Evening star., 1949-06-24
Hold Your Hut-Here We Go


Hold Your Hot-Here We Go!
Congress has Just voted the highest tax
burden on District residents in history.
These taxes are going to raise whale OF
q lot of money. But If the District COM
mittees of House and Senate proceed as in
the recent past, the money is not going
to last very long.
Take the matter of sick leave for teach
ers. Everybody was in favor of giving
them an amount of annual sick leave that
would conform, in general, with the sick
leave provisions of civil service employees.
Writing of such bill required considerable
study by the Board of Education and the
District budget officers together with rep
resentatives of the teachers. 1t was agreed
to by the House Committee as written.
It provided for ten days of sick leave a
year, cumulative over six years to total
of sixty days. When the bill came up be-
fore the Senate District Committee, Sen
ator Margaret Chase Smith said that the
bill should conform to the civil service
sick leave. The civil service allows fifteen
days of sick leave year, cumulative over
six years up to ninety days. So the teacher
sick leave bill was changed by the Senate
Committee 10 provide up to ninety days of
sick leave, without specifying that this
would represent cumulative sick leave of
ten years.
The difference between the annual sick
leave for teachers and the annual sick
leave of civil service employees is based on
the working year. Civil service employees
work about 225 days. School teachers work
about 1S0 days. Average cumulative sick
leave for teachers throughout the country
is about so days. AL Of that had been
carefully worked out by the Board of Edu-
cation and other officials in deciding on
fair bill for Washington. Yet without any
discussion, without any hearing to compute
the costs or the effect, the Senate commit
tee, on pure impulse, changed the bill,
giving teachers Tar more generous sick
leave than the civil service--on the theory
that the bill was being made toscenform
to civil service.
Or take the police and firemeris pension
bill, for widows and orphans. The pension
should be increased, along with payments
to the pension fund by those op active
duty. The Commissioners spropoed tais-
ing it from $50 to 500 asyear Considerable
study of statistics and costs had gone into
the bill. The House District Committee on
the plea Of Chief Murphy, boosted the PEN
sion to $l25, with higher allowances than
in the past for children. And in the Senate
committee provision was added for pay
ing a fiat sum of $1,000 to immediate
survivors of a policeman or fireman killed
in action, in addition to the pension. For
many years there has been SIS allowance
for a policemans or firemans funeral.
This was boosted by generous impulse
but with no discussion of costs, to $500
Now taken singly, these various increases
may not amount to much in dollars and
cents. Most taxpayers want their teachers
and policemen and firemen to be well paid
and generously treated. But taken to-
gether, these impulsive additions to the
enormous cost OF local government, made
without adequate study of the facts and
perhaps under the gentle prodding of
union lobbyists, are going to break the back
Of the taxpayers And they are going to
revolt some day and lot of people are
going to be out of work as result. Since
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Congress increasing the pay and shorten
Ing the hours of Municipal employees. In
ten years the number of these employees
has increased something over a third. But
the payroll has almost doubled. Our cost
Of operating the local government has
more than doubled. And it continues to
rise.
The legislative committees of Congress
work without any relationship to the
appropriations committees. They add mil
lions of dollars to government costs with
out any responsibility for keeping such
outgo in line with income. If they keep on
at the generous rate OF the past few days,
we soon shall be doubling the sales tax
and raising every other local tax-to keep
our employees up to the standard of living
and dying-to which the committees of
Congress are making them accustomed
And these are standards that are in gen.
eral above the standards that most people
have been able to attain in private en-
ployment, the employment that furnishes
the taxes for paying public employees.
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