Tentative recommendation given
New tax formula proposed
TOPEKA (UPI)—A House bill providing a new distribution formula for state motor fuel tax revenue received a tentative recommendation Tuesday from the Senate Transportation and Utilities Committee, but may still be in trouble on two counts.
Opponents will appear today at a hearing which committee chairman E. W. Strahan, R-Salina, has said may affect the committee's final decision.
And a spate of amendments which the committee did not adopt may turn up as a separate
new bill introduced by the Senate Waves and Means Committee
The Transportation and Utilities Committee has thus far left the measure exactly as it was passed by the House last month. Urban counties would get a bigger slice of the annual $84 million
Russian program continues
An intensive Russian language program in the Soviet Union will be conducted this summer for the fifth year.
The University of Kansas and the University of Colorado will sponsor the program in cooperation with the Council on International Educational Exchange.
Eight credit hours from either University will be given for the
Mar. 11
1970 KANSAN 7
program, which includes six weeks at Leningrad State University and two weeks of travel in the Soviet Union. At the end of the program in the Soviet Union, the group will travel together to Vienna, Germany, separate for a week of independent travel and then meet in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Those participating in the program will depart from New York by air on June 22 and return Sept. 4.
will be given weekly, with emphasis on conversation, grammar, difficult problems in the Russian language, classes in translation and phonetic work with a specialist. Classes will be limited to eight to 10 students. Both Russians and Americans from KU and CU will be on the faculty.
state motor fuel tax revenue, and each of the state's 105 counties would get at least $20,000 a year.
During the stay in Leningrad,
24 hours of language instruction
Admission is open to both undergraduate and graduate students who have completed 20 semester hours of course work in Russian or the equivalent.
Almost half the annual revenue (43 per cent) returned to local government would go to cities on the basis of population, and the remainder to the counties on a formula based on dollar amount of motor vehicle registrations and average daily miles driven in each county.
The bill would raise an additional $2.3 million by cutting in half the so-called three per cent shrinkage allowance granted to motor fuel distributors for loss of fuel through evaporation or other reasons. This sum would go into a special county equalization fund to guarantee that no county receives less than its current share.
The spurned amendments were proposed by Sen. Dave Owen, R-Overland Park, who said he will take them to the Ways and Means Committee for possible introduction in the form of a new bill.
$200,000 more in the county equalization fund, and rectify what he feels to be a technical flaw in the House bill which provides for counties to receive only three payments annually instead of the stipulated four.
Owen's changes would put
Strahan vigorously opposed Owen's motion to introduce the amendments in a separate bill through the Ways and Means Committee, which is the only Senate committee which still can introduce bills this late in the session.
Owen objected to coupling his amendments on to the House bill on grounds the revised measure would encounter difficulty in a joint conference committee.
"If this bill goes into a conference committee, it's dead," Owen said.
"If this bill can't stand the light of day in a joint conference committee, then that means there are still serious problems in it," said Strahan, who told committee members that Owen's proposed amendments represent an improvement in the bill.
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