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STATE HISTORICAL .'. . CIST7 SZ HITT & LC'tfRY HT . ' '' ' COLUMBIA. UO. 65201 7lili oar N'o. ftl (; HMI Morning! ltTiua. Novc- mlx- r 24. Ml 2NtIm. i.- h- l I'iio 2.: Mif. " " Reagan gets his way on budget WASHINGTON ( UPI) - President Rea-gan, wielding the veto for the first time, Monday blocked what he called a " budget- buster- " emergency money bill and won con-gressional approval of a stopgap measure delaying the spending battle for nearly a month. Reagan signed the revised $ 400- billi- on stopgap spending program into law less than 12 hours after vetoing a $ 427.9- billio- n con-gressional compromise worked out over the weekend. The president also made the dramatic ges-ture of beginning to shut down the govern-ment on grounds there was no money for anything but essential services a move that threw the bureaucracy into confusion. The impasse arose because Congress has yet to approve any of the major appropria-tions to keep the government running through this fiscal year. Reagan won a key victory in the long- ru- n ning battle of the budget by persuading both the House and Senate to continue govern-ment funding at existing levels through Dec. 15, instead of Feb. 3 as House Democrats had sought as an alternative to the vetoed mea-sure, which would have run through July 15. Several members of Congress said approv-al of the three- wee- k stopgap was as much a sign of Congress' desire to go home for the Thanksgiving holiday as it was a major win for Reagan. But in wielding his veto against the " continuing resolution," Reagan raised the stakes in the spending stuggle. Announcing his veto in a televised appearance Monday morning, the president declared " these so- call- ed stopgap ( resolutions) are budget- busters- ." Reagan signed the law just after 5: 30 p. m. GST and promptly began his Thanksgiving holiday. He had delayed his scheduled Sun-day departure for his California ranch to challenge Congress in what he described as a battle over " fiscal sanity." Speaking to reporters as he left the White House, Reagan made clear what was al-ready known that the budget conflict was only taking a holiday break. " We must go back and do the work all over again," he said, adding he was glad the holi-day would not be disrupted for everyone. " We are going to try to negotiate a ( final) bill I can sign." The scaled- dow- n continuing resolution headed for Reagan's desk in late afternoon, with defecting House Democrats giving the president the one thing he held out for cur-tailed spending authority only until Dec. 15. On a vote of 221- 17- 6, the House where all money bills must begin agreed to the De-cember extension, the longest the president would accept. Forty- thre- e Democrats sided with Reagan on the date. No Republican strayed from the president's fold. The final House vote to send the bill to the Senate was 367- 2- 6. ( The Missouri delegation voted along party lines, except for Democrat Ike Skelton, who sided with the president and voted for the resolution. ) The accepted the resolution without change on a vote of 88-- 1. Sen. Alan Cranston, D- Cal- if., cast the lone vote against the mea-sure. The new resolution which replaces an emergency measure passed at the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1 sets the stage for another crisis confrontation next month unless Congress and Reagan settle on formal appropriations laws. Democratic defectors gave Reagan the clout he needed to win the crucial House test a vote to limit the stopgap bill to only three weeks, rather than the three months House leaders had proposed. The leadership had sidestepped meeting Reagan's veto head- o- n, avoiding a vote to override it, and proposed instead the $ 400- billi- on measure that was well below the re-ductions the president sought. However, the Democrats tried to make the new version effective until Feb. 3 But Rea-gan was adamant in not allowing Congress to postpone resolution of the budget conflict that long. The emergency bill, designed to end the fiscal crisis that began at 11: 01 p. m. CST Fri-day when much of the government technical-ly ran out of money, would allow federal de-partments to reverse the " shutdown" procedures that began Monday morning Officials said about 400,000 government employees out of a total federal payroll of more than 4 million faced immediate unpaid furloughs because of the budget impasse About 75 percent of Uncle Sam's workers were in no danger of layoff, however the ( See LAWMAKERS, P. 8A) Anticipation Oh, that's going to tickle. John Schuppan, son of Mr. and Mrs. Dan Schuppan, 1213 Bradshaw Ave., has his bangs trimmed by In town today 9: 30 a. m. County Court meets, court chambers, fifth floor, County- Cit- y Building. 