City taxpayers may not know it, but the new City Purchasing Agency which the Howarth administration created is already beginning to save the city thousands of dollars in taxes. It may not be reflected on the personal property tax bills now in the mail, but by next year perhaps it will.

The one outstanding example of this savings is in the purchase of gasoline. Last week the City Council accepted bids for an entire year's supply of gasoline for city-owned vehicles. Bids on 87 octane gasoline were as low as 17.4 cents a gallon.

Previously, of course, each department in the city government had purchased its own gasoline. Standard price paid by each department last year was 21.5 cents a gallon.

A little bit of arithmetic will reveal how much money the city is going to save in this one item. Last week's bid was on 225,000 gallons of gasoline. That amount is about what the city used the year before.

At 21.5 cents a gallon the bill for 225,000 gallons of gasoline would be $48,375.

At 17.4 cents a gallon—four cents cheaper—the bill for the same amount of gasoline (and exactly the same quality) would amount to only $39,150.

The savings is $9,225. And that, to use a trite term, is not hay.

What the economies will be in many other bulk purchases which the new Purchasing Agency are making have not been determined yet. Total figures will not be known until after a full year's operation of the agency. But figures on this item alone prove the Griffenhagen recommendations were right, despite all the opposition previously voiced that it would never be of much value. It is of value. And taxpayers can be thankful.

________________________________

* Illinois State Journal, Springfield, May 9th, 1956.

_____________________________________________________________

The Cook County (Chicago), Ill., assessor's office has said that it may pick up as much as $10 million in assessed values of real estate properties that might have stayed off the assessment roll except that aerial photographs revealed their existence.

Officials told the National Association of Assessing Officers that many new buildings and improvements do not get on the assessment roll because building permits are not reported to the assessor's office. In one township alone, they said, the aerial photographs disclosed 220 new buildings and improvements that had been omitted. These included 78 major structures, such as residences, and even one factory located in a heavily-wooded area.

_____________________________________________________________

Chicago, Ill., has a new "flying squadron" of 235 policemen created to crack down on crime in full force wherever it pops up in the city, the American Municipal Association reports.

The squadron has no permanent beat but operates on roving assignments, being sent to inundate with police those areas where crime rates are high or have shown a rise over what has been average.

The squadron is divided into 20 teams of ten patrolmen and a sergeant, and each team patrols a beat about three to six blocks long in one area. Each team has a traffic man on a three-wheel motorcycle. Four lieutenants and a captain complete the corps; they supervise the operation.

The special force will in all cases augment the regular police assigned to any territory. The unit will be flexible: it might work in one area for one night and then concentrate its efforts the next night on a section of the city miles away.

Officials told the association that the new saturation force has been a success on its initial assignments.

______________________________________________________________

St. Louis, Mo., has made a report to its citizens in the form of a 24-minute motion picture dramatizing municipal services, the American Municipal Association reports. It will take the place of a printed annual report.

"The Big City'' is a documentary film which a private organization produced for the city. It pictures fire-fighting, water purification, rat control, enforcement of the anti-smoke ordinance, traffic control, and other day-to-day services. The mayor appears in it only briefly and is not mentioned by name, so that the film cannot be said to be a political advertisement for any administration.

Officials said that recent publicity materials issued by the city had stressed defects of the city in a number of instances when the passage of bond issues for public improvements was sought. This production shows constructive aspects of the city, with the purpose of letting the public know how its tax money is spent.

The city's board of aldermen appropriated $15,000 for publication of an annual report. The 16-milimeter film cost $14,000. The city ordered 16 prints of it for use by schools, civic clubs, church groups, and other organizations.