Show schools must find new revenue warns Edu educator calor of provo taxes on tangible property yield less while school population increases situation serious principal thornton of the farrer junior high school provo told parents and teachers of san juan county that our schools must find a means of new and additional revenue if they are to continue to keep pace with the modern demands placed upon them high lights of his talk are well worth the consideration of residents res dents of juan in 1896 the oi only aly thing we had to tax was tangible property in 1896 we did not know what gasoline was today it is the biggest tax we have but it is tided tied up in the roads the tax on insurance companies goes to provide pensions tor for firemen ahe sales tax goes to relief the schools still depend on the old form of taxes out of every ten dollars for school use nine dollars and forty cents come from the taxation of real property this property has been de valuated u until n we have much less money to run the schools with than we had ten years ago we have nine thousand more students and one million dollars less to educate them since 1926 san juan countes Coun tys taxable property has decreased one million dollars or about 40 per cent salt lake city once had tax taxable able property valued at million dollars this has decreased u until antil now it is worth only one hund hundred red and thirty three million dollars dollars it used to be a rich district 1 I but now is about avera average ge where is school money coming from if property valuation continues to decline last year the only constitutional amendment that passed was the homestead exemption if the governor had not vetoed this amendment our schools would have suffered some states have exempted real property from taxation and as a result of insufficient ici funds have been forced to close school early if our own bill had been put into operation it would have exempted almost every home in this county what would have happened to the schools since school money comes from real property yand and just the kind of property that would have been exempted in san juan county our present revenue for schools would have been almost completely done away with we had better pay for schools than for reform schools and peni tent aries laries records show that the longer children are out of school the more prevalent juvenile delinquency lin quency becomes the state gives san juan county twenty five dollars for each student with the new and additional dit ional contribution of four dollars for each census child the schools in this district are practically state supported if property valuation keeps going down we are going to have less money for schools unless we get another source for school money grand county is practically broke at the present time because the railroads have paid only twenty five percent of their usual taxes because the amendments n now ow in in question provide that the legislature can take care of the sch schools as the state constitution provided turn to page sixteen SCHOOLS MUST FIND NEW REVENUE WARNS OF PROVO continued fron page one in the first place it is necessary that chat we keep people in the legislature that will be favorable toward schools the new amendments do not aim to take the money from land taxation we can find places where the money can be obtained if we get the right people in the legislature we can tie to the minerals this year one hundred and three thousand dollars went from the school fund into the general state slate fund the beasore reason for this is that the constitution would not let the schools use it the amount that can be used for schools is I 1 limited by ta the e constitution think of the good this one hundred and three thousand dollars would havi have done if it could have been distributed to the schools in counties like san juan we have gone just as far as we can without wi hout state or government aid every very person interested in the welfare of schools should join in to show all voters the reason for voting yes on these amendments this f fall all do you know that the small counties like san juan put the equalization bill over this bill is working at present and is greatly aiding education in the poorer districts it is up to the people who have heard the message to see that all others hear it this I 1 hope you will do in it there is light in it there is wisdom principal Pin cipal thornton met with the teachers at Blanding Saturday afternoon ter noon he told them of some of the benefits of the utah education association he praised the teachers retirement bill pointing out that teachers salaries are too low to enable them to save for old age said mr thornton no state in the union gets as much out of its teachers as does utah besides teaching teachers are leaders in boy scout organizations church organizations and many other community activities summer school and other things teachers do to improve themselves are ultimately valuable to the chi child id THE WELFARE OF THE TEACHER AND THE STU STUDENT DENT ARE ONE AND THE SAME |