GOVERNMENT, MUNICIPAL EXPENDITURES, ETC. The government is vested in a mayor, elected every four years; a bicameral city council; and administrative departments, of which the health. fire, police, civil service, and park boards are appointed by the mayor: the city clerk, elected by the council; and all other municipal officials chosen by popular vote.
Buffalo spends annually, in maintenance and operation, about $6,000,000, the main items of expense being about $1.140,000 for schools, $6'50.000 for interest on debt, $780,000 for the police department, $700,000 for the fire depart ment. $190000 for parks and gardens, $120,000 for street cleaning and sprinkling. $350.000 for the water-works, nearly as much for municipal lighting, $155,000 for charitable institutions, $110,000 for garbage removal, $100,000 for li braries. The water-works. which were built in 1SGS at a total cost of over $9,100,000, are owned and operated by the city, the entire water-works system now including about 490 miles of mains. During . recent years great
municipal activity has been displayed in the improvement of the water-supply service; in the laying of asphalt pavements: in the con struction of natural-gas mains, facilitating the substitution of this fuel for coal; in the re moval, in the business district, of overhead tele phone and telegraph wires to subways, in which are carried also the fire-alarm and police wires of the city; in the establishment of the great public library (1897) and of municipal baths; and in harbor improvements, supplemented by Government expenditure. The city has entered also into a. plan to abolish railroad grade cross ings, mostly at the expense of the railroads. Buffalo has a bonded debt of over $16.000,000, and the assessed valuation of property (real and I personal) amounts to nearly $250,000,000.