Report Urges Less Reliance on State Property Tax
By SANDY HUNTER
Kansan Staff Writer
The Kansas Citizens' Tax Review Commission headed by Frank Carlson, retired U.S. Senator and former governor of Kansas, released Saturday a 114-page report that urges Kansas to rely less on local property taxes and more on stable sales and income taxes to meet government needs in the '70s.
Chifford Clark, dean of the School of Business and member of the commission, said the 22-member commission represented industry, labor, professionals, a number of state organizations and the public. The commission was formed during the summer of 1971 as an independent, self-governing body to study the state and local tax system.
Carlson, in releasing the report to the governor, legislators and public, said the report was "not a mistake."
release of the report was purposefully delayed to keep its findings and recommendations current.
THE COMMISSION studied the current tax structure in Kansas, took a public opinion survey and studied public services needs for the 1970s. The commission recommended a property tax reform and equalization of school finance based on public input. In 1972, the Commission wealth." Clark said that, in general, a redistribution of the tax burden was needed
"Continued economic development and improvement in the quality of life in Kansas will require additional investment in the public sector," the commission concluded.
federal revenue-sharing funds would cover most of this need.
The commission estimated that $140 to $180 million would be needed by 1890 to meet investment requirements. The commission reasoned that it should more sales and income taxes plus expected
THE COMMISSION said that if the proposed new tax rates had been in effect in 1971, they would have raised $22 million from personal income taxes and $47 million from proposed tax plan would have raised about $15 million or 9 per cent more from sales tax, $40 million or about 47 per cent more from personal income taxes and about $12 million or more from corporate income taxes.
The personal income tax impact would be offset because state taxes are deductible in figuring federal income taxes, the commission said.
A nine per cent or $45 million reduction in property tax was recommended by the commission. Under the commission's proposal, property taxes would comprise 46 per cent of the total tax revenue, a reduction of 5.7 per cent from the current 51.7 per cent
cent. Sales taxes would contribute 17.4 per cent, personal income taxes about 12.5 per cent and corporate income taxes about 3.7 per cent.
CLARK SAID the need to improve the property tax situation corresponded with a need to finance education. Determination of school expenditures, by district, should be on an "educational need rather than district wealth basis," he said.
The commission recommended a new school finance formula that relied substantially more on local income taxes than pre-existing federal tax laws and allow school districts with substantive rights to be aided immediately, the report said. According to the commission's report, property taxes in Kansas are high compared with other states. Income and sales taxes are lower in Kansas and study showed that in 1989 property taxes in Kansas were $27 per capital greater than in
the average state, while income and sales taxes were $18 and $3 per capita below the national rate.
THE REPORT said the property tax remained because it raised large amounts from new buyers.
The commission said that to replace the property tax, income taxes would have to increase five times. To replace the property tax for school purposes only, a four per cent increase in the sales and use tax would be required which would double present sales tax rates.
Although the commission believed that the property tax should make up a smaller percentage of state and local aid, it said that it was an important source of revenue. To improve the property tax situation, the commission recommended "uniform criteria by which property is identified for tax purposes."
The solution to the current tax problem, the commission concluded, is "to rely less on property taxes, levy personal and corporate income taxes at the state level, and dominantly state levied tax though limited local on-sales taxes could be permitted.
"The recommended changes are not only on generally accepted criteria and citizen viewpoints, but also on the probable effects of a system during the decade of the 1970s."
Clark, chairman of the commission's executive committee, headed the writing team. Research help came from state, city and university research teams. Research Department and universities. Used extensively by the commission was a research report by a team from Kansas University and the University of Kansas on state and local finances in Kansas.
RAIN
83rd Year. No. 55
The University of Kansas—Lawrence Kansas
Monday, November 13. 1972
'Hawks Tumble To 6th Loss
Differences On Peace Narrowed
See Story Page 5
By GEORGE ESPER Associated Press Writer
SAIGON—U.S. officials indicated Sunday that Washington and Saigon have narrowed differences on a disputed draft agreement with the North Korean war and send American forces home.
