towns, receive federal aid from the Alaska fund. It would appear that the remainder of the costs of such schools is borne by the territory and met by territorial appropriations. The legislature biennially makes appropriations for each year of the succeeding biennium. The appropriation for public schools outside incorporated districts is disbursed in the following manner: a sum not less than $300 nor more than $1800 may be assigned to each Nelson school district for the construction and equipment of a schoolhouse. This sum shall be paid out of the appropriation set apart for the establishment and maintenance of public schools. The remainder of said appropriation, or so much thereof as may be necessary, shall be apportioned among Nelson school districts in amounts sufficient for each district to pay the wages of a teacher, the cost of fuel and light for not more than nine school months in any one year.43

Citizenship night schools for adults over sixteen years of age may be established in any district where there is an enrollment of twelve or more. The teacher in such a night school shall receive not more than $4 for each night's instruction of at least two hours. This amount is paid from an appropriation provided for this purpose by the territorial legislature.“

LOCAL AID

Only three sources of local aid appear to have been provided up to the present time in Alaska. "The total amount of the revenue derived on account of taxes levied [by the Federal government] in incorporated towns in the form of business and trade licenses is paid directly into the treasuries of the various municipalities." 45 "The common council of each incorporated town is required, for the purpose of providing public school facilities, to appropriate not less than 25 per cent nor more than 50 per cent of the moneys derived from the issuance of the various licenses in such town.” 46 Taxes. In addition to the appropriations made from the proceeds of license fees, municipalities are permitted to fix and levy separately local taxes for school and municipal purposes, provided, that the aggregate amount thereof does not exceed 2 per cent of the assessed valuation." This policy of permissive taxation which began as early at least as 1913 and which in the beginning was limited to incorporate towns was extended in 1917 to incorporate school districts outside of incorporated towns. In

48 Alaska School Laws, 1919, p. 27, sec. 82.

44 Ibid., p. 29, secs. 90-92.

45 United States Secretary of the Interior, Annual Report, 1916, 1:69-70.

40 W. R. Hood, Digest of State Laws Relating to Public Education, p. 969.

47 Alaska Session Laws, 1913, ch. 69, sec. 1; Alaska School Laws, 1919, p. 21, sec. 56.

that year an act was passed permitting such districts to levy a permissive. school tax not to exceed I per cent of the assessed valuation."

DISBURSEMENT OF SCHOOL AID

Any account of the disbursement of school aid must take into consideration at least three questions: how aid is disbursed, i.e., the methods and the bases employed in disbursement; the conditions which must be fulfilled by the receiving corporations in order to share in the aid; uses to which the moneys received may be lawfully applied. Preceding paragraphs describing the various federal and territorial funds have set forth the methods and bases by which such funds are disbursed and have also indicated many of the uses to which these funds may be lawfully applied.

USES OF SCHOOL MONEYS

Federal appropriations.-In considering the disbursement of federal appropriations for education in Alaska, it must be borne in mind that such appropriations are restricted to schools for natives. It must be borne in mind also that such schools are for adults as well as for children. The range of subjects to which federal appropriations for education are applied may be seen from the following table of expenditures.

TABLE III

EXPENDITURES FROM THE FEDERAL APPROPRIATION OF $200,000 FOR EDUCATION OF NATIVES OF ALASKA, 1915a

48 Alaska Session Laws, 1917, p. 5, ch. 5, sec. 3; Alaska School Laws, 1919, p. 21, sec. 59.

USES OF SCHOOL MONEYS

Incorporated towns.-As noted above, the common council of each incorporated town is required to appropriate not less than 25 per cent nor more than 50 per cent of the moneys derived from license fees for the purpose of providing for public schools. The lawful uses of such moneys are implied in the powers conferred upon the board of education which includes the power to employ teachers, provide fuel and light, and to do everything else necessary for the maintenance of schools.49

It has been indicated that there is refunded to every incorporated town, city, or school district, from the territorial treasury, 75 per cent of the total amount expended by each such political corporation for the maintenance of public elementary schools, high schools, and normal high schools. The law specifically excludes from maintenance costs, and thereby, in effect, forbids that moneys provided by the territory be used for expenditures for the following purposes:50

I. Levying and collecting taxes

2. Conducting regular or special school elections

3. Providing or furnishing living quarters for teachers and janitors

4. Taxes paid upon real estate used by the schools

5. Prizes given to the pupils

6. Other expenditures which the Territorial Board of Education may, by regulation, class as not being proper expenditures for maintenance.

