The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-02-24
Enormous Increase In Fix penses of Running the City During the Wilson Administration Are Dis closed In Budget Prepar ed By Board of Appor tionment.
WORKING CAPITAL. OF
 CITY ALMOST GONE
Seeley's Vote Alone Saved City's Educational De partnent From Being En- tirely Ignored He Tells Mayor His Vote Was Cast By Mistake.

When the Board of Appor tion1nent and Taxation con eluded it's work, last night, il had, by strenuous pairing, by the appropriation of half of fhe city's working capital, by the elimination of an appropria- ton for the. state tax and by cutting the one mill school tax in two, succeeded in getting the tax for 1914 to IS mills. divided 7.S to the First District and d0-2 to the. Second district.
 The budget totaIled S2,55I,- 769. .3d an increase of $586 ,S90 over the budget of 1911, when Mayor Wilson first took office
 Over the protest of City Auditor Bernard F. Heating. the city's work ing capital was cut in two, so that the city must let its bills rum, or re sort to borrowing to meet them when they aressdfIes SHs,s,s l,aaazss aEs saze~ ceeding administrations had left the sum Of $9sso0O unianpa1red for this purpose.
 Every energy Of the adrlinistra- ton was bent to obtaining money for street repairs, which hitherto has been soft word for Warrenite. and the school tax was sacrificed to make this appropriation possible
 The school tax would have been entirely repealed had it not been for the vote of William B. Seeley. who broke a tie in favor of granting the appropria1fon- When reproacFed by the mayor for his vote, MT. seeley said he supposed he was voting the
 These appropriat1ons are divided as follows: First district, $1,148, 331.4 less estimated receipts First district, E$895.181-42s Second district appro- priationss $1. .383,4 437- -Ss, less estimated receipts Second district, $23S, ,037.5o.
 For the First district a tax of 7.8 mills will raise $897, ,267.71, which is a surplus of $2,136-29. Tn tho Second district the tax of 1o.2 will raise s = 16O,6OO.08 which will give a surplus of $10s199.69 more than Is required. The total surplus will be $12,s35.s8.
 Appropriations in every department were sacrificed in order to give the administration more money for War renite pavement The usual one mill tax for schools was cut to half a mill Mayor Wilson strove hardly to have it eliminated altogether But the ap- propriation stayed in by the vote Of
  board. MT. See7ey when upbraided by the mayor after the meeting for vot- ing for the school tax said that he got his signals mixed and that he under stood he was voting to cut the ap- propriation out The appropriation of SIP, 500 for a branch of the public library was cut also.
 Max J .BuechIer tried to have the half mill tax cut out from the de- partment of public works, but his eff forts were unavai1ing. MT Buech- Ter said the street department has been extravagantIy and wastefully conducted for the past year despite the many thousands of dollars spent on the streets.
 City Attorney Com1ey set the board right as to when teWarren1te is not Warrenite.'' He told the board he did not think that money appropriat- ed for 'macadarn repairs,s could be used to lay biturninous macadan Tt has been known that such Items as automobile repairs stationery, etc, have been taken from macadam re-
 oContinued on Page Two)