7: 30 p. m. " Getting Ready for Cross- Countr- y Skiing," dis-cussion with Fred Spnngsteel and Marty Kardinal, Student Center, 100 Hitt St , free and open to the public. 7: 30 p. m. " The Third World and the Crisis of Manage-ment," speech by Paul Wal-lace, professor of political sci-ence, free and open to the public. Index Business 6A Classified 4- 5- B Comics.....'. 6B Opinion .... 4A People.,., 5A Sports..... 1- 2- B I Weather 2A J t avid Wright barber Raymond Sapp of Dutch's Barber and Styling, 1103 N Providence Road. JJO- Slffll-t I Soviets ' kritik' American best seller By Serge Schmemann New York Times MOSCOW What would a Soviet publisher do with a novel that starts off with disfigured corpses- i- n Cen-tral Park, continues with dark in-trigues involving city cops, FBI agents, Russian detectives and Hol-lywood starlets, and winds up with everyone getting killed in a Moscow suburb and the recovery of Coca- Co- la concealed in Greek amphorae ( ancient jars) by the director of a Soviet soda- po- p bottling plant? Kirill Semn, writing recently in Literatumaya Gazeta, the journal of the Soviet Union of Writers, vows that in the unlikely event that such " rubbish" is ever written, " workers at any of our publishing houses would shove the author out by the scruff of his neck, even at the risk of subsequent explanations to the po-lice." But the self- sam- e plot, Senin re-ports with a tone of incredulity, but with American and Soviet charac-ters and locations reversed, has made Martin Cruz Smith's " Gorky Park" one . of the best- selli- ng novels of 1981. Senin's bitterly sarcastic review is the first extensive Soviet examina-tion of " Gorky Park," a mystery novel about a Moscow detective whose investigation of a bizarre murder leads to an international in-trigue involving the KGB, the FBI, the New York City police, sable smuggling and a host of killings The book has been praised by some American critics for the pace of its action and for its effort to recreate the atmosphere of Moscow life. " Gorky Park" has not been trans-lated into Russian, and not. many So-viet citizens would have access to the American edition. Literatumaya Gazeta's attack, however, appears intended less as a forewarning to po-tential readers than as a retort to a work perceived as a deliberate as-sault on the Soviet Union. A book that runs counter to national policy is virtually unthinkable in the Soviet Union, and many Soviet citizens as-sume some form of similar control is universal. The real reason for the popularity of " Gorky Park," Senin contends, is not to be found in reviews, but " in the logic of the American political reality of recent tunes." The clea-rest evidence in the Soviet review-er's mind seems to be the . identity of the novel's publisher, Random House. The chairman of Random House, Robert L. Bernstein, is an outspoken ( See REVIEWER, P. 8A) Local workers' day uncertain By Anne Voegtlm Missourian staff writer Monday was a day of rumor, spec-ulation, confusion and finally relief for Columbia federal employees whose jobs drifted in limbo as Con-gress and President Reagan jaw-boned their way to a budget exten-sion compromise All but " essential" federal pro-grams began Monday without oper-ating money after Reagan vetoed a continuing resolution passed by Con-gress. In Columbia, workers at Tru-man Veterans Hospital, the Division of Social Security, the Postal Service and other agencies considered essen-tial by Reagan conducted business as usual. But the local General Services Ad--" ministration planned to shift to a skeleton crew today . At the Farmers Home Administration state head-quarters in Columbia, only seven of 31 employees were told to report to work today. The Department of Ag-riculture's Statistical Reporting Service closed at noon Monday, and Agricultural Stabilization and Con-servation Service closed at 1 p m While agencies received tele-grams, teletype messages and phone calls advising them how to deal with a suspended budget. Congress and the president worked their way to-ward compromise. Pat Berry, acting field office man-ager for GSA in Columbia, said after learning of the compromise. ' I heard it on the news I'll have to lis-ten again at 10 to see if that's what he said We were told that if he ( the president) signed it, we could go to work."' While she remembers other times when