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Show ! UNDER THE CAPITOL j' JDOHH'E l f The Utah Legislature passed the quarter mark in its 60-day 1951 session this week without the slightest indication of what direction it intends to take in file all-important matter of state spending. This might be due largely to t J economy" attitude of Gov. I Bracken Lee. who definitely ' will have the final say on leg-Native leg-Native activities with a 'veto power that is in no apparent danger of overrides. He has do publican, in the House of rr-nresentatives to matcn me 30 Democrats and fair support among the Democrats who hold a 15-3 majority in the senate. Already two Democrats Sen . iTarl D Gibson (D-rrice; anu Clarence L. Ashton (D-Roose-vift) have joined three Republicans Repub-licans to sponsor two bills sen vp by the governor to exempt most food and prescription drugs most looi proviae coe tax relief by raising pec-.Snaf pec-.Snaf income tax exemptions.. The governor proposes exemptions exemp-tions b7 raised from $600 to $750 on single persons from S1200 to $1500 on married couples cou-ples and from $300 to $500 on dependents. In his opening message to the legislature, the chief executive recommended the tax reductions ( and that further reductions be made in costs of department opj erations to fit his "economy program. , ,. This week he continued his pruning efforts in a proposed cost slashing budget. It was presented along with a message in which he emphasized that "our primary obligation is not to certain individuals or pressure pres-sure groups, but rather to the people as a whole, including the heavily-burdened taxpayer. He recommended that 'we provide some measure of tax relief to the people and then fit appropriations to expected revenues." In this regard he presented a proposed budget in which he fitted department and institutional appropriations to an estimated general fund including surplus from 1949-51 of $15,058,000. This meant slashing down requests of $25,-248 $25,-248 000, including some 914 -880'000 asked by vocational schols and institutions of higher learning While the governor was seeking seek-ing a cut in general fund spend-inl spend-inl including a cut of $100,000 , in appropriation to the State ' Department of Public Instruction, Instruc-tion, to effect the proposed tax reduction, however, lawmakers proposed in another measure introduced at the close of the second week and increase ,in tvisic public school revenues that may mean a hike in the p,'owrty tax over the state. The laUer measure, introduced in the Senate by ten members of the body, would raise the operation op-eration and maintenance cost of a classroom unit per year from $3300 to $3800. With a total to-tal of 5754 classroom units in the state, this would mean that another $2,887,000 would have to be raised to cover the uniform uni-form school fund cost. An additional ad-ditional increase from $675,000 to $1,000,000 for transportation of school children is sought, and that would extend the income and corporation and fianchise tax collections. The land board collections on school property and surpluses are counted up each year and after that, the remaining amount necessary to finance the basic school program comes from a combined state-district state-district property tax levy, uniform uni-form over the state. It should be noted that Governor Gov-ernor Lee, in his plea for income in-come tax reduction, said a general gen-eral fund surplus could be tossed into the school fund to eliminate necessity of a property pro-perty tax increase at the present pres-ent rate of $3300 per classroom unit. Meanwhile, in action so far, the legislature has looked to the j rural areas by passing a measure meas-ure to permit creation of fire protection districts within and between counties. It also passed a bill to raise pay of lawmakers from $300 to $500 a year. i in addition to taxation matters, mat-ters, the problem of reapportionment reappor-tionment appeared likely to present pre-sent itself. One bill already has 'appeared in the Senate. That would provide for two senators from each of the presently constituted con-stituted 15 Senatorial districts and a realignment of representatives represen-tatives on the basis of one for each 10,000 inhabitants as in the present law. This would decrease Salt Lake county representatives in the Senate from seven to two, would leave Utah and Weber at two each and increase all other districts from one to two. with the membership increasing trom 23 to 30. House membership would jump from 60 to 76, with Salt Lake County the big gainer, gain-er, going from 19 to 28 mem-fccrs. mem-fccrs. Eleven senators sponsored the bill, which is one less than a majority. Senator Gibson was the only senator outside of Salt Lake, Utah and Weber counties coun-ties not on the measure. It is p;eneTally conceded that Carbon county .representation will hold the key to the entire reapportionment reappor-tionment problem. |