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Show School Amendments May Ease Property Tax Burden The public schools and taxation are so closely tied together that one cannot be considered without the other. The problem of financing the public schools has long been a difficult one and tends to become more difficult as time goes on. This increased difficulty arises partly from the large attendance at school, but largely because so many other public functions have been added that the total tax burden becomes very large. Whereas formerly more than two-thirds of all the public revenue in Utah was used to support sup-port schools, it is now less than one-third. one-third. A large portion of these new public functions are making use of newer forms of taxation, but the rigid constitutional con-stitutional provisions governing school finance keeps the schools tied up almost wholely with the tangible property tax. The 6 per cent of the district school revenue raised by taxation tax-ation in the local districts all comes from tangible property and normally about 85 per cent of the state school funds comes from tangible property. The proposed constitutional amendments amend-ments will make it possible to change this picture in the future. It must be kept in mind that no revenue for this new uniform school fund provided for by the amendments amend-ments can come from the taxation of tangible property. This will mean that to the extent this new fund is built up from revenue from other sources, that the further financing of the schools will move away from tangible property. If the new fund can be brought up to a substantial height, then there will be some chance of reduction of the tangible property tax burden in the local districts. dis-tricts. While the first objective of the new fund may probably be to raise the school standards where they are now low, it should make it possible to soon have some effect in keeping these mill rates from going higher and then reducing some of them. We may list as three outstanding objectives of the new fund that of: 1. Equalizing educational oppor tunity. 2. Raising and maintaining school standards at satisfactory levels. 3. The replacement of part of the present property tax burden f or school purposes by revenue from i other sources. In the operation of the new fund some of these objectives may be served before the others, but as the fund grows, all of these will be influenced in-fluenced to some extent. It should be kept clearly in mind that under present arrangements the only source of increased funds for the district schools is through increasing the levy on tangible property prop-erty in the local districts. The adoption of the amendments should not only prevent this from taking place further, but it does offer the only real chance of starting the tax burden on tangible property for school purposes downward instead of ever upward. For those people specially interested in taxation, these amendments offer a means of securing secur-ing a reduction in tangible property taxation without sacrificing school standards. The changed mode of school finance that can come with the adoption of these amendments should then be the beginning of tangible property tax reform for school purposes that may be a matter mat-ter of great importance in the future. fu-ture. It should be kept in mind, then, that the revenue in the new fund cannot come from the state placing a heavier burden on tangible property. prop-erty. The wording of the constitution constitu-tion will prevent this, and in the second place no revenue from taxation taxa-tion of local tangible property can be used for this new fund. The existing ex-isting state school funds will remain as they are. The local district revenue rev-enue will not be reduced so that the revenue in the new fund will supplement supple-ment and may later replace part of the burden now imposed upon the local property. These features of this new school finance program should have a wide appeal for the citizens of the. state who are concerned con-cerned about the growing tax burden bur-den of tangible property. Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Chadwick, Keith Chadwick and Mrs. Florence Walker motored Monday to Price, where they visited with Mr. Chad-wick's Chad-wick's brother, Clifford Chadwick. |