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Show The School Taxing Amendment On Tuesday Utah's legislature went into special session to consider con-sider four constitutional amendments. amend-ments. The amendments, if sanctioned sanc-tioned by the legislature, will go to the public in the November Novem-ber election for ratification. The four points which will be debated de-bated during the current special session have not been made entirely en-tirely clear to the citizenry of Utah, who, after all, will be the ones affected by the -proposed changes in the state's constitution. constitu-tion. It's known only that the legislature was called into session ses-sion to consider a revision of the state's taxing system. For the present it will suffice to appraise the proposal which would change the methods of financing fi-nancing Utah's school system! No beating of bass drums an-' nounced the plan, hence it's full meaning is not generally understood. under-stood. But to the people of spaicely populated counties it represents 1he .most important piece of legislation up for consideration. consid-eration. This significant legislative mat-1 ter, which was recommended by the tax study committee of the combined houses, calls for making mak-ing the State of Utah the major taxing unit for the maintaining of school districts. Heretofore the school districts have operated oper-ated individually, receiving 25 per cent of their revenue from the county and 75 per cent from state and federal funds. Should the school system financing amendment be endorsed by both the legislature and the voters, the state will become the major source of revenue for school maintenance. The amendment provides that the school tax shall be a state taxrather than a county levy; that the funds derived from such taxation shall be pooled and divided di-vided equitably among the counties coun-ties on the basis of the area served ser-ved by the school districts, and the county's population. To the thinly settled counties, particularly those where taxable lands are limited, passage of the amendment will have far-reaching' benefits. In Duchesne county, for instance, the approval of the amendment would mean that school funds would be increased by something like $150,000 annually. an-nually. Considerable opposition has arisen against the amendment. In the thickly populated school districts, exemplified by Jordan and Salt Lake, where taxable land is to be found on every hand, and where the school boards do not find it necessary to scrape the bottom of the barrel bar-rel periodically, the resistance is strong. Opponents of the amendment am-endment contend that the school I in the more populous districts of the state would suffer through a pooling of funds. Their contention conten-tion does not hold water. From a long range analysis it appears that the bigger districts might find it necessary to budget themselves them-selves more closely; to formulate formu-late their plans more carefully. Surely this does not entail exces- I sive suffering. From the standpoint of the rural school districts a state taxing tax-ing system, a pooling of funds and an equitable distribution of monies could mean a freer hand for the school boards some thing the "cow county" districts have never known. It could mean better buildings, maintained maintain-ed in a fit manner and it could mean adequate ' teaching staffs. Certainly there is nothing objectionable objec-tionable about a plan that would equalize public education in Utah. i - . |