Evening star., 1952-03-26
Irresponsible Appropriotino

The present House Subcommittee on District
Appropriations, under Chairman Bates of Ken
lucky is good committee. There is none Of
the petty antagonism toward the District evi-
denced at times in the past by some of its
predecessors, and on the whole the attitude of
its members is helpful and constructive.
This makes it more difficult to understand,
or to explain, the action just taken by this
committee yesterday in reporting out the Dis
tricts budget for the coming fiscal year The
appropriate description of that action is to say
that it is irresponsible, and that the report
it has made to the House to justify it's actions
Is misleading.
What the committee has done is to make
Z paper showing of a saving of something over
S. million in estimates already cut to the bone
BY the Commissioners. The result of the reduc-
tionS, according to such an expert as Budget
Onicer Walter Fowler, only recently described
BY Chairman Bates as one of the most efficient
budget officers he has ever known, is to make
the local appropriation bill unavoidable.
Most of the cuts have been made arbitrarily:
that is, without investigating or even discussing
with municipal officials during the hearings
the effect on the discharge of municipal func-
tions assigned to the various local departments
Two examples of the committees reasoning, in
this respect may be cited as illustration:
I. The committee says that If the Commits
sioners' recommendations were followed a work.
ing reserve, or surplus of only $4,000 would be
left in the general. fund at the end of the next
fiscal year. This reserve of 1100 of per cent,
the committee says is "a ridiculouSly made
quate contingency figure" 1t would be- But
the reserve estimated by the Commissioners is
not $4,000; it is something in excess of 81
million. The Commissioners provided for an
adequate reserve in their estimates. The COM
n1ittee ignoring that fact cut ahout 81 million
from the estimates in order to provide for a
surplus on top of the Commissioners, estimated
surplus!
2. The committee applied to the local budget,
for the first time, rule of the Budget Bureau
that money for automatic promotions, within
grades should not be included in the estimates.
This rule was designed for the big Federal de-
Partments, which must absorb the money from
salary appropriations to take care of the auto
matte increases provided by law. The Municipal
Governments different departments are rea-
lively so small, however, that to dsallow esti-
mates for automatic stepups- made on precise
and personal basis-is to disallow the stepups
themselves. In the District the money for
salaries is provided for a fixed and definite
number of employees The committee never even
discussed with municipal officials the results of
applying rule to the District Government
designed for the big Federal departments.
What the committee has done unfortunately,
Is to emaSculate the District bill in order to make
q paper showing of conforming to policy
adopted this year in Federal appropriations.
The policy has no realistic application to rum
ming the city government of Washington. The
big job now facing the Senate Subcommittee on
District Appropriations will be to rewrite the
bill and correct the unreasonable and unwork-
able provisions of the House bill.