COST OF GOVERNMENT IN MASS. 



183 



5 per cent of the total. The importance of interest and debt payments in the 

 budget for each group is shown in Table 11. 



Until 1922 paj-ments by the State government for interest and debt amount- 

 ed to more than 10 per cent of State expenditures, but since that tune the per- 

 centage has been dropping. The County figures on debt payments are not 

 available except for the past few years. 



Table 10. — Expenditures per Capita for Interest and Debt, by Size of 

 Citv or Town, 1926. 



The proportion of the total municipal expenditures required for interest 

 and debt payments tends to increase with the size of the town, but this does 

 not seem to be true for the larger cities. (Table 10). In Table 11 it will be 

 noted that interest and debt pajnnents take twice as much of the budget in 

 cities as in small towns. Considerable variation occurs between towns or cities 

 in the same group. Thus, in cities of from 100,000 to 150,000 population, inter- 

 est and debt payments per person ranged from $8.97 to $16.61 in 1926. 



Many of the small towns have little or no debt, and the average is increased 

 considerably by a few towns that are relatively wealthy and have borrowed 

 much more than other towns of their size. Thus, 6 of the 44 towns of less 

 than 500 population in 1926 paid 58 per cent of the total interest and debt of 

 the group. For towns of less than 1,000 population, 68 per cent of interest and 

 debt payments were made by 17 towns, in one of which per capita payments 



Table 11.- — Ratio of Payments for Interest and Debt to Total 

 Expenditures, 1926. (Percentages) 



JurL^dicfio)) . Interest Debt Total 



Central State Gov't 2.7 3.7 6.4 



Counties 3.3 — ' 3.3 



Towns under 5,000 2.7 4.9 7.6 



Towns over 5,000 4.5 7.0 11.5 



Cities 7.0 8.8 15.8 



^ Debt figures not available. 



