MESSAGE.
STATE OF GEORGIA, EXECUTIVE OFFICE,
ATLANTA, November 9, 1898.
To the Senate and House ef Representatives:
lt is by the constitution made the duty of the Governor to give to the General Assembly, from time to time, "information of the state of the :commonwealth," and in the discharge of this duty it is incumbent on me at the very
a threshold of your official duties to advise you of serious
deficiency in 'the public revenues. For seYeral years past a spirit of liberality in the appro-
priation of money from the public treasury, not warranted by the stringency of the times and the ability of the people to pay taxes, has been apparent, and frequent large supplemental appropriations have been made at the second session of each legislature, for the payment of which no adequate provision has been made. We have, in our anxiety to provide for the necessities of the institutions and objects for which it is the duty of the State to provide, lost sight of the constantly growing inability of the people. to bear the ever-increasing burden of taxation. Our annual appropriations from the treasury and the annual rate of taxation have increased year after year, while all values have shrunken, and the prices of our annual crops and of labor, and of all the products of labor, have gone continually lower and lower, and the ability to pay of all those
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who have to bear the burtheus of taxation has grown coll stantly less.
Owing to the continual increase in the shrinkage in values, and the disposition or men to evade in hard times the demands of the tax-gatherer, and to conceal from him such property as can be concealed, the annual revenues of the State have, year after year, fallen short of the estimates. From these causes, and the additional fact that in some instances appropriations have been made without adequate provision for their payment, there will not be in the treasury, on the first of ,July, money enough to mee~ the demands on it ; and this, too, in the face of the fact that the rate of taxation and the aggregate amount of taxes collected from the people is the largest in th.e history of the
State. It is to advise you of this grave situation that this
communication is sent you, in order that you, in your wisdom, may provide by proper legislation to meet the emergency, and prevent a recurrence of the condition that i1ow confronts us.
In order to be fully advised of the real condition of the treasury as it now is, and as it will be on the first of July, I, on the 7th instant, addressed to the State treasurer a communication calling for a statement of the actual available cash balance in the treasury on the first day of the present month, the probable receipts at the treasury from all sources between that date and the first day of July next, inclusive, and the probable disbursements on all accounts on and prior to the last named date, so as to show the condition of the treasury on the first day of July, 1899. This date has been selected be'cause at that time thtl cash bal
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ance in the treasury is usually at its lowest. The statement asked for was promptly sent to this department by the treasurer, and is as follows:
Civil E,tablishment ........................ $ 66,783 33
Contingent :Fund ................................
8,432 01
Military Fund .................................
30,558 62
Fertilizer Fund .................................
5,501 32
Geological Fund...............................
4,026 86
Penitentiary Fund.............................
2,500 00
Prison Fund ...................................
75,000 00
School Fund ................................. .. 1,256,483 96
Solicitors-General ............................
2,160 00
Overpayments refunded ..................
2,106 39
Insurance Fund .........,....................
7,837 90
Library Fund ......................:............
1,546 10
Public debt ..................................... 272,000 00
Temporary loan ... . ........ ... ......... .
200,000 00
Memorial Fund .............................
14,524 24
Printing Fund................................. 15,000 00
Public Building Fund .......................
16,810 48
Technological School........................ . 11,250 00
North Georgia Agricultural College.....
3,000 00
State Normal School ......................
11,250 00
Georgia Normal and Ind. School ...... ..
11,450 00
State Sanitarium .............................. . 214,000 00
Trustees Sanitarium ........................ ..
1,820 00
Department of Agriculture ................
5,000 00
Printing Fund R. R. Com .................
493 11
Sch9ol for Deaf .... .. ... .... .. ... . ...........
12,500 00
Repairing Capitol ............................
816 80
Academy for Blind ..........................
15,000 00
Trustees University............. . ..........
600 00
Contingent Fund R. R. Com .............
400 00
Clerk Supreme Court costs ...............
1,000 00
Legislative pay-roll ...................... ..
~9,000 00
Penitentiary Fund. Special account...
1,500 00
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Printing Snpreme Court Reports ......... School for Colored .......................... State University ............................. Pensions ....................................... Land Scrip Fund ........................... Cont. Exp. Supreme Court ............... , Probable additional appropriation .....
Due July 1st, Hl9!l: Salaries .......................................... Interest on public debt ................... . Public institutions ................... Sinking Fund Reserve .......................
