24 Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency 



about the heavy increase of taxation for park purposes as the 

 result of legislation designed to have no other purpose than to 

 give larger borrowing power. The Park Boards ought to make 

 their action conform in the future to the spirit of that legislation. 

 The levies should be such as to produce only the revenue that 

 would be obtained if the valuation for taxing purposes had not 

 been changed. 



In 1909, for some unexplained reason, the County Clerk, in 

 spreading the tax levy, gave the South Park Board $50,534 more 

 taxes than had been called for by the levy of the Board. 



Certain bond issues of the South Park Board and of the 

 West Park Board, purporting to have been sold above par, were 

 really disposed of below par, on account of the deferring of pay- 

 ment of all or part of the purchase price for considerable periods 

 of time without interest. 



Practically all of the funds of the South and West Park 

 Boards are on deposit with a single bank, officers of which bank 

 are bondsmen for the Treasurers of these two Boards. The Treas- 

 urer of the South Park Board is one of the bondsmen for the 

 Treasurer of the West Park Board, and vice versa. It is bad pol- 

 icy to keep all the funds of a park district in a single bank ; and 

 especially to concentrate in a single bank practically all of the 

 funds of the two largest park districts. The policy of accepting 

 personal bondsmen is questionable, especially where there is 

 inter-relationship of bondsmen and Treasurers who are officers 

 within a single bank holding large amounts of public funds. 



The Lincoln Park and Fernwood Park Boards have sinking 

 funds that are deposited in bank and drawing only two per cent. 

 Authority should be secured to invest such funds in securities 

 bearing a higher rate of interest. 



The Lincoln Park Board is the only one to adopt a 

 budget in advance of the making of the annual tax levy. The 

 other Park Boards should put the budget system into use. 



V. IMPROVEMENTS PENDING UNIFICATION 



The great need of the Chicago Park situation, of course, is 

 the merger of all park governments with the city. In the text of 



