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Show Educational Finance Problems Of State For Ten-Year Period, issued By Utah Foundation In Report A report warning of the educational ed-ucational finance problems facing fac-ing the state during the next ten years was issued recently by Utah Foundation, the private non-profit tax research ogran-ization. ogran-ization. According to the Foundation report, Utah will have more than 244,000 pupils enrolled in the public schools by the 1962-63 1962-63 school year, if present trends continue. This will represent an increase of 80,000 pupils, or 48, over that of the 1952-53 school year. The rate of increase in-crease is expected to be nearly double that of the past decade. Even if public school expenditures expen-ditures per student were to remain re-main at the anticipated 1954-55 budget level, nearly $52 million in state and local taxes will be required to finance public school operations in Utah during dur-ing the 1962-63 school year, the report continues. This is $20 million more than the total state and local requirements for the 1952-53 school year and represents an increase of 63 over 1952-53. These estimates used by Utah Foundation reflect the expected enrollment increases, the school finance changes made by the 1953 Special Session of the Legislature, and the additional leeway levies approved in six Utah school districts during the April, 1954 special school elections. elec-tions. They do not allow for any future increases in the amount spent per school child beyond the increases that are indicated for the next (1954-55) school year. As a result, the estimates es-timates are likely to be conservative, conser-vative, since the average expenditure ex-penditure per school child for operations has increased in every ev-ery one of the last eleven years in Utah. In addition to the public school operational requirements, Utah Foundation predicts that 2,500 new classrooms, costing in excess of $75,000,000, will be needed to accomodate the expected increased enrollments in 1962-63. This amount does not include the cost of remodeling, relocating, or replacing present structures which are either now obsolete or will become obsolete during the next ten years. These additional costs have been variously var-iously estimated as being between be-tween $30,000,000 and $83,000,-000. $83,000,-000. During the past five years (1948 49 through 1952 - 53), Utah's 40 school districts have spent nearly $45,000,000 for capital outlay purposes. Besides the tremendous influx of new pupils into the public schools within the next ten years, a large increase in college col-lege enrollments is expected, the report states. Another problem posed by the Foundation's report is that of securing enough qualified teachers for these large public school enrollment increases. The Foundation estimates that a total to-tal of 8,600 new teachers must be recruited into the Utah teaching profession by 1962-63 in order to meet the increased enrollment and expected turnover turn-over changes. This means on the average that approximately 950 new teachers must be obtained ob-tained each year in Utah for at least the next nine or ten years. At the present time, Utah's five teacher training institutions are meeting less than 30 of this; demand. |