The laws fail to indicate any purposes to which moneys raised by local tax levies in incorporated towns either shall or shall not be applied.

CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION

No incorporated town, city, or school district shall be eligible for a 75 per cent maintenance cost refund unless it shall submit annually before July I to the commissioner of education a detailed statement of proposed expenditures for the maintenance of schools. Such detailed statement shall be submitted in duplicate and shall set forth the salaries of all school employees and proposed expenditures for fuel, light, water, school books and supplies, janitors' supplies, manual training, domestic science, library repairs, and for miscellaneous purposes. No refund of territorial moneys shall be made to any school board for expenditures not previously approved by the commissioner of education.51

49 W. R. Hood, Digest of State Laws Relating to Public Education, p. 969.

50 Alaska School Laws, 1919, p. 34, sec. 109.

51 Ibid., 1919, p. 34, sec. 108.

Many mattters relating to the disbursement of school moneys will become more intelligible if viewed in the light of the following data which present briefly some of the most significant facts regarding expenditures.52 In the year 1919-20 there were in Alaska in incorporated towns and districts 16 schools employing 98 teachers with an enrollment of 2061 pupils. The average number of pupils per school was 129. The average cost of maintaining each school was $12,719.88. The average cost per pupil was $98.75. The total maintenance cost of such schools was $203,518.91. The average length of school year was 8.8 months.

In the year 1919-20 there were, outside incorporated towns and districts, 52 district schools employing 65 teachers with an enrollment of 1357. The average number of pupils per school was 26. The average cost of maintenance per school was $2433.07 and the average cost per pupil was $93.23. The total cost of maintaining such schools was $126,519.86, the average length of the school year for these schools was 8.59 months.

We may well conclude our account of public school finance in Alaska with the following tables. The first of these shows the growth in total expenditures for public schools and in expenditure per pupil enrolled from 1910-20. The second table presents an analysis of total expenditures of all receipts. It will be noted that the total expenditure here given and taken from the report of the United States commissioner of education does not agree with that already presented, which was taken from the report of the governor of the territory of Alaska.

a United States Commissioner of Education Report, 1910, 2:1350, Table 2.

b Ibid., 1917, 2:81, Table 15.

e Computed.

4 United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1922, No. 29, p. 43, Table 26; ibid., pp. 44-45.

52 The immediately following data are taken from the Report of the Governor of Alaska to the Secretary of the Interior, 1920, pp. 66-67.

TABLE V

ANALYSIS OF ALASKA RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 1920

a United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1922, No. 29, p. 28, Table 19.

$ 13,150 244,372 72,300

$329,822

14,000

$343,822

b Ibid., p. 25, Table 17.

e Ibid., p. 43, Table 26.

In the opening paragraph of the present account it was noted that approximately four fifths of the school population of this territory are not in average daily attendance upon schools. But for those whom Alaska succeeds in getting into her schools, funds are liberally provided. In 1920 the expenditure per pupil enrolled for current school costs in Alaska was $98.16;53 whereas, for the same item in the United States as a whole the expenditure was less than half this amount, namely, $40.90.53 In the same year the average annual salary paid to teachers in Alaska was $1325.54 This was a higher average salary than that paid by any state in the Union. The two states paying the highest average salaries in 1920 were New Jersey and Arizona. In the former of these the average salary was $1282 and in the latter $1274.

3 United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1922, No. 29, p. 43, Table 26. Ibid., p. 19, Table 12.