Evening star., 1938-10-09
FUNDS SOUGHT
T0'STREAML|NE'
TAX MACHINERY
City to Ask $40, 900 to Buy
New-Type Billing and.
Receipting Devices.
PLANS CENTRAL RECORD
OF INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS
Officials Agree on Request for
New Home for Police
Woman's Bureau.
Nv n0N s WARREN.

q" by DUN >. WAhhEN.
Funds will be sought by the Com
nnissioners in their s50,o00,00o 1910
estimates to 'streamline" the Dis
tricts tax assessing and collecting
machinery in accord with legislative
plans approved at the past session of
Congress, it was revealed yesterday.
An appropriation of about $40 900
will be requested, it was said. for
purchase of new types of billing and
receipting machines, to be used to
maintain a current central account
of all bills and payments affecting each
taxpayer.
The budgetary estimates will be
forwarded to the Budget Bureau with
in q few days and soon thereafter
District officials will be called to sup
port their requests. The Commis-
sioners, as yet, have made no an
nouncement of their own total, but if
repeated indications prove correct,
they have reduced the proposals OF
their department heads to approx
nately s50,o0o,0oo.
s1S.oo0,ooo Reduction.
This would mean a slice of roughly
$l6,000,000 from the original requests
of the municipal departments for their
proposals totaled more than S66,eO0,-
900.
The last major subject considered by
the Commissioners in their private
hearings for department heads was
the $18,900,000 budget plan offered by
the Board of Education. If the total
Of the estimates has been cut to fig
ure anywhere near $50.000,000, it is
taken as a foregone conclusion at the
District Building that the school esti-
mates have been pruned deeply. School
appropriations for this year amounted
to, s12,754,000.
Since the P. WA. and the District
have entered into agreements for the
use of 81 ,038, 900 for eight school prof.
ects, observers have assumed that at
least this sum has been stricken from
the building expansion program of
school officials. For school construc-
ton in the next fiscal year, school Off
cials requested an outlay of $4,247, 400,
as against the s1.500, 900 granted for
the present year. This proposal repre-
sented an effort by school officials to
make a real beginning on its proposed
new five-year building program.
Plan Drafted Months Ago.
The plan for speeding and improv-
ing the work of tax billing and collect
ing was drafted more than a year ago
by committee of District citizens and
officials, as result of public protests
over the ld-fashioned methods. More
than dozen changes in law were ap-
proved by Congress at the last session
as first step.
Taxpayers now are compelled to 60
to various different officials to collect
their bills and there is no central
record of their individual accounts
It is planned to install modern card
index machines, automatic addressing
machines and cash receipting ma
chimes All bills would be mailed out
to taxpayers There would be closer
relationship between the assessing and
collecting agents and the auditor
ofiice.
The net result, officials predict,
would be that a taxpayer at any given
time could 60 to the District Build
ing and find, from one source, the
status of all his bills and payments,
for all and any kinds of levies.
Committee Members.
Members of the Tax Delinquency
Committee. which recommended the
comprehensive plan, included Auditor
Daniel j. Donovan, Assessor Fred D.
Allen, Tax Collector Chatham M Tow
ers, Assistant Corporation Counsel Ver-
non E. West; Harold E. Doyle, Will
liam L. Beale, Rufus S. Lusk and
Thomas E. Lodge, representing busi-
ness and civic groups.
Final agreement was reached yester-
day by Police Supt. E. w. Brown
Commissioner Melvin c. Hazen and
engineer officials to seek funds for
provision of new home for the Police
Women's Bureau, at cost estimated
at $15o,000. They decided to seek
funds for the home rather than for a
new station house for the second pre-
cinct, which would return to its old
home on Fifth street NV. between
M and N streets.