The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-30
WARD IS IMPRESSED
 WITH WAY HOUSTON
 MANAGES FINANCES
Is Much Smaller City, But Has Budget Twice as Large as That of
 Birmingham

That Houston. Tex. has just twice as
 large a budget as we have, and is a
 much smaller city, may permit some of
 our citizens to appreciate what Brming- ham is doing with her small finances | said President Georges Ward of the city commission yesterday. Mir. Ward returned
 Sunday from Houston, where with party | of prominent Birmingham men he attend ed the annual convention of the Interna-
 tional Association of Rotary Clubs. "Ons sure thing, l didn't find hot weather anywhere in Texas l have found here at home when l got back" said the commissioner Down in Houston | they have a gulf breeze all the time, and | in fact all along the route going and coming we did not suffer as much with Houston has budget of just s26o0, 900 a year, while we have S1.300000. They
 have there the Sommers system of taxa tion 1t was inaugurated by Commissioner J. A. Pastoriza, who has considerable rep utation over the country us a city finan- cer. Houston has five commissioners and Is very enthusiastic over the form of gov ernment. MT. Pastoriza Is commissioner of taxation.
 The tax rate is $l 80. Cash and personal property are exempt As a result the l town is full of money. There is about | $49, 900 on deposit in the Houston banks.
 Real estate is assessed on about an 80 per cent valuation and the buildings on | about B per cent valuation. In this way Commissioner Pastoriza makes it un- profitable for any man to buy lots and not build on them.
 ''The Sommers system of taxation Is now fin use in several cities of this country. think Minneapolis was the first to try it. It Is worked out on mathematical basis. The property holder has nothing whatever to do with assessing his prop erty. commission court of appraisers is employed to value the property. These men will take block of property and go
 on all four sides of it and fix the value
 of q square foot of ground From this they will arrive at an average for one
 square foot of ground in that block, and
 on this basis every property holder will
 have to accept an assessment according to the number of square feet of property he possesses
 Tn this way they go from block to block and cover the whole town. It is said the system is not complicated or difficult after it is once installed. The valuations are fixed every year in order to keep up with the changes in the valuations
 of real estate in different parts of the city
 "At any rate. Houston in this way is getting twice as much money as we arc and they have a smaller city" MT. Ward would not say whether or not he thought this system would work here or should be tried here. There Is no doubt however, but what he was highly im- pressed with it.
 "The crops along the railroad look mighty good from the train," he added. | and if this hot weather don't burn 'em I up the farmer Is going to have a pros- porous year. One thing 1 noticed Is that | just soon as we got outside of Ala bama there were all kinds of birds to be
 seen. In Alabama there was not thing
 but a lot of sparrows. I didn't see spar row in Houston. 1t Is these little pests
 which run all the other birds away from | Birmingham"