Blanket Tax Vote Monday
The following article appeared in the May 12, 1933, issue of The Rice Thresher . It appears in its original grammatical form.
Shall the Blanket Tax at Rice Institute be reduced to $8 or $8.40 and made compulsory? This is the question which will be submitted to the students Monday in which every student in school will be eligible to vote.
Two questions which will be asked the students on the ballot are:
(1). Are you in favor of a compulsory blanket tax of $8.00 to be paid by every student instead of the present optional blanket tax of $18.00?
(2). If a compulsory blanket tax should go into effect, do you want to add 40 cents to the $8.00 to provide for The Owl, making the tax $8.40?
The results of the election will not be mandatory but will merely show the attitude of the student body. If, however, the result is favorable to the compulsory tax, it will serve as a petition to the Board of Trustees. Officials believe that if the students show they are heartily in favor of the new plan, the petition will have considerable weight with the board.
The compulsory $8 or $8.40 tax would include everything which the present $18 fee covers. This includes admission to all home athletic contests; subscription to the campus publications, The Thresher, Campanile and Owl; the right to vote in any and all elections, and to hold office. Part of it also goes to support the student government and campus organizations such as the Band, Woman's council, Engineering show, etc.
Originators of the compulsory tax point out that the greatly reduced price is made possible by the increased number of taxes sold.
The apportionment of the $8 (or $8.40 with The Owl) of the new tax is as follows:
Athletic association, $4.20; Campanile, $2.50; Thresher, 65c; Owl, 40c; Engineering show, 10c; Woman's council, 10c; and Incidentals, 5c. A comparison of these figures with those based on an $18 charge may be found on Page 3.
Provided the reduced tax is adopted, it will be necessary to provide 800 additional seats for students at important (or sell-out) games. These seats could be sold at $2 cash, making the association take a loss of $1600 per sell-out game. The association, however, believes in the new low tax and is willing to take the losses.
If The Owl should be voted down and is left off it will continue on a subscription basis.
The tax will have practically no effect on The Thresher since it already prints 1350 copies or over on each issue.
It will be necessary to print 1350 copies of the The Campanile whereas only 600 have been printed this year.
Should the new tax be adopted, all students in school will have the right to elect student association, publication and class officers and to vote in the May Fete elections. This would be the first time in the history of the school that all students have been able to express their opinions on important questions.
Blanket Tax Figures
Existing Proposed Existing Proposed apportion- apportion- total total ment per ment per (550 blan- 1350 blanket tax blanket tax ket tax) students
Athletic Association $8.00 4.20 4,400.00 5,670.00
Campanile 5.65 2.50 3,107.00 3,375.00
Thresher 1.50 .65 825.00 877.50
Owl 1.00 ----- 550.00 -----
Band 1.00 .40 550.00 540.00
Eng'g. Show .25 .10 137.50 135.00
Woman's Council .20 .10 110.00 135.00
Incidentals .40 .05 220.00 67.50
Totals 18.00 8.00 9,900.00 10,800.00
This item appeared in the Anniversary section of the March 29, 1996 issue.
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