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Text Box: actually get spent," Mayor Beers said. The council approved $20,000 for construction of a stone entryway at the Harvard Avenue entrance. Mayor Beers said contractor Charles Cooley has been chosen to build the entryway but the project has to be cleared with both the county, which owns the land, and the US Army Corps of Engineers, which has responsibility for MacArthur Boulevard. $20,280 was approved for the Town payroll, plus $1,500 for Social Security payments (FICA) and $120 for workman's compensation insurance. These items support the Clerk-Treasurer's salary, which is slated to increase 4% in the new fiscal year. "At some point, I think we have to have a cap on how much farther this is going up," Mayor Beers said. "If we keep increasing it indefinitely, it will be up to $100,000." Originally set at $5,000 a year, the Clerk-Treasurer's salary was for half-time employment, but Cathie Polak works far more than 20 hours a week to handle the Town's affairs. For a 40-hour work week, $20,000 is "not exorbitant right now," the Mayor said. "But we should keep it in mind." Because legal costs are rising, the council added $5,000 to Mayor Beers' proposed $20,000 budget for this item. Water costs were also increased, from the proposed $400 to $1,000. Also, the $8,000 the Mayor proposed for Town Hall maintenance was raised to $10,000 to make sure enough was available to pay for a new sign outside. Clerk-Treasurer Polak said the sign was repaired two years ago for $1,500, but "it's gotten much worse since" and should be completely replaced. Last year, the council approved $15,000 for "surveys," which was mainly to cover the cost of the furnace survey. However, only $775 was spent, so the council approved another $15,000 for next fiscal year. Community contributions for '06-'07 have been increased from $2,000 to $3,000. "We have obligations to the park and I'm sure other things will come up," Mayor Beers said.

Text Box: LADIES OF GLEN ECHO You are invited to a Ladies Night at Forest Yang’s 21 Wellesley Circle Thursday, July 20, 8:00 p.m. Please RSVP 301-229-1306

Text Box: MAYOR SAYS TOWN NEEDS TO SPEND MORE MONEY By Rex Rhein At the May 30th budget hearing, Mayor Debbie Beers noted that the Town's surplus has grown by nearly $200,000 since last fiscal year, largely because about one third of the budgeted funds have not been spent. "My personal philosophy is not that we are taking too much in," she said. "I think the goal, as profligate as it may sound, this year is to spend the money, to actually provide services that we're collecting these taxes for." In fact, real estate and personal property taxes account for only $64,100 of the anticipated $216,768 in total revenues that Mayor Beers forecast for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Most of the new money will come from Glen Echo's share of state ($62,000), county ($20,000) and highway ($19,000) revenues, and from rentals for the Glen Echo Post Office ($30,240), the Town Hall ($3,000) and the Town-owned parking lot used by the Irish Inn at Glen Echo ($3,600). Also, because the surplus has grown in just 12 months from $422,067 to $610,286, the Town is now collecting "almost $1,000 a month in interest", according to Clerk-Treasurer Cathie Polak. The new fiscal-year budget, approved unanimously by the council at a formal meeting immediately after the hearing, would sop up more than $100,000 of this surplus, partly by finally spending the $75,000 budgeted last year -- but not spent -- for street paving, and another $20,000 for sidewalk repairs. (None of last year's $10,000 for sidewalk repairs was spent.) Further, the council raised to $30,000 Mayor Beer's proposed $7,000 for town hall improvements (primarily for the construction of a sound control system) to pay for a new furnace (for details, see Sophie Keefer's article in the May 2006 issue of The Echo, page 4). Once again, the budget includes $15,000 for an engineering survey of Town roads. The Town spent only $775 for this purpose in the '05-'06 fiscal year. It is important to spend all of the highway revenues that the Town receives each year because "we certify every year that we're spending it on highways, and we are budgeting it for highways but it doesn't