The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-01-28
SCHOOL MONEYS.


To the Editor of the indianapolis Journal:
In your issue of the 21st you published
q interview with the Hon. A. d. Ogborn.
of New Castle, explaining his bill in re-
gard to loaning the school funds and pre-
senting the following remedy for existing
conditions:
$40 meet this emergency. have drafted
a bill providing that the interest on lonas
from these funds shall be raid at the end of
the year, instead OF in advance: that the
amount which may be loaned TO any person
or company shall be raised from $1,000 to
s3OO0 that the fees charged in cases of
mortgage shall be paid out of the interest
on the loans, instead of by the borrowers,
as now: that the borrower may have
the right to pay not less than 10 per cent.
of the principal loaned to him at the
end of any Year during the maturity of the
loan; and that where loans are made In
other counties than that to which the
funds belong 40 per cent. of the appraised
value of The premises offered as security
may be loaned, instead of 25 per cent, as
now provided.
After four years experience in trying
to keep these funds loaned, I am con-
WINGED that nothing short of a reduction in
the interest rate vii. give the necessary
relief, but other changes are both desirable
and necessary The above measure will
not answer because Il makes no provision
to keep cut the money already loaned.
which is now being replaced by per cent.
money, and returning to the county treas
uries at an unprecedented rate. The school
fund must compete In the open market
with other money. and to that end al:
restrictions which hinder the loaning of
it, or make it less desii able must be re-
moved Why collect the fees at all? They
ar 2 recorder. a
clerk $50 for the auditor, and the cost of
appraising. BY basing the loan on the APP
praisement made for taxation, these fees
may all be abolished without loss TO any
one as the fees go to the county, and not
to the officer, and it is vital to the county
that these funds be kept loaned. In my
judgment it will be safe to loan 70 per
cent. of the appraised value, including i'm
provements Of the same be insured for the
benefit of the school funds), the taxable
value rarely exceeding IS per cent. of the
real value. In case the Auditor be In
doubt about the sufficiency of the security
offered, let the matter be referred to the
board of commissioners and county at
torney, whose duty il should be to pass
on all abstracts submitted, which abstracts
should be certified to date when presented.
The provision for loaning in adjoining
counties is practically dead letter now.
and ii the interest rate be reduced will be
entirely unnecessary. If. as the senator
suggests, the revenues be curtailed, it will
be no greater hardship to provide for il
by direct taxation than to collect the
interest in that way, as is now the case
1t will be remembered that the rate of
interest has been changed at different times
In the past to meet the same emergency
school revenues have not been seriously
impaired, and now 1t is the conviction of
financiers generally that ali interest rates
will be lower for the coming decade than
ever before, and in place of borrowers seek
ing loans the condition will be reversed and
loans will seek the borrower.
FRANK o. MAXWELL.
Charlottesville, Ind, Jan. 20.