Congress flirted with the fund-ing deadline, this was different ' This is probably the first time a president has said' he'll close down the government," Mrs Berry ob- serv- ea. George Thomas, an administra-tive officer with FHA, expects agen-cy employ ees to be on the job today . " There's a general feeling that we'll be back to work." he said after hearing about the compromise " We're fairly optimistic. We'll just be waiting for the offlcial word " Thomas said he, too, had been through the continuing- resolutio- n suspense before. " But never to this degree," he said ' Never before has anyone been put on furlough. It affects people's jobs and the paychecks they get. It certainly could have a financial im-pact." Shutdown Woman's left singing the wedding bell blues Chicago Sun- Tim- es CHICAGO Alicia Carbone just wants to get to the church on time. Unfortunately, the church is in Bil-bao, Spain, and Miss Carbone's jour-ney of love was blocked temporarily by President- - Reagan's shutdown of " non- essentia- l" government serv-ices. " How can he call my wedding non-essential7" Miss Carbone said. " Carmelo will never believe me. He'll think I have cold feet." Carmelo Laborda, a chemist, is Carbone's fiance and the wedding is set for Thursday. But Miss Carbone and a dozen oth-er would- b- e travelers waiting out-side the locked doors of the U. S. passport office Monday morning were out of luck at least for the day. The passport office was one of a scattering of government agencies closed here because of uncertainty over federal funding. Indignation was the common theme among those waiting outside the passport office, where a sign on the locked door said, " Closed until further notice." Miss Carbone, 28, a medical tech-nician from Akron, Ohio, and a na-tive of Uruguay, said she became a U. S. citizen just last Friday after liv-ing in this country for 12 years Although she plans to live in Spain after her marriage. Miss Carbone said she wanted the citizenship pa-pers in case she ever wanted to re-turn to the United States to live. " But now I don't think I want to," she said. The budget compromise agreed to late Monday just may change her mind providing another unforseen turn of events does not keep her from reaching Spain in time. Gray sees reasons to raise city sales tax ByJeanDubail Missourian staff writer City Manager Richard Gray thinks a one- half- ce- nt increase in the city sales tax might keep Columbia's capital improvements program healthy and at the same time allow a rollback in property taxes. Speaking Monday to about 250 peo-ple at a Boone County Bank " Lunch and Leam" program, Gray said the higher sales tax would bring an addi-tional $ 2.7 million into the city trea-sury yearly. He said the increase could allow the city to roll back prop-erty taxes and support a $ 10.6 mil-lion bond issue to maintain the mo-mentum of the capital improvements program. Beyond the tax income needed to service an estimated annual bond debt of $ 1.2 million, Gray said, prop-erty taxes could be lowered to 43 cents from 73 cents per $ 100 assessed valuation. Money not used for one of these purposes would go into the general operating budget. Despite its " excellent" financial situation, Gray said, the city has reached the limit of its ability to pay for capital improvements. Federal and state grants, which until now have paid for the bulk of capital pro-jects, are being curtailed. The city staff estimates that even if current grant levels were maintained which Gray said would be an opti-mistic assumption the city would still be $ 9 million to $ 11 million short of projected capital needs for fiscal years 1982 through 1986. Gray's " shopping list" for projects the bonds would help finance includ-es: $ 5.7 million for street im-provements. To this would be added $ 2.3 million in special assessments to owners of abutting property . -'-- 1 - $ 2.5 million for parks and recre-ation, including $ 1.5 milhon for a community sw lmming pool. $ 750,000 for runway im-provements at Columbia Regional Airport. To this would be added $ 6.7 million in grants from the Federal Aviation Administration. $ 700,000 for bridge im-provements. - $ 500,000 for new tornado warn-ing and other emergency commu-nications equipment. - $ 420,000 for public- safet- y pro-jects, including a fire substation in the southern part of the city. Gray said all the projects might not be feasible without new money for the capital improvements. " The luxury of pay- as- you-- go fi-nancing is at an end," Gray said. ' What we need to do in this commu-nity