| 
| 
FOREST TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 315 
multiplicity of local units. Insofar as State aid yields a measure of 
relief from the effects of these maladjustments, it serves to delay 
their correction. 
State aid has, for instance, served to perpetuate the use of the 
town as a road unit. In Wisconsin, State aid to towns for highway 
purposes, from 1926 to 1931, amounted to $25 per mile. In 1931 
the aid was increased to $50 per mile, and the town officers were 
given complete control over the expenditure of the money. The 
result, to cite one example, is that State aid for town roads in Wash- 
burn County for 1932 was approximately the same as the total cost 
of town roads in 1930. Many of the towns now levy little or no 
road taxes, and in 11 towns the aid amounts to about $7,500 more 
than their average annual town road costs for the period 1926 to 
1930, inclusive (168). This increase in road expenditures, when paid 
by someone else, becomes more questionable when it is recognized 
that Washburn County is one in which population, the number of 
farms, and the area of land in farms has been declining since 1920. 
In a similar way State aid has perpetuated small school districts. 
In New York 1-teacher districts with expenditures of $1,500 or less 
for purposes other than retirement of debt receive a State orant 
equal to the amount by which such expenditures exceed a 4-mill tax 
on full value, provided that no district receives less than $425. In 
1930-31 a representative eroup of six hundred and seventy-four 
1-teacher districts obtained 58 percent of their funds from State aid, 
whereas 7 consolidated rural school districts received only 28 percent 
of their revenue from the State (112, pp. 6, 8, 22). 
In referring to this New York system of equalization, Compton 
(117, p. 182) says: 
There can be no doubt that the recently enacted increase in State aid for 
schools was needed; yet there is doubt that it would have been needed if wae 
education system had been organized along twentieth-century lines * * 
It may be expected that any unqualified i increase in State aid will tend to thee 
entrench the present district system. Such increases remove the incentive to 
consolidation. 
The Institute of Public Administration, in its recommendations 
relative to the reorganization of local government in the State of 
New York (124, p. 7), declares: 
State aid is a dangerous palliative for the failure to coordinate work and 
resources. Large amounts of State aid cannot be distributed without the 
preparation of elaborate formulas, rules and regulations, supervision, and audit. 
Nor can it be long maintained without further encouraging extravagance and 
cme responsibility for the maintenance of balanced budgets and reasonable 
aXes. 
State aid has undoubtedly helped to perpetuate a multiplicity of 
local taxing units, which were created to serve another generation 
and are now no longer needed. As a tax-equalizing proposition it is 
a makeshift and should be so considered. 
REDISTRIBUTION OF FUNCTIONS 
It has already been pointed out that the general pattern of local 
government for rural areas was designed more than a hundred years 
ago, when the difficulty of travel made it necessary to bring the 
authority and services of government very close to the people. Not 
only was it necessary that the officials be close by, but the character 
