bill that it would not duplicate the territorial tax his amendment was voted down this is carrying too far the argument that the commonwealth as a whole should its schools as an ent entirety in another part of the same bill authority to assess a three mill county tax or less is given on a af pf principle I 1 of local option and the members of the house who voted down mr allens amendment evidently intend that their counties shall be relieved of the necessity of levying any county tax it way may be urged that certain counties will be thus relieved at the expense of the territory at large but the fact is that the territory at large would be bene fitted at the expensed not exceeding about four or five counties for example should the bill in ita present form become law salt lake county would contribute annually to the support of schools in other parts of the territory at the average wages earned by country school teachers this county would be paying the salaices salaries sal ailes of about one hundred employed in now the reason why this county should pay the salaries of all the teachers employed in half a dozen other counties is net clear the house did itself discredit and attempted to do three or four in the territory manifest injustice in voting down mr allen allens Is amendment it is hardly likely that both the council and the governor will endorse the action of the house should the bill in its present form be passed by the assembly and approved by the governor it could not be enforced the courts would declare the provision now under consideration void all tax laws jaws to be valid must be at least approximately equal in respect to both burdens and benefits and the courts will always declare void a tax provision which would be so widely at variance with this rule as would the section in question |
