Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-04-05
LEGISLATIVE NEWS
WANT S1O,0OO,0D0
FOR THE HIGHWAYS
Conference of Legislators Will Be
Held on the Subject During
This Week

Ten million dollars will be hunted
this week by legislators who want to
see the State provide for systematic
road improvement. 1t is the plan fol
President pro tenn. Charles H. Kline
Speaker Charles A. Amber, Senator
william C. Sproul, Chairman e. E
Jones, of the House roads committee
and Chairmen C. ]. Buckman and
James f. Woodward, of the appro-
priations committees, to meet to dis
cuss ways and means of financing the
highway construction, maintenance and
aid propositions and try and find the
money. None of the revenue measures
has been advanced far enough to en-
able anyone to forecast how much ad-
dftional cash will be raised, and this Is
the knotty problem.
It is understood that the general
appropriation bill will be reported out
without any appropriations for nigh
way construction or maintenance.
Only the administrative expenses will
be included in the big bill, the appro.
priations for various road improve
ment projects being carried in separate
bills. The same will be done with the
State Department of Health and its
appropriation for tuberculosis sana-
toria and dispensaries will be in a
separate bill. The sum of $2,975,S07
has been asked to wage the fight
against tuberculosis.
Another problem is education.
There is no doubt about fifteen mil
lions being set aside for education. and
whether it will be more will depend
on the revenues. An effort to raise ii
to eighteen millions. may be made.
The four higher educational insti-
tutions, Penn, Pitt, Temple and State,
bills aggregating 1852 900 in round
numbers, whereas they received
$S,360,000 last session.
Legislators are also studying how
to provide the state insurance fund
under the compensation act. No one
appears to know how much will be re-
quired to start it and estimates are
from one to two millions and the
problem is where to find it.
Every effort will be made to make
the charity appropriation bills stay
within safe limits. The State Board OF
Public Charities has recommended
$13,33S, ,332.34, exclusive of the insane.
Last session these charities received
$12,72S,766. The insane must have
four millions at a minimum. The
new penitentiary and the various state
charitable institutions lately author
lied must also be taken care of.
Chairman James +. Woodward, of
the House appropriations committee,
last night said that he hoped to be
able to find ten millions for roads.
He said that he was not committed to
twenty millions, although if it was
possible he would be glad to vote
such a sum for highways. But, he
candidly said, he did not see that sum
in sight. The chairman has been
lying awake nights trying to make the
sixty millions of available revenue fit
the demands. Legislators are also
working on the same problem and
conjecturing about revenue raisers.
1t is the plan of the committee on
appropriations to get down to hard
work on the general appropriation bill
after this week. Within the next few
days the committee will report out all
deficiency and refunding bills, which
will clear the decks in part.