Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1919 — SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1919. [ARTICLE]

SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1919.

MUCH LITIGATION BECAUSE OF. LEGISLATURE’S BLUNDERS. Indianapolis, May 1. More concrete evidence of the inefficiency of the seventy-first Indiana general assembly which Governor James P. Goodrich boasted was the “best session in the last 50 yiears,’’ is coming to light. Until the acts are printed and carefully scanned there will be no accurate means of telling how many serious blunders were made. It .is a certainty that much litigation will arise over the failure of the “best legislature in the last 50 years” to take the precautions that should have been observed. Failure of the legislature to take Into consideration the numerous other laws that would be affected by the passage o's the new tax law with its “true cash value” assessment provision is resulting in a chaotic state of affairs. The most recent of these conflicts disclosed Is that of the relation between the tax law and the library commission Jaw. Unless some “healing” opinion is obtained from Attorney-Gen-eral Stansbury before next year approximately 200 libraries scattered over the state and operated under the library commission law will be running on illegal tax levies. In framing the library law several years ago it was deemed necessary to fix a minimum tax levy for towmships desiring to establish and maintain a free public library. The minimum set was 5 cents on the SIOO of assessable property. At present the average levy certified by the various local library boards to the township advisory boards is 7% cents. i , Under the 'working of the new tax law the assessed property on the duplicate will be increased from 100% to 125%, the state board of tax commissioners estimate. The new tax law contemplates this increase in assesments and in order to prevent the raising of too much taxes provides that no taxing unit

can raise more money next year than it collects this year. This means that the tax levy must be decreased in the same rate that the value of assessable property is increased. Thus the library levy next year will necessarily, under the new tax law, be decreased. If the prediction ocf the tax commission materializes the average library levy will be less than 5 cents. Therefore it will be under the minimum. There is no specific provision in the new tax bill that would make a levy less than the minimum legal. The tax commission merely hopes that the tax law can be so construed that the minimum levies will be nullified.

The attorney-general and Mr. 'Hendren of the state board of accounts are being called upon to patoh up as. far as possible the failures of the governor’s '“best legislature in the last 50 years.” Some have suggested that it is no wonder the governor insisted upon being given authority to appoint the attorney-general since It appears that he needs one so to straighten out the mass of errors that were made by his personally conducted legislature. Another glaring mistake by the “best legislature in the last 50 years’’ has just come to light and it probably will be necessary to convene the attorney-general and Mr. Hendren in special session to make things right.

A conspicuous example of thoughtlessness on the part of the legislature was demonstrated in the passage of the town and township school deficiency fund law. This law when considered in connection with the tax law becomes so involved that state officials fear that the poorer towns and townships of the state* will not receive state aid next February. Instead of approximately $250,000 in the deficiency fund being distributed to the poorer school corporations, as the legislature intended, the money will revert to the general school fund. In the c&se off this law the trouble arises from the fact that no township will be able to qualify for state aid because it does not have the required local tuition levy. Under the old deficiency fund law a town or a township was required to have, a tuition levy of at least 25 cents in order to make a claim for state aid to complete a six months’ school year. But the last legislature, not thinking of th? passage of the* new tax law, increased the minimum levy to 50 cents. This was done so that the municipalities would be compelled to stand a part of the Increased expense due to the enactment of a new teachers’ minimum wage law. If the tax system had not been changed the deficiency law would have been all right. The trouble again comes from the Increased assessments iresulting from the “true cash value” plan. The township that would attempt to qualify by setting up a 50-cent levy would be collecting about four or five times as much money as would have been collected under the assessment system formerly in vogue. The result would be that the school corporation in question

would have more than enough to operate Its scfhoola and the plan of state aid would be defeated. But thia can not result because of the other feature of the tax law restricting the amount of money that can be raised. For instance, if a township raised >4,000 with a 25cent levy last year and the assessed valuation of the property in that tow nah bp is doubled this year there would be only one thing that could happen under the new tax law. The tuition levy in this case would be decreased to 12 Vi cents. This is another problem for the attorney-general to work out In order to save the poor towns and townships when the annual distribution is made.