Evening star., 1936-08-19
Member of the Associated Press.
Pressing School Needs.

The Districts financial problems are
Illustrated in the school estimates for
the next fiscal year. just released for
publication by the Commissioners.
The Board of Education requests an
appropriation of $l7,525,6ls next year for
school buildings, purchase of sites and
increase in personnel. The reader of
DR.. Ballou's letter accompanying the
estimates will be impressed with the
justification of these requests. School
building and site purchase have been
delayed to the point where they are
far behind replacement needs and new
needs resulting from sharp increase in
the school population, rejecting not only
normal growth of the city but the influx
Of workers under the New Deal. Every
one is familiar with the slow process Of
school building, involving the appropria-
ton delays between site acquisition, au-
thorization for new buildings and the
availability of funds to start construc-
ton. Even should requested building
and site purchase needs be granted, the
school system, during the next flve years,
will be further behind in physical needs
than at any time during the past twenty
five years.
In addition, teacher personnel must be
Increased in order to serve the large,
unwieldy classes that necessarily lower
the standards of education in the public
schools. The teacher needs are placed at
233 new teachers and Librarians and an
increase of seventy-three cuStodial work.
ers is needed to meet Federal standards
In working hours.
If the million dollar increase over
current appropriations were granted to
take care of these school needs, without
Increasing the lump sum, 1t would re-
uuire an increase of about forty-one
cents in the tax rate, bringing it to the
total of s19l, or an increase of about
twenty-seven per cent. Even at that,
other departments Of the municipal gov
ernment, suffering, along with the
schools, an accumulation of delayed
needs, would not receive an additional
cent. Or, looking at 1t from another angle,
If the total real estate tax revenues
were applied to the school needs alone,
such needs would consume all but s574,-
381 of present real estate tax revenues.
An appropriation for the schools OF the
amount for which they petition would,
without increases, leave the District with
IN m Ct rtrnnntS
financed from general revenues. In the
current fiscal year, appropriations for
activities other than education required
s27,0OOO00, and these appropriations
were representative of minimum needs
One of the significant showings of the
Parker report on District taxation, SUBJ
rnitted to the Senate Subcommittee on
District Appropriations last Spring, was
the increase of 983 per cent In the Dis
trict's per capita tax burden since 1922,
an increase that was far greater than
In any other of the forty-three cities
with which washington was compared,
twenty -eight of these cities showing some
Increase Che greatest being All per
cent? while sixteen cities showed de-
crease in the tax burden. The Parker
report, through other comparisons.
showed the relative heaviness of the
local tax burden.
More funds must be raised for the
public schools and for other National
Capital expenses. They cannot fairly be
raised through boosting the local tax
burden and in equity should result from
the substantial increase in the Federal
appropriation which the Federal obliga-
ton demands.