Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-10-19
District Estimates and Needs.


BY their submission to the Secretary
Of the Treasury of annual estimates
greatly curtailed below the point of the
Districts actual needs, their reauisi-
ton, totalins about S2.500,006 below the
estimated available funds, the Commits
sioners have crippled themselves ir
advance in the matter Of obtaining
adequate appropriations for the main
tenance of the District. They are re-
quired by the act of 1878 to estimate
the amount necessary 10 run the cap
itai municipality during the ensuing
fiscal year BY the act of 1908 they are
required to restrict their estimates to
the limit Of the prospective revenues.
Within this latter limitation they
still under obligation to report TO Con-
gress the full needs of the District
Last year they recommended unsuc-
cessfully number of salary increase;
and new positions improving the pub
lie service, and they reported several
important projects that were denied
authorization, though money was If
sight for their undertaking, and these
are as urgently needed now as then.
They also last year noted one great
and ultimately money-saving project
that OF the utilization of the Great
Fails water power, for which they re-
Trained from submitting an estimate
because they feared that the money
would not be available for it.
To submit estimates OF District need;
which fail to include these postponed
projects and these annual needs ant
which do not reach the limit of the
revenues by S2,500,0o0. leaves the
Commissioners exposed to the charge
OF neglect of a duty formally imposed
upon them by law, and renders them
helpless in any effort they may subse-
Quently make to bring the Distric'
budget up to the mark of the local
requirements.
If Congress is to be 2arsimonious
In approprieting for the support
of the District during the next fiscal
year the responsibility and the praise
for that performance should fall upon
Congress and not upon the Commits
sioners They owe their first obligation
to the District and not to the federal
Treasury. They are local officers VINO,
although selected by the President. are
representative of the community, and
are under certain obligations with re-
spect to it's maintenance and manage
ment which should render them immune
from pressure in the matter of the fill
ing of their annual requisition.
According to current understanding
the Commissioners have cut out from
the estimates all proposed advances in
salary and all new positions, In order
to keep the budget down to the limit
of $13,5O0.O00 which appears to have
been arbitrarily fixed upon as requisite,
for no reason to be found in the state.
Of the District treasury. The District
il a growing concern, expanding in every
department, and its needs are becoming
larger continually. In certain depart
ments it must increase salary aliot-
ments in order to hold experienced and
efficient workers and to keep pace with
the tendency of compensations in gen.
eral Every year sees the need of addi-
tional employees in some branches OF the
municipal organization. If the Commits
sio2ers have called halt absolutely On
new positions and larger salaries in the
administrative field they Will seriously
check the Districts development. and
the budget will show increases only in
the line of continuing already author
lied works for the expansion of the
municipal plant.
The President should not exercise his
influence to require curtailment of es-
missioners are in the relation of trus-
tees for the community and are par
ticularly required to estimate only to
the extent of specified fund. 1t is
not as though the Commissioners were
the finally determining body and were
writing the appropriation itself. 1t
is not as though their estimates were
always recognized by Congress in de-
tail or were treated otherwise than as
q statement of needs, giving informal
ton to Congress upon which it should
in it's discretion base it's appropria
tionS. There is, moreover, interposed
between the Commissioners and the ap-
preparation committees a screen through
which, the estimates are supposed to
pass for revision, the Secretary Of the
Treasury, and If federal administrative
authority is to be exercised to the end
of estimate reduction it should be APP
piled there and not at the source of es-
timation.
There is extravaganza whatever in
the suggestion of District appropria-
tons up to the full amount of the local
revenues matched by federal dollars No
difficulty would have been encountere.
by the Commissioners in so framing
their estimates as to bring them up to
this point. for numerous projects are
in allegiance for lack of authorization
1t would have been wholly defensib
for them to write their budget in such
terms as to include every dollar o!
District tax money, plus an equal
amount of federal money. instead of SO
cutting their estimates as to leave
a surplus of District revenues of at
least s1.e50.oe0. Indeed. their duty I'M
der the law to report the full needs
of the District up to the limit of pro-
spective revenues was plain.