OCR Text |
Show Observations Made By State Association The Utah Education Association says it is concerned wholly with bettering bet-tering the educational conditions of our state and to that end is anxious that justice be done to state officials and others desirous of advancing the interest of the boys and girls of Utah. With this thought in view it makes the following observations pertaining per-taining to appropriations which have been made by our state legislations. In 1897 the state legislature of Utah appriated $950,000 with which to carry on the governmental activities activ-ities of the state during . the following follow-ing two years. In 1925 the amount appriated for like purposes was $4, 229,666. These figures would indicate indi-cate that the cost of state government govern-ment in Utah during the twenty-eight intervening years had multiplied about four and a half times, an astounding as-tounding increase according to the Utah Taxpayers Association, composed compos-ed principally of a few big taxpayers in Utah whose objective seems to be to keep their own taxes as low as possible with no apparent regard for the educational or civic welfare of the people of our state. These figures have been used by this organization in such a way as to suggest that our legislators have been careless, reckless, reck-less, extravigant, or incompetant and have acted without concern to the best interests of the state. But for some reason or another, this organization that claims to speak "without fear or favor, prejudice or partiality" seems to hesitate in presenting pre-senting figures which give the true significance of the appropriation figures fi-gures here mentioned. Seldom, if ever, is reference made to the fact that the assessed valuation of the state in 1897 was $102,362,519 and j that during the twenty-eight years j under quest'on that it increased al-j al-j most seven fold to $700,000,000. And nothing is said to show that in 1897 the purchsing power of the dollar computed on the 1913 basis, was 149 I cents, while that, of 1925 was 63 cents ' a decrease in purchasing power of more than 100 percent during the twenty-eight years. And one fails to hear much from this organization to the effect that the population of Utah in 1900, three years after 1897, was 276,749 and that in 1925 i1j was 492,-478, 492,-478, or that during the period under ' consideration it increased more than one and a half times. Thus, during the period, 1897-1925, Utah's legislative appropriations increased in-creased about four and a half times, I but during the same period the pop-I pop-I ulatin increased about one and a half times and the assessed valuation I about seven times, and the purchasing i power of the dollar decreased about 1 100 percent. In view of these figures i what justification can the few big' ! taxpayers to whom reference is J here made offer for decrying the ef- forts of past legislatures and the ap-j ap-j propriations they made ? |