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Show Standardized Accounting, Reporting Procedures For Cities, Towns, Counties Urged By Utah Foundation Standardized accounting and reporting procedures were urged for Utah cities, towns, and counties coun-ties in a research report released re-leased today by Utah Foundation, Founda-tion, the non-profit private tax research agency. Criticizing the incompleteness of information on local finances available to citizens and public officials alike, the report states that it has required foundation analysts ana-lysts more than a year and a half to assemble revenue and expenditure data for eleven principal Utah cities. Even then, it is stated, the completed summary sum-mary is very general and subject sub-ject to serious shortcomings because be-cause of the complete absence of uniformity in the accounting and reporting of the various cities. Action of recent Utah Legislatures Legis-latures in granting substantial state aids to cities and counties gives state-wide interest to their financial operations, and makes informative accounting' and reporting re-porting desirable for the guidance guid-ance of legislators, city officials, and taxpayers, the Utah Foundation Foun-dation study emphasizes. The Foundation study points to school accounting and reporting in Utah, by which the forty school districts have adopted uniform un-iform accounting classifications, and report their financial transactions trans-actions annually to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. In-struction. The state department publishes a compilation comparing compar-ing in detail the activities of the forty districts. This information infor-mation is extensively used by school board members, district and state administrators, and the general public, and is essential es-sential to good management and policy determinations. According to the research report, re-port, several previous studies have recommended installation of uniform accounting and reporting re-porting procedures, but little has been done to accomplish results. The most recent study-was study-was initiated by the Utah Municipal Mu-nicipal League, a state association associa-tion of city and town officers. A manual of accounts was prepared pre-pared by the Municipal Finance Officers association, and its adoption recommended by the League, but little has resulted thus far. Utah Foundation states that the following steps will be required re-quired to secure effective installation instal-lation and operation of uniform accounting and reporting for Utah cities and towns: 1. A mandate by the Legislature Legis-lature requiring the State , Tax Commission or other appropri ate state agency to devise, prescribe, pre-scribe, and install such systems within a designated period of time. 2. Preparation by the state agency of an accounting manual man-ual setting forth the accounting system to be followed, with appropriate ap-propriate modifications for the smaller units. The state agency should have the counsel and active cooperation of representatives represen-tatives of affected cities and towns, as well as the assistance of qualified accountants well-versed well-versed in municipal accounting. 3. A requirement by law for the filing of annual reports as promptly as possible after the close of the year, with provision provi-sion for tabulation of the re ports by the state agency to make summary information available to all cities, and to the general public. 4. Effective enforcement machinery, ma-chinery, such as the requirement require-ment that a city's share of state-in-aid be withheld pending compliance with accounting and reporting regulations. The Foundation research report re-port contains a tabulation of revenues and expenditures for the eleven principal Utah cities. These cities receive 57 of their revenues from the property proper-ty tax, 18 from licenses, fines and fees, and 13 from grants-in-aid, principally the city share of state liquor profits and motor mo-tor vehicle registration fees. |