Evening star., 1929-12-04
Largest Amount
Ever Sought
for City.
$1.7O TAX. RATE
is HELD ENOUGH
New School Policy
to Eliminate
POrtables.
BY JAMES E. CHINN.


The Bureau of the Budget trans
mitted to Congress today the Dis.
trict's financial budget for the 1881
fiscal year, recommending appro-
priations totaling $47,S80, ,22s, thu.
establishing two noteworthy prec-
edentS.
The budget is the largest ever
submitted for the District. But
even more significant is the fact
that it represents a change in the
Budget Bureaus tenacious policy
OF keeping budgetary estimates OF
the District within a previously
determined ALLEGATION.
The $47,Sso,22s total exceeds by
$l,542,572 the figure allocated in july
BY the Budget Bureau and is but $780,
$40 short of the amount sought by the
District Commissioners in the final esti-
mates, with more than 100000 in
supplemental items thrown in to boot
This action by the Budget Bureau
comes as a sequel to the insistence
Of the Commissioners for q budget
which careful estimating has shown
the District can support without raising
the existing $1.7O tax rate. The under
lying reason, however, harks back to the
hearings on the 1880 appropriation bill
before the House subcommittee on ap-
preparations, where both the Commits
sioners and the Budget Bureau were
rebuked for permitting huge ssrplus
Of District revenues to acessEaa.sts In
the Federal Treasury.
School Building Policy. -
The 1881 budget is significant. too, in
several other respects. It sets up an en-
tirely new policy in school-house con-
struction, which is designed for the
early elimination Of the fiimsy one
room portable buildings which have
chung like barnacles to the school sys-
tenn for 10 years or more, and provides
for beginning the five-year program OF
modernization of Washington's water
distribution system. But there Is an
ironical situation in connection with the
er-improvement program, for the
Budget Bureau rode roughshod over the
plans of the Commissioners to finance
1t out of the general revenues, and by
saddline the expense on the water De-
partment, which supports itself mostly
from income from the sale OF water
an increase in water rates is believed to
be inevitable.
The bureau did not overlook the mu-
nicipal center development and recon-
mended an appropriation Of $4,000, 600
to complete the purchase of the site, q
Similar sum having been appropriated
for this purpose by the last Congress.
and added to this item $65 900 for prep
aration of plans and designs for the
buildings to be erected in the area.
The budget, however, does not contain
the $500, 900 recommended by the Com
missionerS for starting construction OF
the first unit in the developments
courts building, which would house the
Police, Municipal and Juevenil Courts
and the ONCE of the recorder Of deeds.
The $3.50, $40 cut in the estimates of the
Commissioners, therefore, reflects the
procedure followed by the bureau in its
liberal treatment of the District in 1881.
Grade Crossing Item.
Still another item of outstanding i'm
portance provides for the elimination Of
two of the four remaining railroad grade
croSsings-the dangerous Chestnut street
crossing, in Takoma Park, recently the
scene Of shocking tragedy, which took
the lives of two women. and the almost
equally hazardous Michigan avenue
crossing, In Brookland The two remain
ing death traps will be those at Bates
road, in Brookland, and Quarrels street,
in Kenilworth.
The treacherous Chestnut street cross
ing will be supplanted by an under
pass at Fern street in Takoma Park,
for which an appropriation of $2l1 900
Is recommended. Elimination of the
Michigan avenue crossing is to cost
$145, 900.
In the interest Of safety the Budget
Bureau also recommended an appropria-
ton Of $250,000 to begin the replace
nent of the narrow Connecticut Avenue
Bridge over Klingle Valley, which is to
give the Engineering Department of the
District its greatest problem since the
reconstruction of the Virginia abutment
OF Chain Bridge. The project is esti-
mated to cost $500, 900, and 1t involves
the adoption Of temporary scheme tc
keep street car and vehicular traffic
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