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Show Highway Director Reveals Need For Funds Control In a recent talk before the .Utah Highway Users conference, C. Taylor Burton, director of highways, asked that safeuards ' be placed on highway funds from ! being used for other purposes. He stated that during the past ten 'years some $112.4 million has been diverted to other state de-jpartments. de-jpartments. Thles includes $3.2 million from motor fuel revenue, and $4.2 million from vehicle registration. In explaining the handling of revenue from the vehicle registration he said that the first two million dollars is earmarked for the cities and counties through the B and C road fund. The balance above this figure is divided between the highway department and the counties,' less what is diverted to other state departments. Mr Burton stated that in some coun-Itles coun-Itles the B & C fund is apparently not being used for road work the purpose for which It is intended. in-tended. Some funds, it appears are being used for equipment and various other types of expenditures. ex-penditures. In speaking, of the usage of money obtained from highway? taxes, Mr. Burton stated that there ar two possibilities to prevent pre-vent fund diversions. One of these is to enact an anti-diversion amendment to the State Constitution. Utah Is one of the few western states that does not have such an amendment he said. In Colorado, he pointed out. the amendment states that all revenues paid into this fund by highway users must be earmarked earmark-ed for the highway department The other factor the state should consider, he says. Is for expenditures of monies on a basis ba-sis of miles traveled. This would call for revenue to be returned to cities and counties on the basis ba-sis of miles traveled by vehicles within the area. |