Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-12-02
The Treasurer's Account.


The finance committee of councils
seem to be unanimously at issue with
the city treasurer on the question of the
correctness of his account. This una
nimity of the committee would carry with
tia supposition that the committee was
right, but for the fact that little while
ago they presented another report on the
same subject which they now admit to
have been wrong. The statement they
make of their difference with the treas
urer is not sufficiently full to let the peo-
pie clearly see the matter at issue. They
report apparently q deficiency in the
treasurer's accounts of some seventeen
hundred dollars and create the i'm
preston that he has been found
to have really received that much
money with which he has not charg-
ed himself, and they ask that the city
solicitor he instructed to collect this sum.
A careful examination of the report,
however. shows that part ut least Of
the alleged deficiency consists Of moneys
which have mol been collected by the
treasurer, but for which the committee
say that the law makes him liable by
reason of his not having reported by a
certain time the fact that they had not
been paid to him.
What the law may be in this regard
we do not know but we do know that
the citizens Of Lancaster do not desire
that moneys which their treasurer has
not received should bc collected from
him. If the law requires him TO notify
the fact of non-payment, and he has not
done SO, it is right that the law officer of
the city should he asked to compel him
to do his duty, but he ought hardly to be
held responsible, for such 4 neglect,
for the payments Of taxes which he did
not get and which it was not his duty to
collect, unless they were offered to him.
We Judge from the report Of the finance
committee that the real grievance it has
will not exhibit his hank account. BY
the questions which they report that
they put to !jtn they seem to believe
that lie does not have on deposit
in any bank the sum of money
which he acknowledges that he
owes the city. And no doubt
that suspicion is justified. There is nc
doubt either that the city's interests
demand that the city treasurer should
keep the city moneys separate from his
own and on deposit in reliable bank.
But the city has not So provided. 1t has
elected a treasurer whom it has required
to giveii bail in ;in amount fixed 10y it:
and it has not provided where he should
keep its moneys. 1t has therefore 10
right to demand that the treasurer shall
inforn ii where its moneys are. When
he correctly reports the amount due by
him to it, he has reported all that can he
demanded from him. They must he sat
isiied with the knowledge that his bail is
good and responsible.
We agree that this is not sufficient
satisfaction, since no man can be fully
trusted, and bail have very slippery ways
of getting out of their responsibility when
they are caught. and the law $ delays in
holding them are very annoying and eX.
pensive The city councils would dc
well at the first opportunity to enact
that the treasurer shall at all times keep
the balance due the city Oh deposit in
blnk to the city 5 credit. Then its finance
committee may demand to see the
treas,rer's bank book and satisfy itself
that The city, moneys are within its
grasp. But there is no need to charge
the treasurer with money he did not get
because the committee is not sure that
it will get. when it has right to call fol
il. the mDicy he did collect.