Two days of talks between Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr., one of President Richard Nixon's special peace envoys, and President Nguyen Van Thieu appeared the day before for a resumption of private negotiations with North Vietnam in Paris.
The U.S. Embassy issued a statement on Haii's departure saying the talks were "cordial and constructive" but did not elaborate. The statement was interpreted by some here to mean that progress was made toward resolving differences.
A feeling is growing among some U.S. officers, a fearing, a pearing, perched by the end of this month.
There was no official comment on reports that Thieu had agreed to a separate accord between the United States and North Vietnam.
These officials disclosed for the first time that the United States had completed its contingency plans for the recovery of all American prisoners of war and for the withdrawal of all American troops within 60 days after the agreement is signed.
But South Vietnamese officials have said several times in the past that this is always a possibility. Thieu himself has declared that any such bilateral agreement covering the release of American prisoners of war and a hull in U.S. military activity against North Vietnam would be of no concern to his government.
Thieu has emphasized, however, that any bilateral agreement concerning the political shape of South Vietnam would be invalid without his signature.
One sticking point with Thieu in the draft agreement has been a provision that would establish a so-called National Council of Reconciliation and Concord with the general task of helping to promote a maintenance of a cease fire and supervising the elections to which the Saigon and Paris agree. Thieu has maintained that the country would coalition supergovernment that would negate South Vietnam's constitution and National Assembly and allow a gradual Communist takeover.
U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Studies Mud Creek for Channelization
Captives Safe In Hijacking
The twin-engine DC9 carried 26 passengers, four crew members and three hijackers when it landed in Havana shortly after midnight Saturday.
MIAMI (AP) - Weary captives who spend 28 hours on a Southern Airways plane under the guns of three hijackers, returned on Sunday from Cuba. Their ordeal ended with the safe landing of the crippled jetliner on a foam-covered runway in Havana.
Three of those returning were hospitalized. One was copilot Billy Harley "Harold" Johnson, 37, College City, Ark., wounded in the left shoulder by a revolver shot. The officer said she had been told by airline officials that her husband was in good condition.
The landing in Havana climaxed an ordeal which began Friday night over Alabama when the three heavily-armed hijackers took control of the plane and started on an odyssey to eight cities ranging from Toronto to Havana.
The other two were an 83-year-old man who suffered nervous shock and a paused breathing.
The hijackers demanded a $10 million ransom and theatered to crash the aircraft
Southern's Flight 49 was taken over by the hjackers shortly after it left Birmingham, Ala. It was forced to Jackson, Miss., to refuel.
into the Oak Ridge, Tenn., Nuclear Research Laboratories if they didn't get the money. An undetermined amount of money was taken aboard the aircraft at a Chat-Guy, Tenn., stop. The hijackers also attempted to talk with President Nikon but failed.
The hijackers were identified as Henry D. Jackson, 25, and Lewis D. Moore, 27, both of Detroit and both facing charges of assault with attempt to commit rape, and Melvin Cale, 12, Oak Ridge, Tenn., who police said escaped Oct. 29 from a Nashville, Tenn., work-release program while serving a five-year term for grand larceny.
A spokesman for Southern Airways said the hijackers, who were said to be armed with grenades and guns, passed through a metal detection device at the airport. He said he did not know why their weapons were not picked up by the scanner.
Channelization Opposed at Hearing
By CHUCK POTTER
Kansan Staff Writer
In sifting the results of the public hearing on Mud Creek, one conclusion becomes evident: everyone connected with it has been exposed to flood protection of some sort is necessary.
However, widely divergent opinions as to the method of providing flood protection are still being debated.
Ron Klataske of the National Audubon Society said Friday "the Corps will start looking at alternative plans more seriously" after reviewing the many objections to the Corps' proposed "1960 Plan," calls for channelization of Mud Creek.