is look to other financing tech-niques." He suggested issuing $ 10.6 million in tax- exemp- t, 25- ye- ar general obli-gation bonds. Raising revenue through a bond issue has several ad-vantages over paying for im-provements out of general revenue as funds became available. Gray said. He said the bonds would allow the city to attack its capital im-provements problems before they become critical, while paying off the work in dollars made cheaper by in-flation. Additionally, the facilities would be paid for as they were used, and citizens would be able to vote separately on each proposed project. Gray said the city easily can af-ford the additional debt. Its out-standing general- obhgatio- n debt is $ 700,000, a fraction of the $ 37.3 mil-lion allowable under state law. ( A city may incur debt worth up to one- fift- h of its total assessed valuation. Columbia's is about $ 190 million. ) The tax limiting Hancock Amend- - - - J ment would require Columbia voters to approve or deny the sales tax in-crease. Gray suggested that a refer-endum could be held next y ear. pos-sibly m April. " Harry Truman used to say, " The buck stops here,' " Gray said after the meeting. " In this case it stops at the polls. That's what the Hancock Amendment is all about. " He said the Apnl ballot also might include proposed capital projects. In response to a question from the audience, Gray warned that if the bond issue were approved but the tax increase defeated, money to pay off the bonds would have to come from higher property taxes. He said later such circumstances would be unlikely, since approval of the bond issue requires a two- thir- ds majority, while the sales- ta- x increase requires a simple majority. Gray said he will present his plan to the council at its Dec 5 meeting.
Object Description
Title | Columbia Missourian Newspaper 1981-11-24 |
Creator | Treadway, R. M.; Albright, J. W. |
Description | Vol. 74TH YEAR, No. 61 |
Subject |
Columbia (Mo.) -- Newspapers Boone County (Mo.) -- Newspapers |
Coverage | United States -- Missouri -- Boone County -- Columbia |
Language | English |
Date.Search | 1981-11-24 |
Type | Newspapers |
Format | |
Collection Name | Columbia Missourian Newspaper Collection |
Publisher.Digital | University of Missouri Library Systems |
Rights | These pages may be freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for distribution or publication. |
Contributing Institution |
State Historical Society of Missouri University of Missouri--Columbia. School of Journalism |
Copy Request | Contact the State Historical Society of Missouri at: (800) 747-6366 or (573) 882-7083 or email contact@shsmo.org. Some fees apply: <http://shs.umsystem.edu/research/copycharges.shtml> |
County |
Boone County (Mo.) |
Description
Title | Full Page |
Date.Search | 1981-11-24 |
Type | page |
Item.Transcript | STATE HISTORICAL .'. . CIST7 SZ HITT & LC'tfRY HT . ' '' ' COLUMBIA. UO. 65201 7lili oar N'o. ftl (; HMI Morning! ltTiua. Novc- mlx- r 24. Ml 2NtIm. i.- h- l I'iio 2.: Mif. " " Reagan gets his way on budget WASHINGTON ( UPI) - President Rea-gan, wielding the veto for the first time, Monday blocked what he called a " budget- buster- " emergency money bill and won con-gressional approval of a stopgap measure delaying the spending battle for nearly a month. Reagan signed the revised $ 400- billi- on stopgap spending program into law less than 12 hours after vetoing a $ 427.9- billio- n con-gressional compromise worked out over the weekend. The president also made the dramatic ges-ture of beginning to shut down the govern-ment on grounds there was no money for anything but essential services a move that threw the bureaucracy into confusion. The impasse arose because Congress has yet to approve any of the major appropria-tions to keep the government running through this fiscal year. Reagan won a key victory in the long- ru- n ning battle of the budget by persuading both the House and Senate to continue govern-ment funding at existing levels through Dec. 15, instead of Feb. 3 as House Democrats had sought as an alternative to the vetoed mea-sure, which would have run through July 15. Several members of Congress said approv-al of the three- wee- k stopgap was as much a sign of Congress' desire to go home for the Thanksgiving holiday as it was a major win for Reagan. But in wielding his veto against the " continuing resolution," Reagan raised the stakes in the spending stuggle. Announcing his veto in a televised appearance Monday morning, the president declared " these so- call- ed stopgap ( resolutions) are