4,000 00 . 8,000 00 8,000 00
640;000 oo
6,314 14
900 00 100,000 00- 3,107,565 26
35,000 00 170,000 00 62,350 00 100,000 00-
367,350 00
$ 3,474,915 26
STATEMENT SHOWING PROBABLE CONDil'ION OF THE TREAl!IURY
JULY 1, 1899.
Cash on hand Nov. 1, 1898 .. . ...... .........
$ 275,030 07
General tax ............., ......................$ 2,113,109 00
Poll tax ........................................... 223,838 66
Artists' tax ......... .. . .. ........ .... .........
809 00
Billiard tax .....................................
4,636 00
Liquor tax...................................... (
Show tax ........................:..............
85,763 67 5,983 64
Insolvent General tax ......................
10,613 16
Insolvent Poll tax .............................
1,354 65
Insurance fees ...........:................. .
11,sq6 40
I~surance Agents' tax ....................
6,810 00
Pistol tax ........................................
4,301 90
Telephone tax. ........ ...... ...... ..........
3,157 07
Sewing Machine Agents ....................
885 00
Oil fees ...........................................
10,616 22
Office fees ......................................... .
2,053 45
Railroad tax . .... ... ... ......... ....... . ...... 259,889 48
Insurance tax ................................. ..
29.402 94
Interest from Banks .........................
6,088 62
Cogts on fi. fas .. .. .. ................ ,..........
31 50
Interest onfi. fas ........................... ..
226 44
Rental W. & A. R.R...................... ..
280,008 00
Lightning Rod tax ..........................
90 00
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Fertilizer fees ................................... Tax on Games .............................. Auctioneers' tax................................. Tax on Specialists ..... . .................. .. Sales Supreme Court Reports ............. . Hire of Convicts ............................. . Tax on Peddlers ............................... Money Refunded ............................ Wild Land tax ............................... Telegraph tax .................................... Tax on Pawnbrokers ........................ Sale of Codes ... ...... .......................... Sale of Acts .. ........ .... ...... .... .. .. . . . .. Ta:s: on Futures Dealers ................... . Ta:ii; on Patent Vendors .................... . Tax on Se-wing Machine Compani"s... . Tax on Agencies .............................. Tax on Loan Agents ......................-... Tax on Brewing Companies .............. Tax on Cold Storcge ....................... Dividends from Stocks . ................... Tax on Express Companies ............... Tax on Sleeping; Car Companies ........ Lea1e Oyster Lands ........................
3,933 28 225 00 li5i 50 82 40
3,905 50 25,000 00 1,414 40
60 00 6 38 1,997 06
1,305 do
1,800 00 54 00
4,950 00 9 00
1,200 00 360 00 72 00 900 00 720 00
1,498 00 2,897 37
895 00 15 00- 3,115,021 69
$3,390,051 76
Deficit .. .. ..........................................................$84,863 50
From it, it will be seen that there will, be a probable deficit of nearly eighty-five thousand dollars on the first day of July. In other words, the money now in the treas-
ury and that to be paid into the treasury between now and the last named date will lack about eighty-five thousand dollars of being sufficient to meet the legitimate demands
on the treasury for the. same period of time. In this esti-
mate is not included four hundred thousand dollars which
will be due the teachers of the public schools on the 20th
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of July, 1899, for their second q \)arter's work, for the
payment of which no provision has been made.
In this connection it is perhaps my duty to add that
there remains approved by the Pension Commissioner and
unpaid for the want of funds, pension claims to the aggre-
gate amount of about sixty thousand dollars. It must be
borne in mind that these deficits are all for the present year.
If the same appropriations are made for the next year, and
the rate of taxation remains the same as for this year, the
aggregate amount of deficit on July 1st, 1900, will be at
least twice as great as it will be in July, 1899.
Thus the condition that confronts us is this: we must
either reduce appropriations dr largely iucrease the rate of
taxation, when it is already greater than it has ever been in
the history of the State, and when our people, especially our
farmers, upon whom the burden of taxation largely falls, are,
owing to the unprecedentedly low price of their products,
less able to pay taxes than they have ever been in the past.
This is a grave situation, and it behooves uis to meet it with
due regard alike for the taxpayers of the State and the.
persons and institutions for which the State is both legally
and morally bound to provide.
I submit these facts to the representatives of the people
for their consideration and prompt action, feeling assured
that they in their wisdom will solve the problem presented
without any increase in the present rate of taxation, which
under existing circumstances is already onerous and all that
our people should for a~y purpose whatever be required to
bear.
A. D. CANDLER, Governor.