TABLE XXIX INVESTMENT OF THE MONEY PRINCIPAL OF THE SWAMP LAND FUND, 1922a MONEYS AND SECURITIES VALUE Cash in state treasury, less outstanding warrants Land contracts Bonds State of Virginia ($100,000) Minnesota school districts, townships, counties, etc. State Board of Relief, certificates of indebtedness $ 29,190.70 3,195,956.75 96,980.00 4,531,409.00 95,000.00 25,000.00 100,000.00 50,000.00 ICO,000.00 $8,223,536.45 a Unpublished data furnished by the state auditor's office. School land, care and sale.-All state lands, including the school lands, are under the general supervision of the auditor of the state, who has charge of the leasing and sale of them. The amount to be sold in any year is limited to 100,000 acres, and no pine land can be sold until the timber has been sold. The law puts a minimum valuation of $5 on the school land and swamp land of the state.21 At no time, however, have lands been sold without having been appraised. School land losses.-Minnesota reports are very emphatic in their reiteration of the fact that the principal of the permanent school fund has never lost even one cent of money. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the land and timber belonging to that fund. Serious losses have occurred through frauds connected with the management of the state lands. These losses have been for the most part in the form of timber. Only such part of them as has been proved can be computed, and the real total is undoubtedly much larger than any records show. In 1893, a joint resolution of the state legislature appointed a committee to investigate frauds charged in the sale of timber from state lands. When this committee reported to the governor in 1894, it had already succeeded in collecting $30,526.29, had suits pending to the amount of $157,284.28, and was preparing suits for $205,076.44, for timber illegally taken from state lands.22 It reported that it had not been able to cover all cases nor all parts of the state, and added: 21 Ibid., p. 1135, sec. 5402. 22 Report of the Pine Land Investigating Committee, p. 78. This committee believes that the school fund of the state has been robbed of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of valuable timber, for which no return has ever been made to the state; that thousands of acres of valuable farming lands have been depreciated in value by reason of the removal of such timber, and rendered practically unsalable, and that, in the aggregate, the direct loss to the school fund of the state, by these reprehensible and unpardonable practices will run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.23 In spite, however, of the work of this committee and of the recognition of its recommendations by the passage of a better timber law in 1895, frauds in the sale of lumber did not entirely cease. In his report for 1915-16, the state auditor writes: Palpable carelessness and frauds in numerous instances have been perpetrated by scalers appointed by the surveyor-general. .. Short scales have been fully as prevalent in cases where the scale has been made by a scaler of the State Auditor. Carelessness and frauds have been extremely common. . . The net result of the activities of the timber investigation during the year extending from October 15, 1915, to October 15, 1916, without considering trespass, penalties, and stump scales not yet reported, have been as follows: Prosecutions under the statutes now upon the books, and above referred to, have been found practically impossible by the attorney-general. It is imperative that the criminal provisions of these statutes be strengthened." State school tax.-The only state tax levied for public schools by Minnesota is a state general property tax of one mill. For thirty-five years, the rate of the state school tax levied by Minnesota has remained unchanged. So far as one may gather from reports, there seems not to have been any particular opposition to the original enactment of the one-mill tax, and it has never been seriously attacked. The increasing revenues yielded by it show how the growth of wealth in the state causes larger and larger returns from the same tax levy; and the diminishing share of school expenditures furnished by it, shows clearly that the progress of public education demands a flexible method of support, one which can be easily adapted to the needs of the schools. 