budget- busters- ." Reagan signed the law just after 5: 30 p. m. GST and promptly began his Thanksgiving holiday. He had delayed his scheduled Sun-day departure for his California ranch to challenge Congress in what he described as a battle over " fiscal sanity." Speaking to reporters as he left the White House, Reagan made clear what was al-ready known that the budget conflict was only taking a holiday break. " We must go back and do the work all over again," he said, adding he was glad the holi-day would not be disrupted for everyone. " We are going to try to negotiate a ( final) bill I can sign." The scaled- dow- n continuing resolution headed for Reagan's desk in late afternoon, with defecting House Democrats giving the president the one thing he held out for cur-tailed spending authority only until Dec. 15. On a vote of 221- 17- 6, the House where all money bills must begin agreed to the De-cember extension, the longest the president would accept. Forty- thre- e Democrats sided with Reagan on the date. No Republican strayed from the president's fold. The final House vote to send the bill to the Senate was 367- 2- 6. ( The Missouri delegation voted along party lines, except for Democrat Ike Skelton, who sided with the president and voted for the resolution. ) The accepted the resolution without change on a vote of 88-- 1. Sen. Alan Cranston, D- Cal- if., cast the lone vote against the mea-sure. The new resolution which replaces an emergency measure passed at the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1 sets the stage for another crisis confrontation next month unless Congress and Reagan settle on formal appropriations laws. Democratic defectors gave Reagan the clout he needed to win the crucial House test a vote to limit the stopgap bill to only three weeks, rather than the three months House leaders had proposed. The leadership had sidestepped meeting Reagan's veto head- o- n, avoiding a vote to override it, and proposed instead the $ 400- billi- on measure that was well below the re-ductions the president sought. However, the Democrats tried to make the new version effective until Feb. 3 But Rea-gan was adamant in not allowing Congress to postpone resolution of the budget conflict that long. The emergency bill, designed to end the fiscal crisis that began at 11: 01 p. m. CST Fri-day when much of the government technical-ly ran out of money, would allow federal de-partments to reverse the " shutdown" procedures that began Monday morning Officials said about 400,000 government employees out of a total federal payroll of more than 4 million faced immediate unpaid furloughs because of the budget impasse About 75 percent of Uncle Sam's workers were in no danger of layoff, however the ( See LAWMAKERS, P. 8A) Anticipation Oh, that's going to tickle. John Schuppan, son of Mr. and Mrs. Dan Schuppan, 1213 Bradshaw Ave., has his bangs trimmed by In town today 9: 30 a. m. County Court meets, court chambers, fifth floor, County- Cit- y Building. 7: 30 p. m. " Getting Ready for Cross- Countr- y Skiing," dis-cussion with Fred Spnngsteel and Marty Kardinal, Student Center, 100 Hitt St , free and open to the public. 7: 30 p. m. " The Third World and the Crisis of Manage-ment," speech by Paul Wal-lace, professor of political sci-ence, free and open to the public. Index Business 6A Classified 4- 5- B Comics.....'. 6B Opinion .... 4A People.,., 5A Sports..... 1- 2- B I Weather 2A J t avid Wright barber Raymond Sapp of Dutch's Barber and Styling, 1103 N Providence Road. JJO- Slffll-t I Soviets ' kritik' American best seller By Serge Schmemann New York Times MOSCOW What would a Soviet publisher do with a novel that starts off with disfigured corpses- i- n Cen-tral Park, continues with dark in-trigues involving city cops, FBI agents, Russian detectives and Hol-lywood starlets, and winds up with everyone getting killed in a Moscow suburb and the recovery of Coca- Co- la concealed in Greek amphorae ( ancient jars) by the director of a Soviet soda- po- p bottling plant? Kirill Semn, writing recently in Literatumaya Gazeta, the journal of the Soviet Union of Writers, vows that in the unlikely event that such " rubbish" is ever written, " workers at any of our publishing houses would shove the author out by the scruff of his neck, even at the risk of subsequent explanations to the po-lice." But the self- sam- e plot, Senin re-ports with a tone of incredulity, but with American and Soviet charac-ters and locations reversed, has made Martin Cruz Smith's " Gorky Park" one . of the best- selli- ng novels of 