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ments made by the spokesman for the mi-
nority. I have spoken personally to every
legislative leader and every legislative
leader says he adopts and subscribes to the
Committee's recommendation. I have spoken
to the two top State fiscal experts who deal
with this subject in the State of Maryland.
I have in my file available for anybody to
look at who cares to look at its statements
from both of them that the 25-year, 15-year
provision which has been recommended by
the majority is a salutary provision and
should be adopted.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Committee,
I sincerely hope that the recommendation
of the minority is rejected for the welfare
of our State.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Stern.
DELEGATE STERN: I yield to Dele-
gate Clark.
THE CHAIRMAN: How much?
DELEGATE STERN: Three minutes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate James
Clark.
DELEGATE J. CLARK: Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen of the Convention, for
one who has been trying to nudge the State
toward a partial pay-as-you-go basis on its
capital improvements the compromise be-
fore us today is a little distressing. Only
this year for the first time we were able to
pay $10 million from current revenues for
some of our capital improvements which
were needed. As you know, over the years
we have issued bonds for approximately
$30 or $40 million a year. Of course, these
have been 15-year revenue bonds.
For those of us who believe in a pay-as-
you-go basis or at least an approach to it,
when you get away from 15-year bonds you
are just going in the other direction at the
very time when we thought maybe we were
doing a better job than we had done before.
I think we have to look at the whole pic-
ture. You have the political subdivisions
of this State faced with problems which
call for great sums of money. My county,
for instance, is called upon every year now
to build millions of dollars worth of schools,
borrow millions of dollars for water and
sewage facilities and in a sense we are not
only citizens of Howard County or Mont-
gomery or any other county of this State
but also citizens of the State. We have
these obligations which are being made al-
most every month in my county and I am
sure this is the case in most counties of
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the State, most of those bonds as we are
told and know are for 25 years, some are
for as much as 40 years. So I would say
that the State which has the greater re-
sources and can stick with the 15-year
bonds, perhaps we should at this level of
government hold with the 15-year bonds.
The chart which was displayed here by
the speaker for the minority should under-
score the point more strongly than cer-
tainly any words could do. For every mil-
lion dollars you borrow, for 25 years,
rather than 15, you have to pay about
$300,000 more money.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have a half
minute, Delegate Clark.
DELEGATE J. CLARK: If we go back
and count the hundreds of millions of dol-
lars this State has borrowed in the recent
past on 15-year bonds, multiply that by
$300,000, you can see that we have saved
untold millions of dollars.
For these reasons, I would hope that we
would continue this practice which has
served us so well for so long.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Sherbow.
DELEGATE SHERBOW: Five minutes
to Delegate Willis.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Willis.
DELEGATE WILLIS: Mr. Chairman,
fellow delegates, I wish to speak against
the amendment. In 1949 the State of Mary-
land initiated a school construction pro-
gram under which the State allowed the
county school systems to utilize the state's
credit for school construction. This was ac-
complished by selling state bonds and loan-
ing this money to the counties for their
school construction. These were, of course,
15-year bonds. This program has never
reached its maximum potential because
even though it has been utilized to the ex-
tent of $275 million in 19 years, many
school systems have not felt they could af-
ford to take full advantage of it. For in-
stance, Baltimore City and Dorchester
County have never used one cent from this
program.
Many other school systems have used it
only in emergencies.
These 15-year bonds are paid back in 13
years, no payments are made in the first
two years. This makes the annual cost
practically twice as much as when we sell
our own 25-year bonds. The total amount
paid annually for school construction costs
is closely related to the quality of our edu-
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