"The hearing actually was little more than a formality until the Corps saw that a lot of people are opposed to stream channelization," Klatske said. "I think they
will look at the alternatives to chain-
illization much more carefully now."
Colonel W. R. Needham, district engineer of the Corps, said at the hearing that the Corps and the city would make a joint decision about the prosoon next.
THE CORPS and the city have endorsed the 1969 Plan, which the Corps had planned to implement three years ago before enforcement groups forced investigation of alternatives.
Basisically, the 1969 Plan consists of 4.7 miles of stream channelization and 4.3 miles of levee on the right bank of Mud Creek. Mud Creek enters the Kansas River about four miles east of the downtown Lawrence bridge, flowing southeast.
Channel and levee alignments would essentially follow the existing stream channel in the 1969 Plan. Total cost of the plan was estimated by the Plan at $3.16
million, with the Corps paying $2.57 million and the city paying the remaining $340,000 in construction costs. Under "operation and maintenance," the Corps estimated $250,000, which would also be absorbed locally.
KLATASKE TOLD the crowd of over 250 persons at the hearing that stream channelization is a "destructive engineering fad supported by federal funds that threatens the life and beauty of scores of natural streams."
Environmentalist groups objected strenuously to the 1969 Plan Thursday on the grounds that stream channelization is environmentally destructive.
Nuclear Wastes Dumping Ground To Be Proposed by Two KU Profs
Klatakea said Friday he was disillusioned by the Corps' and city's promises to develop land along the Kansas River owned by the city as narkland.
Edward Zeller, director of the Radiaton Physics Laboratory and professor of geology, physics and astronomy, and Gisela Dreschhoff, acting assistant professor of physics and astronomy and research will attend a symposium, sponsored by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), upon the invitation of the Atomic Energy Commission.
From Jackson it hopscotched across three countries and landed at Cleveland, Ohio; Toronto; Lexington, Ky.; Chattanooga, Tenn., and then Havana.
The establishment of a permanent international nuclear waste disposal site near the center of Antarctica will be proposed by two University of Kansas faculty members at a symposium dealing with nuclear wastes Nov. 27-Dec. 1 in Paris.
The proposal, called the International Radionuclide Depository (INTERRAD), is a joint effort by several KU professors, the State Geological Survey and Texas Instruments, Inc. of Dallas. The technical advisory direction would be centered at KU.
By DIANE YEAMANS Kansan Staff Writer
THOUGH many scientists researched the proposal, the three authors are Zeller, D.F. Saunders, manager of the New Program Development Geosciences Operations Services Group at Texas Instruments, and Ernest E. Angino, chairman of the KU geology department and professor of civil engineering.
The IEAa would be the controlling agency, Zeller said. It is preferable, Zeller said, to have one international agency controlling the development and operation of depository rather than let each country deal with such a dangerous problem.
and the business advisory management would be handled by Texas Instruments
INTERRAD is a result of continuing research starting about two years ago when the AEC was studying the salt mine near Lyons as a possible deposit site. Zeller (2016) suggested that in was on the possible damages to the salt itself by the nuclear wastes. Zeller said.
RIGHT NOW, Zeller said, West Germany.
is depositing nuclear wastes in salt beds near Wolfenbuttel.
"The countries using the depository would pay for it according to the amount of nuclear active materials they have," Dreschof said.
There are other country shouldn't? Countries that will be represented at the symposium will be represented at the France, Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, Belgium, Italy, the Soviet Union and the United States. As of Nov. 15, 1970, the IAEA Statute that created the agency
"They may be doing it right," Zeller said, "but what if some other country should22
This is measured in curies, which are measures of radioactive decay in seconds.
ZELLER SAID approval of the proposal was not expected for six months.
The earliest the depository could be in operation would be 1985,he said,because of the large amounts of research and development.
"They're just trying to use that as a bargaining tool," he said. "Besides, we (the National Audubon Society) were the ones who had been able to find that land be developed as a park area."
