Evening star., 1921-09-28
Underpaid District Employees.

Inc District commissioners have
done well in requesting the United
States bureau of efficiency to make
a survey of the District government
in the interest Of improved admins
tration. The bureau has taken up, as
the most vital and fundamental need
in connection with the Improvement
OF District government conditions. the
question of classification of salaries.
The report of the bureau on salaries,
just filed with the Commissioners.
amply sustains the opinion long held
by The Star that the salaries paid
by tlrs District government are far
ern~eut.
Washington takes pride in its mu-
nicjNl government, which, consider
ing IL handicaps, is very efficient. 1t
is hltle affected by partisan politics
and is free from graft. But it suffers
greatly because of the payment of in
adequate salaries to its officers and
employees from the Commissioners
down. with the result that it's losses
to the rsderai service and outside en-
ploymenl are always excessive. This
results in waste and inefficiency by
reason of what is known as a big
turnover"
In its salary staty of the District
service, the bureau of efficiency allo
Gated the District employees to the
pending Smoot- Wood recIassification
bill. The bureau found that a re-
classification of the District salaried
workers to the minimum pay sched-
ules of the Smoot Wood bill would in
volve an average increase of GA per
cent in pay. In she case of several
groups of District workers the av-
erage advance required to bring them
up to the standard grades into which
their work would make them fall was
found to be m4ch more than the
average of GA per cent. Several
in pay to their employees of from -
to 20 per cent. One division of the
electrical department needs a Is per
cent increase and the swimming pool
employees need an IS per cent advance
in compensation.
The efficiency bureaus report brings
out as the most necessitous case in
the District government (and, it may
be assumed in the entire government
service in Washington the Public
Library, whose 105 employees. the
bureau holds: need to have increases
in nay of more than 90 per cent to
bring their compensation up to proper
standards This recommendation of
the bureau of efficiency fully sustains
the position of the library board and
librarian, who have, in their annual
reports and before appropriation COM
mittees, again and again shown how
the work of the library was being
hampered, many times almost to the
point of collapse, by the fact that
they could not recruit or hold
trained staff needed to do the educa-
tional work of the library with the
meager pay provided in the rigid
statutory salaries granted in the IL
brary appropriations.
What are the remedies that should
be applied to correct the burdensome
handicaps under which the District
employees and the District govern
ment itself labor? The estimates for
the District government are now in
process of being framed up by the
bureau Of the budget, with the advice
of former Senator Sherman. The OBJ
vious remedy is to incorporate into
the District estimates the findings of
the bureau of efficiency, so that the
discrepancies, inequalities and injus-
tices of the present District salary
schedules may be wiped out in the
next District appropriation bill.