1981. Senin's bitterly sarcastic review is the first extensive Soviet examina-tion of " Gorky Park," a mystery novel about a Moscow detective whose investigation of a bizarre murder leads to an international in-trigue involving the KGB, the FBI, the New York City police, sable smuggling and a host of killings The book has been praised by some American critics for the pace of its action and for its effort to recreate the atmosphere of Moscow life. " Gorky Park" has not been trans-lated into Russian, and not. many So-viet citizens would have access to the American edition. Literatumaya Gazeta's attack, however, appears intended less as a forewarning to po-tential readers than as a retort to a work perceived as a deliberate as-sault on the Soviet Union. A book that runs counter to national policy is virtually unthinkable in the Soviet Union, and many Soviet citizens as-sume some form of similar control is universal. The real reason for the popularity of " Gorky Park," Senin contends, is not to be found in reviews, but " in the logic of the American political reality of recent tunes." The clea-rest evidence in the Soviet review-er's mind seems to be the . identity of the novel's publisher, Random House. The chairman of Random House, Robert L. Bernstein, is an outspoken ( See REVIEWER, P. 8A) Local workers' day uncertain By Anne Voegtlm Missourian staff writer Monday was a day of rumor, spec-ulation, confusion and finally relief for Columbia federal employees whose jobs drifted in limbo as Con-gress and President Reagan jaw-boned their way to a budget exten-sion compromise All but " essential" federal pro-grams began Monday without oper-ating money after Reagan vetoed a continuing resolution passed by Con-gress. In Columbia, workers at Tru-man Veterans Hospital, the Division of Social Security, the Postal Service and other agencies considered essen-tial by Reagan conducted business as usual. But the local General Services Ad--" ministration planned to shift to a skeleton crew today . At the Farmers Home Administration state head-quarters in Columbia, only seven of 31 employees were told to report to work today. The Department of Ag-riculture's Statistical Reporting Service closed at noon Monday, and Agricultural Stabilization and Con-servation Service closed at 1 p m While agencies received tele-grams, teletype messages and phone calls advising them how to deal with a suspended budget. Congress and the president worked their way to-ward compromise. Pat Berry, acting field office man-ager for GSA in Columbia, said after learning of the compromise. ' I heard it on the news I'll have to lis-ten again at 10 to see if that's what he said We were told that if he ( the president) signed it, we could go to work."' While she remembers other times when Congress flirted with the fund-ing deadline, this was different ' This is probably the first time a president has said' he'll close down the government," Mrs Berry ob- serv- ea. George Thomas, an administra-tive officer with FHA, expects agen-cy employ ees to be on the job today . " There's a general feeling that we'll be back to work." he said after hearing about the compromise " We're fairly optimistic. We'll just be waiting for the offlcial word " Thomas said he, too, had been through the continuing- resolutio- n suspense before. " But never to this degree," he said ' Never before has anyone been put on furlough. It affects people's jobs and the paychecks they get. It certainly could have a financial im-pact." Shutdown Woman's left singing the wedding bell blues Chicago Sun- Tim- es CHICAGO Alicia Carbone just wants to get to the church on time. Unfortunately, the church is in Bil-bao, Spain, and Miss Carbone's jour-ney of love was blocked temporarily by President- - Reagan's shutdown of " non- essentia- l" government serv-ices. " How can he call my wedding non-essential7" Miss Carbone said. " Carmelo will never believe me. He'll think I have cold feet." Carmelo Laborda, a chemist, is Carbone's fiance and the wedding is set for Thursday. But Miss Carbone and a dozen oth-er would- b- e travelers waiting out-side the locked doors of the U. S. passport office Monday morning were out of luck at least for the day. The passport office was one of a scattering of government agencies closed here because of uncertainty over federal funding. Indignation was the common theme among those waiting outside the passport office, where a sign on the locked door said, " Closed until further notice." Miss Carbone, 28, a medical tech-nician from Akron, Ohio, and a na-tive of