See NUCLEAR WASTES page 8
The Corps recently promised to develop the area as a "mitigating factor." However, environmentalist spokesmen point out that the risk of a disease should not really be considered a factor.
The alternative plan that seemed to receive the most support at the hearing was referred to by the Corps as "Plan Seven" and the clerk, who was on the levee right bank of the Creek. Under this plan, the creek would not be further channelized and the levee would be built to provide 75 per cent "Standard Project protection" to the North Lawrence area.
THE FIVE alternatives to stream channelization outlined by the Corps at the hearing share three common characteristics: none of them involve challenge; none of them involve less federal expenditure and all of them would be more costly to the city.
purchased for purposes of implementing the 1969 Plan.
THE REMAINING four alternatives outlined by the Corps also involve construction of a levee. Two "diversion" plans, which involve diversion of high mud Creek flows into the Kansas River, were also outlined by the CorpA. However, the cost of such diversions as being substantially greater than that of the five alternatives to the 1960 Plan.
The Corps estimated the cost of Plan Seven at $2.35 million; $1.22 million of federal funds, $1.25 million of city funds and $200,000 for operation and maintenance. The project will cover 30 acres of right-of-way for the project, beyond the 78 acres the city has already
Agence France Press reported from Havana that Fidel Castro was at the airport when the airplane made its first visit to Cuba. AFA said Castro refused to come to the aircraft, as demanded by the hijackers, who apparently grew nervous at the sight of Cuban officials attempting to surround the plane.
As the plane started rolling for a takeoff, FBI marksmen opened fire and struck the plane's landing gear. Big chunks of rubber from the aircraft's wheels and large pieces of wood were on the runway. The plane's oil situation was described then as extremely critical.
Not everyone who listened to environmentalist objections at the hearing was convinced. Walt Massey, who manages the Kaw Valley Fish Farm near Mid Creek, said Friday, "I've been here seven years and seen four major floods and a few minor floods." He added the environment than any amount of stream channelization they want to do.
"They ought to come out here sometime after a flood and see all of the dead animals in it."
An airport source who listened to air-to-ground communications said officials attempted to persuade the hijackers to allow the plane to land again at McCoy.
It landed at Key West and then Orlando. It was followed immediately by a NASCAR race.
The hijackers apparently decided to return to Havana after they failed in their efforts to talk to President Nixon, who was忙碌 at his retreat at Key Biscayne, Fla.
See MUD CREEK page 8
In Atlanta, a Southern Airways
spannermade said Havana landed was
rough.
Candidates' Student Status A Factor in Nov. Election
By LINDA DOHERTY
Kansan Staff Writer
Three University of Kansas students who were successful in last Tuesday's election said being students created no difficulties, but the four KU students who lost said they thought their age or student status was a contributing factor in their defeats.
Mike Manning, former Lawrence graduate student, was selected in his race to win the race. He is by Kendall.
"When you're a 25-year-old notice, it's difficult to find support and money," Manning said. "The name of my opponent has been entrenched in Kansas politics for years. That's part of the problem with Kansas politics—it's such a matter of name identification. Campaign needs to be issue oriented."
Manning dropped out of school when he decided to run for office and he and his wife traveled about 69,000 miles throughout the state for his campaign.
"I THINK I may re-mench second semester," he said, "but I'll have to talk to my adviser first, to see if many hours I have left to take."
Richard Keithley, Lawrence law student who lost his race for the 45th district house seat to Lloyd Buzi, said that being a student was a definite problem in his race.
"law school takes 24 hours a day and a campaign lasts 24 hours a day and you have
Kaitley said he thought it was difficult to determine whether his age was a factor in his defeat, but the exposure his opponent had to financial finance business was hard to compete with.
"I seriously thought about starting my own Richard B. Kekitley pencil factory, just so that I could increase my own exposure," he said.
KETTLHEY AGREED with Manning that there was no more emphasis on sdi- erance training.
See KU POLITICIANS page 8