The Times News

STATE FUNDED 8 MONTH TERM IS SPONSORED
MacLean Will Offer and Urge Adoption of Measure Is Believed
By J. C. BASKERVILL
The Times-News Bureau
Sir Walter Hotel
RALEIGH, Jan. 28.-A state supported, state controlled eight months school term, which will remove all property taxes for school purposes except in the larger special charter districts, will undoubtedly be proposed and its adoption urged by Senator A. D. MacLean, it became apparent here Friday. It has been expected for several months that Senator MacLean would make this move sooner or later, since he made several speeches before the general assembly opened in which he said that the next and most logical step from the state supported six months school term was to a state supported eight months school term. It was Senator MacLean who proposed and put through the now famous MacLean law in the 1931 general assembly providing for the support of the six months school term without any taxes on property, although the 1931 general assembly eventually failed to carry it out 100 per cent.

It is evident, however, that Senator MacLean's interest in advocating a state supported eight months school term is not based in any interest to help either the schools or the school people, but that it is purely a tax reduction measure. For he admits from the outset that a sales tax will be necessary to put his plan into effect and that its success "will depend upon what kind of a sales tax is enacted."

The primary purpose for which the state-supported eight months school term is being advocated by Senator MacLean is that it would remove about $4,000,000 in property taxes now being paid in special tax and charter districts for the support of the extended term. The greater portion of all property taxes, hence of all school taxes, are paid by railroads, power companies, large corporations and large areas of land owned by corporations, especially lumber companies. This is especially true of the special charter and special tax school districts for the extended term schools, which are usually made to include large blocs of corporate property.

It has already been shown that the removal of the 15 cents tax on property for schools, supposed to have yielded about $4,000,000 a year, will remove a total of only about $450,000 a year from the farm owners, about $1,800,000 a year from non-corporate city property owners and about $2,500,000 a year from corporate property owners.

It is also a foregone conclusion that this 15 cents state property tax will be removed. But if the state-supported eight months school term plan goes through and another $4,000,000 in taxes is removed from the property owners, the corporations will benefit even more than from the removal of the 15 cents tax, since the extended term districts are so set up that the heavier part of the tax burden falls on them and less on the farmers and home property owners. It is estimated that if this $4,000,000 is removed, at least $3,000,000 of it will be removed from the larger corporations, such as the railroads, power companies and other large property owners. If a sales tax is substituted for this tax, it is pointed out that these corporations will then pay virtually nothing toward the support of the schools, since they are for the most part non-consumers and hence will not be touched by a general sales tax.

So if the 15 cents state property tax for schools is removed and the state takes over the support of the extended term with a sales tax, a total of approximately $5,500,000 in taxes will be taken off corporate property and transferred to the backs and stomachs of the poorer people in the state, including the farmers and those who work for wages, it is pointed out. Nor is it believed that the corporate interests that will be relieved of this $5,500,000 in property taxes which they have formerly paid toward the support of the schools can be put back on them in the form of "recapture" taxes, as has been urged. The result will be that the corporations will be saved millions in taxes, which the rank and file of the people of the state will have to pay back in the form of a sales tax.

It has been known for several weeks that the big business interests in the state have been and still are urging a general sales tax of some sort to balance the budget and remove the 15 cents tax. It is now apparent that an effort will be made to make this sales tax large enough to also remove the cost of the extended term.

Indications are that the school forces of the state are going to get actively behind this whole plan, evidently in the belief that MacLean is advocating it solely to help the schools and school teachers. The facts are, however, that what MacLean and his colleagues have in mind is to further reduce the cost of the eight months school term so that it will not exceed $20,000,000 a year instead of the $23,500,000 which it is now costing. Some of those who are advocating the state operated and controlled eight months school term maintain that it can be operated for no more than the present six months term, or for about $18,000,000 a year.

So while the school teachers and superintendents seem to be lending their fullest support to this movement to get a sales tax so that the state can operate an eight instead of a six months school system, indications are that they may get fooled. For they may get reduced salaries and have to teach eight months for as much or only a little more than they are now getting for six months and have to pay a sales tax out of these salaries to help support the eight months school term.