Evening star., 1934-10-28
Precedent Exists i'm
Bureau Rule for
Change.
MAY ASK BOOST
AS 1T DID SLASH
Breakdown of Services
of Many Departments
Will Be Shown.

The District Commissioners
will go to the Bureau of the
Budget tomorrow to begin a fight
for an increase Of $2.6l7 500 in
the Federal payment to the cost
Of operating the Government of
the National Capital. They are
supported by two important con-
SiderationS as they open their
arguments.
First, the Budget Bureau itself
established the precedent of ask
ing Congress to change the Fed
eral payments.
Secondly, operating at the
present scale Of payments, the
District is unable to meet the
expenses of the bare necessities
Of municipal existence.
Up until 1893 the Budget Bu-
reau practice was to send to Con-
greSS each year lump sum eSti-
mate based on whatever Federal
payment might have been made
the year before. In the closing
days of the Hoover administra-
ton bill was in the legislative
mill. 1t failed of passage when
Representative Blanton of Texas
blocked agreement on a confer
cnce report.
Douglas Demanded Cuts.
In came q new administration and
q new budget director, Lewis Douglas
Of Arizona. He called the Commits
sioners to his Office one Saturday
afternoon and ordered them to start
looping of the estimates in the con-
ference report. The Commissioners
obeyed, and necessary expenses we're
cut out of the budget at the rate of
million dollars an hour until the
required reduction had been made
When the emaSculated estimates
found their way back to Capitol Hill
they carried recommendation from
Mr.. Douglas for a cut in the Federal
payment from $7,775.0O0 (the 1888
flgure) to $5.700.000. Mr.. Douglas
explained that the Federal payment
had been reduced &c per cent, which
was the percentage reduction Of the
District Of Columbia estimates below
1888 appropriations. In this manner
the administration campaign pledge
to cut expenses rs per cent was full
filled by cutting the payment to the
District by 26 per cent. and the new
precedent for Budget Bureau change
Of the Federal payment was set.
II the budget director can recon-
mend q decrease, the Commissioners
bal ho oil
increase. So they are taking him
estimates calling for $44,039.356. They
say that this is the irreducible mini
mum required by the District of
Columbia for maintenance and
operating expenses and necessary
public improvements" They say the
local tax rate Of $3.50 is fair and
Just" and should be maintained. And
they ask the Budget Bureau to recon-
mend an increase of the Federal pay
ment necessary to meet the estimates
while keeping the present tax rate.
The exact amount asked, S8317. 500,
is the average of lump sum payments
for the past 10 years-paymentS made
since Congress departed from its own
unrepealed law and stopped paying
&C per cent Of the costs Of running
the District government.
City's Plight Serious.
To support their plea for a de-
parture from the present state of
fiscal affairs. the Commissioners can
point to a city that, under the sur
face. is shabby and going to seed.
More than IS per cent of its street
lights are dark. Shocking conditions
Of overcrowding exist in the public
schools, the public hospitals, the pub
| lie institutions of correction, detention
and justice. Duties laid on District
officers by Congress itself are not being
performed. in spite of overtime work
by the few employees hired to per-
form them. 1t is impossible to have
as much as one police private to every
beat. The apparatus that responds
to fire alarms Is to a large extent
ancient and approaching obsolescence.
Buildings everywhere are deteriorating
because Of deferred maintenance, and
throughout the government there are
automobiles which have long since
outlived their useful life, still groan-
ing away at their duties.
In the foreground of public atten-
tion. as usual. is the school system.
over which the shadow Of the detested
portal ole" once more hangs. Schools
Continued on Page 5, Column D.