Need For Elections On, School Funds Hit

There is a basic weakrfess in relying on repeated elections to decide school financing issues, the state's school chief oíd a conference of educators in Ann Arbor Friday. Supt. Ira Polley told the 20th annual Conference of School Board Members and School Administrators that education of children is the most precious item entrusted to society. "Isn't it completely ironie, or perhaps even bordering on insanitv. that we subject this invaluable commodity to the test of repeated elections?" Polley asked. Too often, he said, education issues "become victims of ire of voters resulting from other issues often completely unrelated." "A taxpayer who comes home after a rough day at the shop or office, who finds his dinner burned, who discovers that the televisión tube blew out that afternoon, who reads unusually harsh news about the way things are going in Vietnam, and who has to make out his income tax that evening may be inclined to take a pretty dim view of the f act that his schools are seeking renewal of an eightmill levy for operation," Polley said. Polley said a recently completed school finance studyl recommends what it calis "one rational solution to the problem." "That would be a statewide property tax whose proceeds would be distributed on a perpupil basis to all districts for operating purposes," he said.