36

Judgments, costs, etc.	519.86
Pauper Expense	876.50
Street sprinkling	3,394.40
Miscellaneous expenses	1,048.64
Public Schools	89,94[0 or 1?].69
Bond interest and exchange	147,621.09
Sinking fund envested	4,035.45
City Park	1, 879.42
Water supply	57,745.00
Jennings avenue viaduct	11,906.43
Carnegie library	3,999.99
Opening of East Ninth Street	709.91
Bridges, culverts and gutters	4,755.99
Paving	3,756.95
	$479 ,508.40

It will be seen that the expenditures exceeded the receipts by
$43.410.87 caused mainly by the large amounts paid out on past due
interest charges, and on the D.W.Mead contract for the adequate supply
of pure water, the money for which had been accumulating in the treas-
ury for some three years, awaiting the completion of the contract.

The city is to be congratulated, that at the end of this fiscal
year, after having passed through the financial difficulties that have
burdened it for years, it finds itself in a position to be upon a cash
basis with all its creditors and its financial condition in a most
hopeful state; for under the system that has been practised by this
administration, which has adopted the motto of "Pay as you go, and
avoid Bond issues",. Fort Worth enters into the new fiscal year assured
that its financial troubles are nearing the end.

Four years ago the City of Fort Worth entered upon an era of perma-
nent improvements, and money therefor had to be appropriated in the
budget, necessitating a failure to pay interest charges on the public
debt and an increasing of the tax rate by legislature enactment from
$1.50 to $1.75 on the one hundred dollars valuation of property in
Fort Worth. No bonds could be issued and the city was in a deplorable
condition through lack of streets and water supply, and the administra-
tion wisely chose the course of making these improvements and defering
payment on the city's bonded indebtedness. The result has justified
the means; for during the four years of this policy of permanent improve-
ments has been pursued by the council; the valuation of the property
of the city has steadily increase, starting at $16.186.609 in 1900
and successively increasing to $16.482.035 in 1901, $18.873.729 in
1902, $20.955.383 in 1903. This increase in valuation, taxed at the