Evening star., 1937-01-31

Capital.
|THE people Of Washington pay
more for certain items Of
National Capital maintenance
Il and development than the peo-
pie Of comparable cities pay for SINH
lar items-merely because this Is the
National Capital. There Is q direct
obligation Of the Nation to It's Capt.
tai City resulting from that condi-
ton.
Take, as one example, the Police and
Fire Departments. The recent hscal
report finds that:
"Police-Liberal police man
power and equipment are provided,
although the latter Is relatively
less modern. The 1885 crime rec
ord is relatively high. Traffic
fatalities are about the average.
Police personnel assigned to traffic
duty is nearly average.
"Fire-Fire personnel Is rela-
lively large. Fire equipment and
frequency Of fire stations are be.
low average. The insurance rat
ing in the District is very good.
Very low losses reflect credit on
the department, despite conditions
which automatically help to reduce
the number and size Of fires"
From these and somewhat similar
findings the report concludes that OBJ
servations and statistical information
indicate that the residents and prop
erty owners in the District are receiv-
ing services roughly equal to the II
comparable cities, with the exceptions
that the relief burden here is found
to be lower and the park facilities
higher than the average.
But the Services Cost More.
The same report includes the in
formation, previously touched on in
these articles, that the cost OF the
Police and Fire Departments in Wash
ington is about s425. 900 above the cost
in comparable cities because leave and
sick-leave provisions conform to Fed
eral standards. And, furthermore. II
Police and Fire Departments are
brought to the Federal work week
standards, the cost will be about
81 ,o3s, ,060 additional. The same thing
applies, in general, to the salary level
and perquisites of all municipal en-
ployes.
Take, as another example, the Ma
tional Geological Park. No commun-
ity of the size and resources OF Wash
ington would undertake to support
such Zoo. But even under the lump
sum system of appropriations about
81 per cent of the cost Of the Zoo is
borne from local revenues. Under the
proposed formula of the fiscal report,
all the Zoo expenses would be placed
on the local community.
In this connection, however, the
fiscal report proposes to transfer juris-
diction Of the Zoo from the board OF
regents of the Smithsonian to a new
board Of trustees under the Commis-
| sioners.
Under that plan, Of course, Con-
gress would still remain in control OF
the expenditures for the Zoo and
would continue to appropriate for the
animals in a high and handsome
manner befitting the aristocratic in
mates of q National Zoo, thus using
money for monkeys and elephants that
the people of the community-as much
as they love monkeys and elephants
would prefer to have spent on better
schools or the improvement Of public
health, provided there is not enough
money to educate children and feed
the animals at the same time.
The Zoo is merely an example.
There are others, Of course, to which
the same line of reasoning applies.
Government costs in the District are
higher than in comparable cities, or
are as high as in comparable cities
because this is the Capital. As mat
ter of fact such costs should be lower.
They should be lower, first, because
Of the absence here of bonded debt,
interest on which represents such
large part Of the tax burden elsewhere.
They should be lower because of the
strict accounting system and supervi-
sion of expenditures, not to mention
the supervision of estimates, by the
officials of the Federal Government.
They should be lower because of the
relatively centralized local govern
ment, the absence Of other govern
ments with interviewer and over
tapping jurisdictions.
But the total cost is not much
lower and In some items Is higher
because this is the National Capital.
Bonded Debt Included.
The fiscal report, by q comparison
which included the cost of interest and
annual outlays Enhanced in other
cities by borrowing), concluded that
the cost Of government in Washington
was lower than the average in II
comparable cities. When capital out
lays and interest are eliminated, as
they should be In comparison Of an
nual maintenance costs, the per capita
cost of government In the District was
about equal to the average Of the II
cities between 1923-29: fell slightly
below the average for 1880 and 1882
dIlQ 4CA ctll 1uI tllcE uLluCE Vic aver
age from 1888 through 1885. One rea-
son for the decline in these latter years
has been the starvation diet imposed
on the District under the policy Of
sharply decreasing lump sums.
Point two Of the fiscal reports
formula provides that when the per
capita cost of government in the Dis
trict exceeds the average Of other
cities, the National Government will
contribute the amount Of the excesses.
But, aside from the important fact
that the average" cost of government
In cities which include highly extrava-
CANT municipal governments along
with the efficient municipal govern
ments Is not necessarily the desirable
cost, the Budget Bureau would not
permit the cost Of local government
tn exceed the average figure nor