New York Tribune

WHAT THE CITY IS TO SPEND.

The Board of Estimate and Apportionment will give taxpayers an opportunity to-morrow to criticise the estimates of the city departments for next year. Judging from the past the number who will avail themselves of this privilege will be very small. Our real estate owners are apt to grumble when their tax bills come in, but few of them are willing to do any work that will tend to lighten their burdens. They are apt also to criticise our office-holders and legislators sharply enough, but they show little readiness for such effort in the preliminary work of campaigns as will serve to purify the parties and put better men in nomination. A lack of true public spirit on the part of the intelligent and wealthy classes is the curse of this city. They are earnest and zealous in their own affairs, they give freely to charities, they are ready in heart and hand to support what is worthy in private life, but in municipal affairs, except under the stress of some tremendous emergency, they are strangely apathetic and indifferent. They shattered the great Tweed Ring, but of the little rings in the city departments which still exist they take no heed. They may complain of their tax bills for a day or two, but for the rest of the year they are content to leave the city government to the politicians.

In a few days the appropriations for 1882 will be settled. The estimates of the departments have been passed on by the Board of Apportionment, and have then gone to the Aldermen, who, of course, have made some unwise additions. They always do. Fortunately they have no power in the matter. Their amendments are merely suggestions to the Board of Apportionment, which determines the amounts to be allowed, and generally pays little attention to the prodigal City Fathers. That Board is now to revise the estimates and settle them beyond amendment or appeal, and it is willing to hear the taxpayers who may be able to give reasons why allowances should be diminished or increased. It will be hard, however, to find any good reason for increase. Reduction is what is needed.

The total of appropriations for 1881 was $31,354,322 59. As the estimates for 1882 now stand after the suggested amendments by the Aldermen the total is $29,710,596. At first sight this seems like a step in the direction of retrenchment. But in fact there has been no retrenchment. The decrease is due wholly to the diminished appropriations for State taxes and city debt. Last year the sum required for State taxes was $4,270,760; this year it is only $2,827,287 73. These figures are very creditable to the Republican State Government, but our Democratic City Government can claim no praise for them. For 1881 the appropriation for interest on the city debt was $8,240,965; for 1882 it is $8,191,958; for redemption of the city debt $664,377 was allowed last year and only $297,607 this year. It is clear that there has been no progress toward economy in our inflated, extravagant departments, crammed full of men who are paid for political 'influence' rather than for honest labor. The Park Department last year was allowed $641,500; for 1882 the estimate is $728,000. Citizens who know what the condition of our parks is and who are familiar with the history of the shameful quarrels in the Park Board will certainly not be in favor of giving our present turbulent and inefficient Commissioners any more money to waste. Until that department is reorganized and we have some reasonable assurance that the money allowed it will be spent more judiciously than it has been during the last few years the appropriation should be cut down rigorously. For 1882 a round million of dollars is allowed for street-cleaning. There will be no outcry over this amount if the work is well done. The streets have been in better condition under the new street-cleaning department than when those masters of mismanagement, the Police Commissioners, had charge of them. So much is evident to every man who is not so partisan as to prefer dirt with patronage to cleanliness without it. It is evident also that Commissioner Coleman has not accomplished all that was expected of him. He has been seriously embarrassed by the active hostility of the whole police force from president to patrolman. That to some extent accounts for his failure to meet the just expectations of the people. He has brought the city some relief. But he must do better in the coming year to escape well-founded criticism. As for the Police Department, attacks on the present street-cleaning system come with an ill-grace from men who were indicted for neglect of duty. One of the most foolish of the many foolish things done by our absurd Board of Aldermen was the raising of the sum allowed the Police Department for clerk hire. If there is a body of clerks in this city more plainly underworked and overpaid than the police clerks it would be interesting to know who they are. The appropriation of $61,250 for the Common Council rouses painful thoughts. It is a pity that for so much money we should get so little sense. The Finance Department is cut down slightly in comparison with last year, as is the Fire Department, while the Law Department, the Health Department, the Public Works and the Board of Education get advances. The community would feel more confidence in the wisdom of the expenditures in the Public Works if the head of that department devoted more time to his duties and less to politics. 'Bosses' of parties or factions rarely make good commissioners. The big total for salaries in the courts—over $1,100,000—gives rise to melancholy reflections as to the amounts squandered in the police courts, civil district courts and elsewhere on men whose knowledge of law is less than that of the average student after his first month in an attorney's office. The Legislature ought to give us relief from some of these abuses. But what can we hope for from a Legislature in which there is a Democratic majority in both branches, and in which such men as Grady, Browning and Koch will be conspicuous figures? The outlook for 1882 cannot be considered encouraging for taxpayers. In some departments there is a worse set of men in office than there has been since William M. Tweed retired, while at Albany the number of 'jobs' and 'deals' and corrupt schemes is likely to exceed the record of any year since 1870.