Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-17
SCHOOL OFFICIALS
SCORED FOR WASTE
House Committee Hearings
Show Simmons Bitterly
Critical.

Denunciation of Washington's pub
lie school authorities reached its Bit
terest heights of the recent 1881 APP
preparation hearings when Representa-
tive Robert G. Simmons of Nebraska,
chairman of the subcommittee of the
House committee on appropriations,
took them to task for what he charac-
teriZed as eXtravagant purchases of
needleSSly fine equipment and supplies
Scoring the officials for not buying
equipment on the lowest submitted
bids. Mr.. Simmons cited as specific
examples of the extravaganza the
purchase of a "gold-lined" silver serv-
ice set. real linen@napkins and table
cloths and an electric refrigerator big
enough to run a hotel for use in the
new Mckinley High School model
housekeeping class and the purchase of
four pianos of an expensive make for
the same school.
DIR. Ballou Makes Reply.
The answer of the. school admins
tration to Mr. Simmons vitriolic charges
was contained in a statement sub
mitted at the close of the hearings by
DR.. Frank w. Ballou. superintendent.
The answer is embraced in the fol-
lowing:
During the 18-month period covered
by the purchases reviewed by the COM
mittee, the public school officials have
submitted acquisitions covering 35,025
different items of materials, 24.834 of
which we're procured through the gen.
eral supply committee and 10.14l
through bids solicited by the purchasing
officer of the District of Columbia.
Under these bids, awards were recon-
mended by the public school officials
to the lowest bidders on all except 2s4
he
award on these items to other than
the lower bidders were based without
exception on the failure of the lowest
bidders to comply with the requirements
of the specifications.
THE procurement of the 35,025 items
of materials referred to above involves
the expenditure of 81 .544, l08.24. From
among this large number of items the
committee has reviewed and questioned
only 100 different items of materials.
which involves the expenditure of ST.
1868. If the awards had been recon-
mended to the lowest bidders on all items
procured under special bids without re-
gard to specification requirements, the
aggregate cost of these items would have
been $1433034, and there would have
been a possible saving of $3,506.54. This
saving could have been secured only by
procuring inferior, undesirable or I'M
that could have been procured at saw
ing OF $8l5.39 had the public school
officials been willing to accept machin-
cry that was not properly guarded
against accidents to pupils"
Mr.. Simmons was particularly vitriolic
with regard to the pianos, and. refer
ing to The Stars survey OF public
schoolbuildings, he declared:
"On the purchase of pianos, here
&c ck1fV ctr
of children going to school and using
secondhand card tables for desks, us
ing chairs made in the manual train
ing rooms and all of the other abuse
which has been heaped. ostensibly upon
Congress, but which l think ought to
cause the school officials to hang their
heads in shame a little bit-going out
and claiming you have not the money
to buy equipment for the schools and
yet you go out and pay $5,418 for four
pianos, two of which are used merely
for the teaching of music"
DR.. Charles F. CaruS, president of
the school board, and Stephen E.
Kramer, first assistant superintendent,
defended the purchase of these in
| struments on the ground that it was
| economy to buy the best instrument in
order TO get the longest service out of
it, and because two of the pianos are
OF music the best instrument was the
soundest from the pedagogic standpoint.
| Conditions Every Uneven"
Expressing himself on the pianos
| question in answer to Mr.. Simmons
charges that these expensive instru-
ments were bought while some children
were going without adequate school,
room accommodations, DR.. Carusi de-
clared:
1T is perfectly obvious that condi-
! tons are very uneven. We have a
wretched little school building, wretch
edly equipped, in one part of the city
and in another part of the city we will
have a very magnificent, recently-built
high school. I am very glad that we
have the high school, 1t might have
been a question at one time, at time
before / was on the board. whether 1t
would not have been well to have
adopted a different method and start in
to get rid of all the poorest schools
| first and equip the elementary schools
first, and then go on and leave the
high schools and some of those finer
buildings until afterward. But this is
not the situation that confronted us,
for instance, when the purchase Of these
pianos came up.
Here, out of the funds of the Dis
trict, had been built up splendid high
school, equipped, as has just been said,
with a $l3,500 organ. Now the school
| was put into operation and was to
| function, and, to function as a high
| school, so we bought the things re-
CURED One of the things required was
a piano Now we are confronted with
a concrete proposition not whether we
| shall take the money that we used Tor
/ that piano and go down and buy furni-
ture for some badly equipped school
! in the Northeast or Southeast, but
whether, If we are going to put piano
in there at all, what kind OF piano
are we going to put IN. l am perlectly
! willing to accept the responsibility 1or
| saying, If am going to buy piano
! to nut in one of those new high schools,
| that we should buy piano that Is con-
sidered proper for the purpose. II we
! do not have money enough TO 90 IL
without sacrificing some more lmpor :
tant thing, then I admit 1t snoulo hoi
| be done and we should let the schooi
go without any piano. whether IL COST
5000 or 80 cents"
Considered Best Piano.
DR.. Carusi added that he considered
the pianos which we're purchased-one
for the stage, one for the orchestra anu
two for the music rooms-the pest IoI
any purpose. Simmons disagreed say
ing Clle SoUu pldIlOS uocu AZ SASt
schools for marching and general &C
compartment are ample, and declaring
that if he were president of the school
board, which had choice of desks 1oI
children or expensive pianos, he wouio
choose the desks.
The silver service of plated ware
which Simmons cited as another Eek
travagance," was brought into the
hearings when the subcommittee chair
man read m a long LIST 0f rP0lliSit1OnS
he had had the Bureau of Efficiency
obtain for him.
Here is a tea SET" he said, consist
ing of a coffee not Snpar howl q cream