TABLE NO. 8.-Average value per acre, by municipalities and classes, for the fiscal year 1914-15. [Corrected to Dec. 31, 1914.] Municipality. Adjuntas. Aguadilla. Aibonito. $52. 28 $63.45 $50.00 $27.97 $15.56 $9.84 $10.19 $27.91 Aguada. Aguas Buenas. Añasco.... Arecibo. 110.80 46.88 46.96 147.42 90.96 109.09 34.62 33.39 8.28 18.43 9.68 35.69 Arroyo. 128.11 51.21 100.00 100.00 16.98 33.38 15. 18 34.39 48.96 58.07 Barceloneta. 109.52 56.86 92.50 98.76 104.89 96.43 34.08 40.80 10. 14 25.93 6.53 42.58 TABLE NO. 9.-Average value per unit of personal property. TABLE NO. 10.-Number of heads of live stock and vehicles. The policy of the finance committee in its recommendations to the executive council, regarding the matter of loans to municipalities and school boards, has been one of extreme conservatism. Even with the present high price of sugar, which is probably but temporary, the time does not seem opportune for the incurring of indebtedness on the part of the municipalities, to extend over a period of years, except for those projects which will safeguard or improve the health of the community or which will produce some additional income which may be used for the repayment, at least in part, of the original cost of the projects. In accordance with this policy, 22 loans to municipalities and 2 to school boards were finally approved during the year, these loans aggregating $358,450. Of this amount $17,750 represented refunded indebtedness, while $117,000 was made up of three loans granted to replace other loans which had been formerly approved for $178,000. Hence, the actual amount of new indebtedness authorized under loans originating during the year was $223,700, while the net increase in the total amount of authorized municipal and school-board indebtedness amounted to $162,700, the difference between these last two amounts, $61,000, representing the reductions effected in the three loans mentioned above. One other municipal loan for $16,000 was approved by the executive council and was pending the approval of the governor at the close of the year, while 9 school-board loans, aggregating $169,500, had been favorably considered but not finally approved. Requests from 20 other municipalities and 2 school boards for loans aggregating $732,700 were under consideration of the finance committee at the close of the year, while at least 3 other municipalities-San Juan, Mayaguez, and Arecibo-which have made no formal requests are considering loans of $1,500,000, $300,000, and $80,000, respectively. In addition to the indebtedness incurred by borrowing from the insular government, 20 municipalities became indebted for the value of live stock, wagons, and other materials purchased by them from The People of Porto Rico, for use in the revised system of sanitation, in accordance with the provisions of an act of the legislative assembly of 1914, amounting to $34,648.27. The payment of the amounts owed will be made, in most cases, during the fiscal year 1915-16, although in a few cases authority has been granted to extend the payments over several years. During the year two municipalities and two school boards issued bonds in favor of The People of Porto Rico aggregating $205,000, increasing the total of bonds so issued to $1,167,000. Thirteen other municipalities and one school board have been authorized to issue bonds for covering previous loans to the amount of $519,166.67, but have not yet done so. In addition to the bonds issued in favor of The People of Porto Rico, there are still outstanding bonds of the cities of Arecibo, Ponce, and San Juan, issued on January 1, 1902, as follows: 1 The city of Arecibo, prior to the close of the fiscal year, remitted $10,000 to its fiscal agent in New York to provide for the redemption of bonds to that amount on July 1, 1915. This amount is included in the total amount of bonds redeemed in the above statement. In addition to their funded indebtedness, the municipalities of the island closed the fiscal year with reported floating indebtedness to the amount of $14,684.16, this representing indebtedness covered by a budgetary appropriation, but which was unpaid at the end of the year, and reported current indebtedness to the amount of $36,333.09, this being indebtedness incurred in excess of the budgetary appropriation. To this must be added a further amount for supplies purchased and services rendered regarding which no accurate data is available in this bureau at present. The cash balance of "ordinary funds," that is, those available for general expenditure, as distinguished from "road funds," "loan funds," and others, the use of which is restricted to specific purposes, was $178,115.88, a decrease of $17,708.19 below the preceding year. Deducting from this balance the amount of floating and current indebtedness carried over to the next fiscal year, there is left a surplus of $127,098.63. It should be noted, however, that over half of this surplus pertains to only 4 of the 74 municipalities, while other municipalities were compelled to make emergency loans amounting to $32,100 in order to carry on the municipal services during the year. The receipts of all the municipalities during the year, excluding the proceeds of loans or bond redemption taxes, amounted to $1,881,908.15, consisting of $1,762,678.68 in "ordinary funds" and $119,229.47 in "road funds." While receipts pertaining to "ordinary funds" were only $2,673.48 less than in 1913-14, it should be noted that the amount of current receipts this year, classified in Table No. 17 as "General revenues,' was only $1,725,569.56, a decrease of $13,494.77 from the previous year. It is perhaps significant to note that were the current receipts of the municipalities derived solely from those sources of revenue arising from the purely governmental nature of the municipal corporations, such as taxes, fees, fines, permits, etc., the decrease in such receipts this year would have been much greater. Receipts from taxes amounted to only $1,405,127.60, a decrease of $44,533.67, while miscellaneous revenues from fees, permits, privileges, and fines increased only $858.25. The decrease in taxes was general, the amounts being: Property taxes, $12,897.79; meat taxes, $6,879.33; business licenses, $22,003.93; and other licenses, $2,752.62. This decrease would have been very much larger, except for the inclusion in the accounts for this year of a considerable amount of taxes paid under protest during the previous year. Receipts of a purely commercial or business nature, including receipts from publicservice enterprises and receipts from the use of municipal property, increased. Waterworks, electric-light plants, and piers produced $194,741.10, an increase of $27.954.81 over last year, over two-thirds of which, however, or $19,134.73, represented the excess of receipts from the Ponce pier for the whole fiscal year 1914-15 over similar receipts for the last six months of the prior year included in last year's report. Watersupply systems produced $153,247.44, an increase of $3,989.34 over the previous year. From the use of municipal property the municipalities derived during the past year the sum of $95,322.93, an increase of $2.524.55 over the preceding year. While almost all of the sources of revenue included in this classification showed increases, that from markets alone amounting to $7,429.38, there was a marked decrease in receipts from theaters and from pay patients in municipal hospitals, a part of the decrease in the last item, however, being only apparent, as the municipality of San Juan adopted this year the practice of covering into the municipal treasury as repayments the part of the fees of pay patients which covered the actual expenses of maintenance. |