23 Report of the Pine Land Investigating Committee, p. 2. Minnesota State Auditor, Biennial Report, 1915-16, p. xxviii. Table XXX shows the increasing amount of revenue furnished by the state one-mill tax, and the decreasing per cent of total school revenues furnished by it. secured. Eleven months only, due to change in the fiscal year. At the time the present study was completed no statement of total school revenues could be SPECIAL STATE APPROPRIATIONS Appropriations of state aid for public schools in Minnesota are of three kinds. "Special state aid for high, graded, industrial, consolidated, semigraded, and rural schools" is appropriated by the legislature in one lump sum, which is apportioned pro rata among the schools qualifying for aid. In addition to this, the legislature makes other appropriations for specified objects. Some of these are appropriations of specified amounts for each year of the biennium; among such appropriations made by the 1921 Legislature were $225,000 for teacher-training departments in high schools and $32,000 for school libraries. These appropriations are used only for the objects for which they are appropriated, and are not subject to prorating with other special state aid. Besides these, we find one provision for a continuing appropriation from any funds in the state treasury of whatever amounts are due under the law for the relief of certain school districts affected by the gross earnings tax law. In the reports of the State Department of Education, and in all popular discussions, all of these types of appropriations are grouped together and designated collectively as special state aid in distinction from the state apportionment of the income from the permanent funds and the proceeds of the one-mill tax. Such appropriations have been made in Minnesota since 1878. The following table shows the total amount of such appropriations for certain selected years, and the per cent of school revenues furnished by them. TABLE XXXI APPROPRIATIONS FOR SPECIAL STATE AID TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN MINNESOTA, 1890-1921 AND THE PER CENT OF SCHOOL REVENUES FURNISHED BY THEM Table XXXI, above, shows that the amount of the special state appropriations has increased steadily, but the per cent of state revenues furnished by them has increased only from 4.9 per cent in 1905 to 6.4 per cent in 1921. Special state aid in Minnesota has attracted a great deal of attention during the last few years because it must come up for action at every meeting of the legislature, and the amount of aid to be received by any district is always in doubt until the annual appropriation has been prorated. Actually, special state aid furnishes only about the same amount as does the endowment fund, of which far less is heard. Proceeds from forfeitures.-Any insurance company which knowingly insures property for more than its value shall forfeit to the state, "for the benefit of the school fund," twice the amount of the premium collected.25 From this discussion of federal and state sources of school moneys, we turn in our next chapter to the local sources of school revenues. General Statutes of Minnesota, 1913, p. 741, sec. 3323. CHAPTER XI LOCAL SOURCES OF SCHOOL REVENUE COUNTY SOURCES For the United States as a whole, the county is a school unit of increasing importance. The United States Bureau of Education reports that in 1918 the county furnished 7.9 per cent of the total school revenues for the United States; while in 1920, it furnished 9.93 per cent. This probably reflects a growing recognition of the injustice of the district system and a corresponding tendency to make the county the unit for school support./ A county tax, properly so called, is one levied upon the entire property of the county; the proceeds are paid into the county treasury and distributed thence to the districts or to the schools upon some basis, such as attendance, designed to equalize school burdens and educational opportunities. Minnesota's so-called "county one-mill tax" is a one-mill levy required by law, the proceeds of which are returned to the district where they were raised. That is, each district receives all of, but no more than, the amount raised by the tax on its own property. Such a tax is in reality a compulsory district tax, and will be so treated in the present study. In Minnesota, from 1858 to 1874, a so-called "state school tax" was administered as a compulsory county tax. From 1874 to 1919, however, the county, as such, contributed practically nothing to school support. It served merely as a channel through which state funds were distributed to the district, and supplied the officials who administered the "county one-mill tax." The county is the unit through which all school taxes are collected, and to which all levies must be certified on or before October 10 in each year, and through which school funds are distributed to the separate districts. From 1880 on, superintendents of instruction advocated a return to a genuine county tax levy, but without avail. At the present time, only two counties of the state, namely, Itasca and St. Louis, are permitted to levy true county taxes. The two laws which permit this are examples of the special legislation already referred to2 in Chapter IX, which bears witness to the need of radical reforms in Minnesota's school laws. These two laws are themselves good, and are such as the whole state should enjoy. It is a credit to these two counties to have secured their passage, but a great misfortune that neither law is state-wide in application. 1 United States Bureau of Education, Statistics of State School Systems, 1917-18, p. 54. sa See p. 128. |