Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1909-09-14
MUNICIPAL FINANCES.
EDITOR PILoT:-

good business management for city |
TO pay as it goes as it is for an indi- |
yidual, a merchant or manufacturer,
Every generation has its own bur
dens to bear, and they are increasingly
heavy as a city grows. 1t is there
fore manifestly unjust for one gener-
alton to load its burdens upon coming
generations. To do so is to hamper
or prevent future growth.
Some twenty-five years ago Wausau
constructed the water works. For
this purpose it bonded the city for
$4,000, payable in twenty years. This
is one of the most justifiable cases of
debt contractions because it is a rev.
enue paying enterprise with which to
cancel the debt. From it money be-
gan TO flow into the treasury. A pru-
dent business man would have begun
at once to apply the income to the
liquidation of the debt. Not so, the
city. The politicians turned a trick
to their own advantage. They APP
piled the income to the running ex-
penses of the city in order to make
taxes lower, and thus curry favor
with the voters at the next election.
Al the end of the twenty years the
bonds were due and there was no
money to pay them. The politicians
wanted the backing of the monetary
interests and the matter was pre-
sented to the business mems club.
Aged men of wealth came before the
club and told the members that they
were willing that the city council
should bond the city for another twen-
| ty years. OF course they would not be
here to help pay for the water works
which they would have used thirty
years or more. No one seemed to APP
preciate their generous condescension
at its worth and the extension of time
was approved. But that was not all.
There were other pressing demands
for money and no one wanted to pay
anything now. Approval was there
fore given for an increased loan of
S45, 900, making the new Indebtedness
S135,OOO.
Appetite oft grows by what it feeds
upon, This was but the beginning.
More money was needed for other i'm
proyements and the payment of inter
est and more was borrowed. The
present bonded Indebtedness is as fol-
lows:
$1,000 at per cent.
$37, 200 at 81 per cent.
$3.50, 200 at 4 per cent.
Total, 1922, AGO. with an annual in
| terest charge of 81, $50.
| Now more money is needed for
new school building and sewer extern
sion in the Sixth ward, and city
hall. 1t is proposed to sell 100000
| more bonds, the proceeds to be appor-
toned approximately as follows:
| $500 for the school house and
fund of S40,O has been collected for
the city hall. Fifty thousand dollars
judicially expended will build city
hall suitable for city of thirty thou
sand inhabitants. If SAC, 1000 is now in
the treasury and available at call, the
balance needed can be raised as the
!, rest has been, and bond issue for
that purpose is not necessary.
The other enterprises are a fourteen
room school building at the north
western verge of the city, in beauti-
full pine grove fianked west and north
by big marsh, and a sewer to drain
the marsh, mill yard and adjacent
lands.
| What possible development of the
city in that direction to call for such
a building is not evident. In ten
years or less the saw mill and box
factory in that quarter will be out of
business. OF present industries there
| will then remain the canning factory,
which is in operation two months of
the year, two ginseng ga .dens which
employ dogs to keep hands out, and
the cement block plant, precarious
and uncertain industry not employing
many laborers. The proposed sewers
when constructed may drain the
marsh, but no sane man will dispute
possession of the peat bed and muck
| with the toads and crabs for purposes
of residence.
| Some of the pupils from Parcher-
villo an6 MorrilI avopno will bavo q
mile or more to travel, part of the
| way over the bleakest, wind-swept
road in the city, where will be no res
ident families to clear the streets.
Five rooms now imperfectly accom-
modate the pupils to be provided for
| by the fourteen room building. Prob
| ably some pupils will be shifted north
ward from the Lincoln building to
help fill it. 1t is proposed to finish
| only eight rooms now, but the fifty
thousand dollar bonds will doubtless
have matured and been replaced more
| than once before the other six rooms
will be needed for use by the dwellers
upon the marsh or ohe slab and saw
dust along the river.
The proposed bond issue VIII raise
the city's Indebtedness TO s352, 400,
and the annual interest payment to
sl3,960 Suppose the city at an early
day had said we will pay as we go and
stuck to it. Would not sl1 $50 as
now, or $4,000 as hereafter paid as
interest on debt be a handsome sum
for improvements? Instead of paying
for dead horse we should be paying
for live enterprises. In no wise do
we escape taxation, but our money is
spent before the taxes are levied.
L.. tc..sE .al al, al