Uruguay, said she became a U. S. citizen just last Friday after liv-ing in this country for 12 years Although she plans to live in Spain after her marriage. Miss Carbone said she wanted the citizenship pa-pers in case she ever wanted to re-turn to the United States to live. " But now I don't think I want to," she said. The budget compromise agreed to late Monday just may change her mind providing another unforseen turn of events does not keep her from reaching Spain in time. Gray sees reasons to raise city sales tax ByJeanDubail Missourian staff writer City Manager Richard Gray thinks a one- half- ce- nt increase in the city sales tax might keep Columbia's capital improvements program healthy and at the same time allow a rollback in property taxes. Speaking Monday to about 250 peo-ple at a Boone County Bank " Lunch and Leam" program, Gray said the higher sales tax would bring an addi-tional $ 2.7 million into the city trea-sury yearly. He said the increase could allow the city to roll back prop-erty taxes and support a $ 10.6 mil-lion bond issue to maintain the mo-mentum of the capital improvements program. Beyond the tax income needed to service an estimated annual bond debt of $ 1.2 million, Gray said, prop-erty taxes could be lowered to 43 cents from 73 cents per $ 100 assessed valuation. Money not used for one of these purposes would go into the general operating budget. Despite its " excellent" financial situation, Gray said, the city has reached the limit of its ability to pay for capital improvements. Federal and state grants, which until now have paid for the bulk of capital pro-jects, are being curtailed. The city staff estimates that even if current grant levels were maintained which Gray said would be an opti-mistic assumption the city would still be $ 9 million to $ 11 million short of projected capital needs for fiscal years 1982 through 1986. Gray's " shopping list" for projects the bonds would help finance includ-es: $ 5.7 million for street im-provements. To this would be added $ 2.3 million in special assessments to owners of abutting property . -'-- 1 - $ 2.5 million for parks and recre-ation, including $ 1.5 milhon for a community sw lmming pool. $ 750,000 for runway im-provements at Columbia Regional Airport. To this would be added $ 6.7 million in grants from the Federal Aviation Administration. $ 700,000 for bridge im-provements. - $ 500,000 for new tornado warn-ing and other emergency commu-nications equipment. - $ 420,000 for public- safet- y pro-jects, including a fire substation in the southern part of the city. Gray said all the projects might not be feasible without new money for the capital improvements. " The luxury of pay- as- you-- go fi-nancing is at an end," Gray said. ' What we need to do in this commu-nity is look to other financing tech-niques." He suggested issuing $ 10.6 million in tax- exemp- t, 25- ye- ar general obli-gation bonds. Raising revenue through a bond issue has several ad-vantages over paying for im-provements out of general revenue as funds became available. Gray said. He said the bonds would allow the city to attack its capital im-provements problems before they become critical, while paying off the work in dollars made cheaper by in-flation. Additionally, the facilities would be paid for as they were used, and citizens would be able to vote separately on each proposed project. Gray said the city easily can af-ford the additional debt. Its out-standing general- obhgatio- n debt is $ 700,000, a fraction of the $ 37.3 mil-lion allowable under state law. ( A city may incur debt worth up to one- fift- h of its total assessed valuation. Columbia's is about $ 190 million. ) The tax limiting Hancock Amend- - - - J ment would require Columbia voters to approve or deny the sales tax in-crease. Gray suggested that a refer-endum could be held next y ear. pos-sibly m April. " Harry Truman used to say, " The buck stops here,' " Gray said after the meeting. " In this case it stops at the polls. That's what the Hancock Amendment is all about. " He said the Apnl ballot also might include proposed capital projects. In response to a question from the audience, Gray warned that if the bond issue were approved but the tax increase defeated, money to pay off the bonds would have to come from higher property taxes. He said later such circumstances would be unlikely, since approval of the bond issue requires a two- thir- ds majority, while the sales- ta- x increase requires a simple majority. Gray said he will present his plan to the council at its Dec 5 meeting. |