Group Problems
1. Make a plan of administrative organization which will include the undermentioned municipal functions. Provide as few departments as possible without putting unrelated functions into the same department. Each department should include all functions which are actually related and none which are not related to its main work. Consider, for example, such questions as these: Should playgrounds be included in the school department or combined with parks in some other department? Where does poor-relief belong, in a department by itself or along with health or with prisons and correction? Where should we place the public library? If you desire to include all these functions within seven or eight departments, the public library cannot have a department all to itself. Where should it go? Think over carefully the proper placing of such things as the inspection of weights and measures, auditing, pensions, printing, assessments and collection of taxes, billboards, care of hydrants, censorship of amusements, charities and poor-relief, child welfare, collection and disposal of ashes, excess condemnation, food and milk inspection, free employment bureaus, free legal aid, grade-crossing elimination, hospital administration, housing laws and their enforcement, licensing, limitation of building heights, management of bridges and ferries, municipal accounts, municipal budget making, municipal concerts, municipal courts, municipal purchasing, parks and playgrounds, paving, playground administration, prevention of incendiarism, prisons, protection of life and property, public lighting, public recreation, public water supply, registration of voters, garbage collection and disposal, regulation of explosives, regulation of the location of buildings, sewerage and sewage disposal, sinking funds, smoke prevention, snow removal, street construction, street widening, supervision of lodging houses, tree planting, vocational and industrial education, zoning.
2. Select three or four cities of approximately the same size as your own and compare the cost of public safety (police and fire department expenditures) on each of the following bases: (a) per capita; (b) per square mile of territory; (c) per $1000 assessed valuation. (The data for all cities having over 30,000 population can be found in the U. S. Bureau of the Census: Financial Statistics of Cities [latest edition].)
3. What we get for our city taxes. Make up from your own community’s latest annual report a table showing the per capita cost for each form of public service (streets, parks, schools, poor-relief, etc.). The figures in the auditor’s report divided by the population will give you the items. When your table is completed illustrate it by drawing a circle with sectors to represent the division of expenditure.
Short Studies
1. City planning: its scope and importance. W. B. Munro, Principles and Methods of Municipal Administration, pp. 30-37.
2. The city’s streets. C. A. Beard, American City Government, pp. 212-260.
3. The organization of a city police force. Raymond Fosdick, European Police Systems, pp. 99-148; E. D. Graper, American Police Administration, passim; Raymond Fosdick, American Police Systems, pp. 188-216.
4. How the public can help the police. Arthur Woods, Policeman and Public, pp. 162-178.
5. What fire prevention means. E. F. Croker, Fire Prevention, pp. 1-37.