A second protest against the proposed new county road tax. County board levies additional tax for improvement and maintenance of county roads

SECOND PROTEST AGAINST THE

To the Voters and Taxpayers of Cook

On February 28, the County Board passed its budget
for 1922 and included therein the following item:
"County Highway Tax, $4,402,717.05." To produce this
amount would require a tax rate of 25 cents. On April
1, the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, in a com-
munication to the Board, urged it to abandon its plan to
levy this tax. The members of the County Board Com-
mittee on Roads and Bridges, at a meeting held April
19, informally approved a highway tax of 10 cents which,
if levied, will produce about $1,850,000. The objections
raised by the Bureau to the larger amount apply also to
a 10-cent tax.

In its former communication the Bureau stated explic-
itly that it recognized the need of building good roads
and the importance of keeping them in repair after they
are built. Public attention also was directed to the fact
that none of the money from the proposed new tax would
be used to repair concrete roads recently built, but that
the County Board was planning to spend $5,000 per
mile for one year's repairs on 200 miles of unpaved dirt
and gravel roads, most of which probably will be paved
within the next two or three years.

Without the new highway tax now proposed, more
than $3,000,000 will be available for building hard roads

in Cook County during 1922 — a sum ample for financing
this year's construction program.

Extensive road building out of current taxes is bad
financing. It imposes too heavy an immediate tax bur-
den and offers no opportunity for effective popular con-
trol and check on the expenditures. When, as heretofore
has been the practice, construction funds are provided
through bond issues, the tax is spread over a period of
years and is not so burdensome. Moreover, public con-
fidence in the County 's road building has resulted largely
from the opportunity which the people have had to ap-
prove in advance, through referendum votes on bonds,
not only the amount of money to be spent, but the desig-
nation of the roads to be built. There need be no delay
in further road building if this sound policy of the past
is adhered to in the future.

On the other hand, the plan to finance road building
and the repair of unimproved dirt roads out of a special
annual tax opens the door to extravagance, waste, spoils,
and a long train of abuses that are likely to destroy
public confidence and seriously injure the good roads
movement.

The proposal to spend $5,000 a mile on one year's re-
pairs of 200 miles of unpaved dirt and gravel roads is
clearly outrageous. Commissioner Goodnow in his public
statements has said that the law imposes the obligation
upon the Board. He is quoted in the public press also
as saying that the Bureau is asking the Board to ignore
the law. Nothing could be further from the fact.

The law in question requires the County Board to
maintain these unpaved roads, but no standard of main-
tenance is established and no specified expenditure is re-
quired. Heretofore only comparatively small sums have
been spent for this purpose. Commissioner Goodnow

himself, in a discussion of the subject at the City dub
on April 19, said that the requirements of the law would
be satisfied with an expenditure of $15,000. Why then
levy a tax of more than $1,000,000 for this purpose, on
the ground that the law requires it? Commissioner Good-
now argues that it will be more economical in the end to
expend the larger amount. The Bureau believes that the
alleged economies are fanciful and will not be realized.

The Bureau does not contend that no money should be
spent on the upkeep of these unpaved roads. However,
it believes that provision for this work can and should
be made from the general funds of the County. A tax
of two or three cents would produce an abundant amount
for maintenance and other incidental road purposes.
But there is no need for levying even that amount. Rev-
enue of the general fund, estimated at approximately
$500,000, was omitted when this year's budget was pre-
pared and passed. It should be possible to utilize this
amount for road purposes.

The power to levy the proposed new road tax is de-
rived from certain amendments to the county revenue
law which were introduced and slipped through the Leg-
islature during the closing hours of the 1921 session.
Had the real nature and serious effects of these amend-
ments been known they would have had little chance of
passage. The County Board has no moral right to take
advantage of the opportunity and power thus granted to
burden unnecessarily the taxpaying public.

The issue raised by this proposal to levy a new high-
way tax is as plain as a pikestaff. Will the County Board
abandon its plan to levy this special annual tax for both
construction and maintenance purposes, adhering in the
future, as in the past, to the sound financial policy of
building roads from bond funds that have been voted

for by the people, and providing for essential road main-
tenance from its general funds! Or, will the Board take
advantage of the power granted it by the " joker" legis-
lation sneaked through the General Assembly during the
closing hours of its last session and impose another un-
necessary and indefensible tax upon the community?

Fine spun excuses and other camouflage should not
blind the public to the real character of the County
Board's proposed action.

CHICAGO BUREAU OF PUBLIC EFFICIENCY,

HARRIS S. KEELER,

Director.
April 22, 1922.

CHICAGO BUREAU

OF

PUBLIC EFFICIENCY

315 PLYMOUTH COURT

TRUSTEES

JULIUS ROSENWALD, Chairman
ALFRED L. BAKER, Treasurer

ONWARD BATES F. B. JOHNSTONE

VICTOR ELTING ALLEN B. POND

WALTER L. FISHER GEORGE G. TUNELL

HARRIS S. KEELER, Director

187

BORROWED

efficiency
Publications

•no. 41 -SO,
,53,58-tO.
62a

MAR30'wt -^

MAR 25 1939 i I^DJEH^JN

1,6 1939

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY