The Coconino sun., 1922-04-07
STATE OF MADDOCK VS.
 STATE OF ARIZONA

lease on life by appropriating enough
 money to pay the salaries of members
 and attaches for another fifteen days
 which will prolong the session to a
 total of fifty-fve days. The. first ap- | propriation was based on a forty day
 session and even this was objected to
 by the senate, who wanted to provide
 money for thirty day session. Now it transpires that the senate is the
 cause of the lengthening of the ses-
 sion by it's inability to come to an
 agreement on the financial code bill
 and which seems to be in bad shape as far as its results are intended are concerned. The financial code bill provided for re- pealing all the fixed and continuing appropriations, having the legislature appropriate all the money required for all departments of the state govern
 ment at each regular session. It was
 hoped by this method that large saving could be accomplished. When
 everything seemed to be working well with the measure there were assaults
 made on the proposition to interfere with the present provisions made for supporting education and educational institutions in the state and then
 another assault from the state road
 department, headed by State Engineer Tom Maddock, who, it seems, objects
 to anyone having anything to say about how much money shall be spent
 in the state for building roads or how
 much money shall be expended but
 himself.
 MT. Maddock and his road machine
 were responsible for much of the high
 taxes of the past year and it seems to be his policy to continue his extra
 vagant program for building roads re-
 gardless of the ability of the tax payers to meet the tax bills. Now we see that he has been able to wreck the financial code bill so far as it applies to the state road department, leaving him "Lord of All" to say that Arizona shall never waste less in the matter of roads than has been wasted since he has been holding his present position.
 AS we understand the situation, Governor CampbelPs recommenda- tions amounted to about what the f. nancial code provided, that being to put all monies received by the state into the general fund to be paid out only on appropriations made by the legislature from time to time. The governor pointed to large savings which could be made in the educa- tional departments of the state by this method, but it seems that the governor had neglected the import ant matter of consulting his state en- gineer, who now comes into the legis- lature and objects to any attempt to control him or his road funds or poli- cies.
 The outlook now is for almost a complete failure of the legislature in accomplishing the purpose for which It was called. The financial code was intended to provide great saving to the people of the state. The real bur den of taxation during the past year is IS known to have been for the support of the schools and the state road de- partment. If it turns out that possi- ble savings on these accounts are blocked then where will the saving come which was pointed out as possi- ble by the governor when the session Woo CdlSu II Iue Iuanclal cOQe IS to be wrecked, as now seems possible, then we may expect that the state tax rate for next year will remain the same or more than it amounted to last year.
 1t is now known that the assessed value of the state will be greatly re- duced this year from what it was last | year. It is known that there will be | a decrease in almost every class of l and very material decrease in the mine valuation which has been dropping now for the past two years because of the reduced output of cop per in the state. Last year the smell ters of the state were idle for near nine months and this will cut assessed | valuations of that class of property far below what it amounted to last | year. The legislature should take ac- count of this condition and not allow tax spenders to prevent some real re- duction in the matter of future state expense without regard to the bur dens they will be laying on the tax payers. - Douglas International.