The age-herald., 1900-12-09
THE MANAGEMENT
 OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS

for instance, the elevator man. He was getting 800 a year, whereas no business house in Baltimore was paying over 5000 or $700 a year. Or, take the water board. By simply Investigating and reducing the operations of the department to a business basis it was found that an entire bureau could be dispensed with without the slight est injury to the service This point want especially to emphasze-that with all the cutting down of salaries and the saving, in this, of over 5000 week to the taxpayers there has been a distinct improvement in the public service, and the rate of compen- sation to those who are in the employment of the city is still higher today than 1t is in the business houses. Thus it is seen that simply through investigations which IS the first point in an economical admins tra ation over 5000 for every working day or the year has been saved to the people or Baltimore. After investigation the next point was, and should always be, competi- ton. This is best illustrated by an actual case which has a certain humorous nter- est with all it's importance, found that the people of Baltimore were paying entirely too much for electric lights. Apparently there was no recourse, because there was no competition. One company controlled the situation and dictated to the city what 1t should pay. They assessed us at the ex- orbitant rate of $1N per light
 ''ro get around this difficulty required
  proud of the result. l appointed a Munl- cipal Lighting Commission and had pre- liminary report from it advocating muni- cipal plant. This suggestion Of munlcl- pal plant was then exploited somewhat volIminously in the local newspapers. There was really very interesting discus sion of the whole matter. Of course. the monopoly knew perfectly well that It would take some years to establish sucn a plant, and as the time for submitting oI
 
 ground and of its high charges. Then got the men who drew up the specifications for bids for lighting the city 10 make them hroea eaeueA te covSe iiiuns6atSs0 oy gas There are, as all know, several gas inven- lions that make practically as good light as electricity. The municipal-plant discus sion disturbed the monopoly, but the new specifications caused 1t to initiate the ex- ample of the coon when DaVid Crockett went hunting. It came down ana the con- sequence is that on the new contract we have saved to the people of Baltimore over $200, ,000"
 Another plan which MT. Hayes found of great advantage to the city was that~ot paying cash for everything He tells how 1t was done, as follows:
 ''For years Baltimore had been living on borrowed money; collecting floating debts until they had to be funded, and thus in creasing the bonded obligations of the city. It was<wild extravaganza; but 1t was one of those evil arrangements WuCh lHS dfSi age taxpayer can never fully understand or appreciate until the tax bill comes in. It took heroic work to make the change, but we have done 1t in less than year. When the new charter went into erect the finances were in a wretched condition, an enormous funded debt existed and there was a tax rate which was not only oppres- Rve but which made unmarketable, in the opinion of some, real estate which had to bear the brunt of taxation. I made the point that the city finances should be re- duced to cash basis, and that it could be done. In the face of some opposition and many doubts we succeeded in accomplish ing this end to the further saving of thou sands of dollars for the people,
 Shortly after his inauguration, MT. Hayes says, he discovered that the deposit banks holding the citys money were not required to pay interest upon deposits in excess of 5,000 so that in each bank $25,- OO0 of the city's money was exempt from the payment of any interest. This meant