Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1916 [PAGE 234]

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234

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

[Apr.

27,

the mill tax for the support of the University (see p. 187 of the 27th report of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois for the two years ending June 30, 1914), I stated that the State Auditor had informed us that the tax had been levied for 1912 on a total State assessment of $2,343,673,232, and that if the mill tax were fully collected it would yield in round numbers $2,343,673.23. Deducting from that sum four per cent of the amount for costs of collection, ordinary abatements, including errors, insolvencies, forfeitures, commissions, etc., the sum we might expect to realize would be $2,249,926. It was upon the basis of this estimate for both years that the bill was finally passed by the Legislature appropriating the sum of $2,250,000 per annum from the proceeds of the mill tax. According to the last report of the Auditor of Public Accounts dated December 31, 1914, the net amount realized and paid to the State Treasury on the tax levy of 1912 was $2,267,004.17 (see statement No. 18, page 125). This sum was available for the use of the University July 1, 1913, to cover the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1913, and ending June 30, 1914. At the time the report was made by the Auditor, it was not certain what the total assessed valuation of the property of the State for taxable purposes would amount to for the year 1913, and the Legislature appropriated for that year the same sum as for the preceding—namely, $2,250,000, or for the biennium $4,500,000. The total assessment of State property, however, for the year 1913, rose to $2,422,361,952, and the mill tax if fully collected would have amounted to $2,422,361. Making the same deduction as for the preceding year, the amount due the University under the mill tax would have been $2,325,467, or $75,000 more than was appropriated, which with the $17,004 yielded by the mill tax for the first year more than was appropriated, would make a balance in the Treasury unappropriated on June 30, 1915, of $92,471. According to the Auditor's report, above referred to, for December 31, 1914, statement No. 21, the amount charged to the mill tax, which I take it included the back taxes, as well as the mill tax due on the assessed valuation, amounted to $2,451,888.66 ; but the amount collected was only $2,241,637.62 as stated in that report, representing a deficiency of $210,251 on collections of the year, or a sum less than the amount appropriated for the year by $8,363. This was balanced, however, by the $17,000 produced by the mill tax fund in excess of the appropriation for the preceding year, so that if there had been no collections later than the date given in the Auditor's report we should have come out with about $8,000 balance in the amount yielded by the mill tax for the biennium in excess of our estimate. The sum of $2,422,361, which would have been yielded by the tax levy of 1913 if it had all been collected, was available for the use of the University from July 1, 1914, to June 30, 1915, and that is the basis upon which we have been running for the fiscal year which closes June 30, 1915. From later, statements from the Auditor's office, it appears that much of this money which was deficient when the statement (No, 21, page 131) was made, has been paid- in. From a letter received from him dated March 31, 1915, it appears that on March 1 the unexpended appropriations of the.mill tax fund amounted to $723,993.91. The amount of the University fund on hand in the Treasury at that date was $934,473.96. There will be, therefore, in the mill tax fund on June 30, 1915, an unappropriated balance of $210,480.05 from the tax levies of 1912 and 1913. The tax levy for the year 1914 was based on a total, equalized assessment of $2,455,745,799. The mill tax therefore would yield, not counting cost of collection, $2,455,745 for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1915. Deducting four per cent as before, we may reasonably expect the sum of $2,357,516 from the yield of the mill tax for the said academic year. The total equalized assessment rose from $2,343,673,232 in 1912 to $2,422,361,952 in 1913, and to $2,455,745,799 in 1914, i. e., it rose about $80,000,000 in round numbers from 1912 to 1913, and $35,000,000 from 1913 to 1914. Under date of March 31, 1915, the Auditor writes, "It is impossible at the present time to estimate what the assessment rolls for 1915, 1916, 1917 will amount to. But I will be greatly disappointed if as a result of the quadrennial assessment on lands and lots, which commences to-morrow, the total assessment of the State is not increased from three to five hundred million dollars. At all events I think it would be safe to count on $2,700,000 for 1915, and for the ensuing two years the increase as evidenced by past assessments would be from ten to forty million dollars each year. Taking an assessment of $2,700,000, it would be safe to say that the University mill tax would net $2,575,000 per annum (from 1915 on)." If we should count only four per cent, 'the mill tax would yield for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1916, the sum of $2,592,000. Taking the estimate then for the yield of the mill tax for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1915. at $2,357,516, and for the fiscal year beginning July 1. 1916, at $2,592,000, the total expected yield of the mill tax for the biennium would be $4,949,516, which with the $210,000 estimated by the Auditors as likely to be in the Treasury unappropriated on June 30, 1915, makes a total of $5,159,516. I am proposing to our renresenta fives, therefore, to introduce a bill exactly similar to that passed by the last Legislature, except that in accordance with the vote of the board, I have asked that the appropriation be made in a lump sum, and that the unappropriated balance on hand July 1. 1915, be appropriated for the work of the first year, and the same reads as follows: A BILL For an Act making appropriations for the University of Illinois. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Peonle of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: That there be and is hereby appropriated to the University of Illinois for the biennium beginning July 1, 1915, the sum of five million one hundred and fifty-nine thousand five hundred and sixteen dollars. ($5,159,516), pay-