Arizona republican., 1921-08-10
|MAR|COPA CO. RANKS THIRD
 AS TAXPAYER
Two Circumstances Ad- vance It One Place In List Of Counties-Equal- ization Board Finishes Work

In their rank as taxpayers the larg- CT counties appear in the following order since the state board of equal ization has finished its work: Co., chise. Gila, Maricopa and Yavapai. As the returns were submitted to the board, Maricopa modestly occupied the fourth place and ,evinced no dis position to take precedence over Yav- apai.
 Two circumstances caused the shift One was the increase of the assessment of irrigated lands and town lots in this county as returned, and the other was the lowering of the assessment by s a head of cattle, of which Yavapai has larger num- Der than any other county in the state.
 The larger items of the budget on which the tax levy was calculated are as follows. The public school fund, $1,254,375; the university appropria- tion and maintenance fund, $905. .000; the omnibus road bill $S03, 900; the state road fund, $415. 900; the Tempe normal school an maintenance. $1eS,- 900; the state prison, $155,000; nor thern normal maintenance, $201, 110, the state fair fund, s107, ,669; the hos pital for the insane, s145. .000: the pio- neers' home. $44,000; the industrial school, s44.o0o; land settlement com mission, s50,000; interest fund, $259,- 500: for control of Cave Creek floods, $50, 900; for vocational pursuits in the high and normal schools. $S1 .948.
 There was another fund in which taxpayers might fund some humor if money was a little more plentiful, that it is the appropriation of S40.- 900 which the taxpayers must raise to enable the state to pay the in terest to the state on the money loan ed by the sate to settlers under the Lyman dam. The unbusinesslike cit izen may ask why this matter was not allowed to rest on the books in- stead of the state going through the motion of transferring money from one pocket to another And it makes some difference to- the taxpayer. too. inasmuch a it increases the tax levy by Just so much.
 The board had under consideration the assessment of Tucson lots. but on account of insufficient data in the returns it was obliged to leave them as they stood Earlier rather url- usual thing happened with respect to Tucson town lots Maybe something like that happened before in the his tory of the world. but if so no note was made of it. so that it never got into any record. After these assess ments had been made. citizens of Tue son requested an increase of the val uation by the board for this reason: It appeared that the limit in Tucson of the levy for the general fund is VI on each SIoo of valuation. Tucson needed more money than that on ac- count of the water situation there and had no other way to get it. Valua- tions for city and county purposes must be the same as assessments for state purposes. Therefore Tucson would be bound by any valuation that might be determined by the state board. As Tucson had to have the money it wanted as much of a valua- ton as possible to compute upon.
 It is said that another way out was found so that it was not necessary to resort to this heroic measure.
 Things will come easier next year so fars as concerns any provision for the state fair. That is already taken care of. except for the statutory ap- propriation required and which must equal the amount of the receipts of the fair for the preceding year. But as there will be no fair this year there will be no receipts and so no appro- priation next year.