Mars Pope, Moab, Utah, Uranium History Series

Page 46

MARS POPE Ill PAGE 43 for ten years. I take it back. We've only got eight years on this one. But it cuts your interest down so much that I think it's better to tax a little more and pay a little quicker, especially if your mill levy isn't too high. Now, we don't have a bad mill levy here for our county. It's only ten mills. Now that covers out deht service and all. But I think if you'd charge mayhe a mill or tw;o extra a year and pay 'em off quicker, you're lots better off. The total levy in the city here is around seventy-four, I think, and two extra mills ought to send-­nobody will hardly notice the difference, and they can pay it off so much faster. SG: Did the mill levy go up once the uranium boom came in because of the---?---? MP: No, no, it went down. When I first went on the commission, we were a little better than fourteen mills and we practically dropped it down to ten. But we're a little low. We can't hardly run on ten. We overestimated our revenues, our sales tax, and our mine leasing tax, like the BLM. We get a certain percent of the money they take in for mineral leases that we can put on the roads.. And then, of course, we had a half a cent sales. tax, and that has dropped to ab.out half. Our mineral leas:ing has dropped a lot. The s.tate has annexed these lands,