Harvard May Pay For City Salary Increases

The Cambridge City Council recommended yesterday a 10 per cent across-the-board salary hike effective October 1 for all City employees, and Councillor Walter J. Sullivan indicated that new taxes on Harvard, Radcliffe, and M.I.T. may pay for the increase.

The Council recommendation was made over the objection of City Manager John J. Curry who claimed that "the City cannot afford any more than a five per cent increase." He has been instructed to restudy the situation and report back to the Council in two weeks.

Curry insisted that even a five per cent hike will boost tax rate $4.70 per $1000 evaluation, but Sullivan suggested that "the City may be able to afford more than five per cent when Harvard begins to help the City with tax problems."

Charges Taxes Owed

Sullivan has been pressing the University on its tax status for several months and has claimed several times that "the University owns revenue-producing land on which it is not paying taxes."

Sullivan may insist that Harvard pay at least partial taxes on the married student apartment complex it plans to build on the Charles River below Dunster House.

Although college dormitories are tax-exempt, the status of married students' housing has never been litigated in the courts.

City officials claim that the wife of a student living in university-owned housing often works and that one or more children attend city schools. The conflict has been resolved at other colleges by such measures as a college-paid tuition for students' children at city schools or by a regular payment for police and fire protection.

Harvard now owns several small buildings in the Boston-Cambridge area which it uses for married student housing. The University pays full taxes on these buildings, but officials say that the property was taxable before Harvard bought it and the University just kept up the payments.