in full force on and after its approval by the governor."[1] It was not at all strange that its efforts so far as correcting under valuations was concerned had been utterly futile, for the act creating it had provided, "but said board shall not reduce, nor shall it increase the aggregate valuations, except in such amount as may be reasonably necessary to a just equalization." It had no authority whatever over the earlier stages of assessment. The legislature of the succeeding year attempted the enactment of a law constituting the governor, secretary of state and state treasurer, a board of equalization, but with no adequate authority, and without such adjustment as would have made it possible for these state officials to have attended to such additional duties. It was wisely vetoed by Governor Geer, who, in his message of 1901, recommended a plan, involving the assessment against each county, for state purposes, an amount in proportion to its wealth or population providing that the first taxes collected shall be paid on the state tax.[2] The legislature of 1901, responded to Governor Geer's suggestion with the first enactment of an expenditure or local revenue basis of apportionment of the state taxes. Reports were to be made to the isecretary of state, of the county expenditures each year, excepting at first those for roads, and later those also for the erection of court houses, those on account of pestilence or epidemics and those for payments of interest and the principal of county indebtedness. The ratio that the average of such expenditures for five years for each county bears to the average of the total of these expenditures for all the counties shall determine the ratio of the state taxes that such each county respectively shall pay. However, a provisional set of ratios based upon preceding county assessments was to be used until the data for expenditures covering a period of five years had been accumulated. The law of 1901, named 1905 as the first year when
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Finances of Oregon.
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