The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1917-07-25
Wednesday,
WHAT WILL THE TAX RATE BE?

WHAT WILL THE TAX RATE BE?
The above is a question which is being asked
every day in connection with the bond issue. It
only needs a little calculation to obtain a reply.
The state levy is fixed by law, the county levy
has already been fixed, the constitutional school
tax is fixed, and the only uncertain quantity is the
amount of taxes, or the amount of the levy to
raise the necessary amount of money to pay the
interest and retire a certain amount of principal,
on the bond issue, including up-keep of the pro-
posed roads.
The amount of bonds provided by the Bond
Act, as everybody knows, is three hundred thou
sand dollars, and the amount is to be paid in
twenty years. The authorities tell us that the
bonds are to be annuity bonds, that is a certain
amount of the bonds are to be retired each year.
We shall assume that o~ne-tWentieth will be re-
tired each year, and give you the figures.
The taxable property in this county as assess
ed on the books amounts to a little more than
four millions, seven hundred thousand dollars.
With the inevitable double entries, and the nulIa
bonas, it is safe to say that we shall not collect on
more than the amount first stated.
On that amount of property in order to pay in
terest the first year, we must levy three mills. The
interest will be at four and one-half per cent.
81 s. 13,5 500 and the three mills will collect only
Of the principal, we shall pay $4,000 each
year, if we divide the same into equal parts. 1t
takes a levy of three and one-fourth mills to pay
this.
Then comes the up-keep of the proposed two
hundred miles of roads. The authors of the act
have fixed this at two per cent. of the amount OF
bonds, or $4,000 per annum, to be raised by a
levy for that purpose. And here is where we find
the "joker' in the Act. Fixing $4,000 in the Act
to do this work does not mean that that amount
will do the work. We should know what it will
cost to keep these roads up, because no person
who once agrees to have the roads will agree that
they should wash away if it can be prevented.
We must look for information on this subject.
And we have some, which by the way, is not
given by a partisan.
Some years ago Congressman Wyatt Aiken
had Mr.. Herman [. Arbenz, Senior Highway En-
gineer, Office of Public Roads, u. S.. Department
of Agriculture, make a survey OF Abbevllle
county, with a view to a bond issue at that time.
He made a full survey of the county and estimat-
ed the cost Of the roads. His report is in the Sq-
pervisor's office. And he made it little enough
because he fixed the price of building the roads
in his estimate at one-half what experience is
teaching the people in Greenville county it takes
to build now. And he fxed the annual cost OF up
keep too. And he fixed it THEN at fifty dollars
per mile. If this estimate of up-keep was as bad
ly off as his estimate of cost, it would take one
hundred dollars per mile. But take fifty dollars
per mile annually as a guide. Is not labor and
materials now nearly double what they were
then? Would it not take at least seventy-five
dollars per mile now to keep the roads VI: if his
estimate was correct?
If it would, we would have on the two hundred
miles of road promised to be built an annual out
lay of seventy-ive times two hundred or $4,000,