City Manager Plan in Ohio

Extract

City manager government will soon be in effect over some 250,000 people living in eighteen cities. One hundred seventy five thousand of these people live in Dayton and Springfield—cities which are now completing their first year under this type of administration. Any deductions to be made regarding this type of government as it operates in the case of larger communities, must be drawn from the experience of these two municipalities over the past year.

A most common test of the character of government is economy, although that is no fairer criterion of worth than it is with shoes, furniture, or tobacco. Cheap government is not necessarily good government. Even were the revenue and expense schedules for the present year available, it would be difficult to make an impartial analysis and comparison of finances in Dayton and Springfield under the two types of government. In Springfield the most concrete evidence of economy has been the reduction of the floating indebtedness from $100,000 to $40,000, although the resources were slightly less than those of former years. In Dayton the net expenditures for 1914 from ordinary sources will be approximately $78,000 more than for the previous year. However, with this increase the general revenues were charged for street repair, street lighting, and emergency health work, formerly costing a much larger amount from bonds.