Then as to the bids on the proposed structure: how did these compare with the cost of bridges of equal tonnage in other states and counties? How about the current state of the steel market—would it be better to buy now or wait a few months until business at the mills was likely to be slack?
How about financing the bridge project? Should the cost be borne out of the current year’s revenues, should it be covered by a ten-year bond issue or should the next generation of taxpayers be saddled with payments long after the bridge had outlived its usefulness?
A board of supervisors or a county manager or a county engineer armed with an answer to this series of extremely pertinent questions and a modicum of common honesty would be proof against ninety-nine per cent. of the “slick” deals which are so often “put over” on an unsuspecting public and their easy-going servants.
The science of public administration consists principally in knowing exactly where you are and what you are doing—knowledge gained through experimentation, investigation and comparison and by consultation of authoritative standards and with authorities themselves.
We will illustrate this principle in a few of its applications:
ACCOUNTING
The accounting system of any organization, public or private, is useful in proportion to the definiteness of its analyses or classifications, according to what is most important to be known. Thus, in New York State, the statutes authorize boards of supervisors to allow claims on the basis: (1) of specific amounts imposed by state law, such as the stated salaries of judges, (2) of amounts fixed by the board of supervisors under authority of law. In at least one county (Westchester) it was formerly the custom to lump a great variety of claims under the second heading—under the title “county audited bills”—a procedure which was satisfactory enough perhaps, if to know the authority for payment were the only information desired. By such a system it was impossible to tell the cost of running any county office or department without actually tracing each voucher back to its source. Thus, it was found that, in the year 1907 the budget authorization for the superintendent of the poor was $17,485.61, while the expenditures shown by the treasurer’s report were $108,906.58 and the actual cost of the office, when proper additions were made from the “county audited bills,” was $118,464.33. Discrepancies of an equally serious nature were revealed in the case of most of the other offices. The accounting system through its inexact classifications gave information which was useful in protecting the treasurer but which was practically without value as a description of what the county’s departments were doing and how economically they were doing it.
Exact classification is also essential to the last degree in the making of the budget, to the end that actual experience in the way of revenues received and funds disbursed may be made the reliable basis of future activities. In a well-ordered system of state supervision of local accounts the classifications will be made by a state official who will have the power to enforce compliance upon the part of the fiscal officer in each county. So that in time each county will have the inestimable advantage of being able to compare its finances with those of other similar units. A proper accounting system will proceed so far in its analysis as to provide a large amount of data concerning the cost of units of service rendered and materials consumed. Among other things, it will reveal at any and all times precisely what is the condition of the county’s assets both in the shape of funds and of investments; it will show how much the county actually owes and is to owe at any future date.
THE BUDGET
On the basis of accounts that tell in detailed classification the needs and the resources of the county, the governing body will be able to embark upon the financial voyage of each new year with chart and compass. At a stated time before the budget-making period the heads of departments, having before them the records of transactions and costs in previous years, will frame their requests for future service. But because of the exactness of the estimates required to be submitted, any request for an increase of appropriation will stand out as a shining mark. The department head will thereby be thrown on the defensive, will be obliged to explain himself. The knowledge of that condition will have a distinctly beneficial effect upon any desire of his to seek increased appropriations without careful consideration.