Getting Somewhere in City Finance This Article, if enacted into law, will force the city to live up to a strict "pay-as-you-go" policy. It will require each year's provisions to be made on the basis of real income and expense. It will effectually eliminate borrowing for current expenses. It will make it impossible for deficits to be overlooked, hidden or accumulated, because they must be stated and each one must be met at the beginning of the following year. It will greatly curtail the mandamus evil. It will link the city's finances up with its accounting system and thus make it possible to derive from that system the kind of benefit for which accounting exists, and which a similar and equally costly system in a private business would be required to furnish. It will put a final quietus on tin-box financing, and put the city of Philadelphia on the only basis on which a "going concern"-whether a commonsense corner merchant or a Bell Telephone Company-can remain financially sound. Said Gladstone: "Budgets are not merely affairs of arithmetic, but in a thousand ways go to the root of prosperity of individuals, the relation of classes and the strength of nations." CITIZENS' BUSINESS AP 1919 Charter Series: No. 4 Tending to Our Own Business New York City. April 3, 1919 A GREAT many thoughtful people oppose the doctrine of government ownership or operation. They believe that as little as possible should be done by the city or other governmental unit and as much as possible by private endeavor. And there are undoubtedly many weighty and convincing arguments to support this position. There are a number of activities, however, which every public-spirited citizen will readily agree should be carried on directly by the city. Take the prevention of crime, for example. We venture to state that there is not a citizen of Philadelphia who would not agree that the policing of the city should be done by government. Fire protection is another matter that is generally conceded to be a proper function of the government of the city, and even the supplying of water, which on its face appears to be an ordinary public utility, has, largely because of its intimate relation to public health, almost universally been taken over as a municipal function. So also with many other activities. Everywhere the tendency has been to "municipalize" all activities which directly and vitally affect the safety and health of all the citizens. Philadelphia is not a laggard in this respect. Our city has kept abreast of others in taking over functions which vitally affect the people. In one thing, however, Philadelphia is far behind the rest. The city stands out conspicuously as almost the only large city in the country that does not clean its own streets or remove its own ashes, rubbish and garbage. We in Philadelphia still cling to the old method of having this work done by contract, a method discarded by most of the other large cities of the country, including New York, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Baltimore, Detroit and Washington. There is a reason why these cities have abandoned the contract system. It lies in the tact, which is coming to be realized more and more, that the cleanliness of a city bears a most vital relation to the health of its citizens-that clean streets are just as important as pure water. People everywhere are coming to feel that the city's cleanliness should be the city's direct concern and that it should not be left to private business undertakings whose primary care is, naturally, to make all the money they can out of their work. But even if street cleaning did not so vitally affect the citizens there is still ample reason for its being done by the city rather than by contract. Street cleaning and kindred work differ from other kinds of public operations in that they must be done over and over again, for the effect of a single job disappears very quickly. The streets may be perfectly clean today and tomorrow be as dirty as ever. The very nature of street cleaning makes it difficult properly to inspect the work of the contractors. The only way the city can hope to do so is to have a city inspector with every street cleaning gang. Under this plan the city is entirely dependent upon the honesty and capacity of the inspectors, for, because of the ephemeral nature of the results of street cleaning, there is no way of checking up the inspectors' work adequately. The result, as almost every city in the country has found, is that the inspectors, being human and often poorly paid, time and again yield to the influence of the contractors and permit them to slight their work and to increase their profits at the city's expense. There has been quite enough said in the newspapers and elsewhere about the manifestations of this condition in Philadelphia. It is not the purpose of this bulletin to deal in allegations (if that's all they amount to) nor to cover ground usually reserved for the partisan propagandist. The query naturally arises: what has all this to do with charter revision? The answer is that Philadelphia under existing laws does not have the power to do its own street cleaning even though it may want to do so. The charter revision bill gives it that power and in addition requires it to do street cleaning and kindred work unless three-fourths of council, with the approval of the mayor, authorize the contract system. The city should certainly have the right to decide for itself this important matter. STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, CIRCULATION, ETC., REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF CONGRESS OF AUGUST 24, 1912. Of CITIZENS BUSINESS, published weekly at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for April 1, 1919. Before me, a Notary Public in and for the State and county aforesaid, personally appeared Frederick P. Gruenberg, who, having been duly affirmed according to law, deposes and says that he is the editor of CITIZENS BUSINESS and that the following is, to the best of his knowledge and belief, a true statement of the ownership, management, etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above caption, required by the Act of August 24, 1912, embodied in section 443, Postal Laws and Regulations, to wit: 1. That the names and addresses of the publisher, editor, managing editor, and business managers are: Publisher, Bureau of Municipal Research, Philadelphia. Managing Editor, None. Business Managers, None. 2. That the owners are: Bureau of Municipal Research. No capital stock. 3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities are: None. (Signed) Frederick P. Gruenberg. Affirmed to and subscribed before me this 20th day of March, 1919. [SEAL] (Signed) Martha H. Quinn. (My Commission expires January 16, 1923.) |