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Show $70 Million Spent For Schools In Utah During Year Utah spent nearly $70 million to operate and to build public schools during the 1955-56 school year. This fact was revealed in a booklet of school statistics published this week by Utah Foundation, the private nonprofit tax research organization. According to the Utah Foundation Founda-tion booklet Utah's forty school districts expended $45.6 million for current operations and $23.9 for capital outlay last year. Expenditures Ex-penditures for current operations increased 8 between 1954-55 and 1955-56 while capital outlay expenditures rose 21 during the same periol. Utah Foundation analysts point out that state and local revenues for the support of the public schools amounted to 4.34 of the total personal income of all individuals in-dividuals in Utah last year. While no national comparisons are yet available for the 1955-56 school year, the National Committee for the White House Conference on Education in 1955 pointed out that Utah led the nation in its support of public education during the 1954-55 school year. The White House Conference report showed that public school revenue as a percent of personal income was 4.2 in Utah, more than 50 greater than the average for the nation as a whole. The - high birth rate of World War II and the post war period is now a major factor in the financing of public schools, according ac-cording to the Foundation's statistical sta-tistical booklet. School attendance throughout the State last year was up 312 from that of the previous year and 37 above that of 1947-48. 1947-48. Nine of Utah's districts, however,, how-ever,, experienced a decline in schx)l attendance between 1947-48 1947-48 and 1955-56. Utah , Foundation's statistical compilation shows that the average aver-age property tex flevy (combined state and local) for school operations opera-tions was actually 2.68 mills ($2.68 per $1,000 assessed valuation) valua-tion) lower in 1956 than it was in 1947. This decline in operating levies, however, was more than offset by higher levies for capital outlay and debt service purposes. The average school levy for all purposes (operations, capital outlay, out-lay, and debt service) increased 5.91 mills between 1947 and 1956. During the past ten years, Utah school districts have spent $94.5 million for school building construction con-struction and remodeling. This sum does not include capital outlay out-lay expenditures for equipment. Slightly more than three-fourths or $71 million of this amount was expended during the past five years. Because of this accelerated building program carried out in Utah during the past few years, there has been a substantial increase in-crease in the bonded indebtedness of most local districts. At the end of the 1955-56 school year the combined net bonded debt of Utah's forty school districts was $32.1 million. This compares with a net indebtedness of $9.1 million at the end of 1947-48. Only seven of Utah's school districts were completely free of debt at the close of the 1955-56 school year. |