The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1884-04-30
debtedness of the county February 20,

OUTSTANDING warrants Aotooo-
Interest IN same 24T. 0:
Gross Indebtedness sloz'o 900 ~
Cash in treasury in the following funds:
General FUND. &oII.op
sinking ), .-...-............. o,uao.o4
Contingt ,, Observation-Disclosures. 1925
Road $50 % 90
Total net Indebtedness ssa, 293. 81
r. e. COLLINS, Foreman.
d. G.. BROWNE, Clerk.
To the Honorable the District Court IN
and for the County Of lhoteau, Terri
tory Of Montana, and to the GRAND
Jury of said County ct the april term
1884, Of said Court.
We, the undersigned, VINO on the
Goth day of September, 1883, were ap-
pointed by said district court to examine
into the books and records of the county
officials of said county of Choteau, beg
leave to submit the following as the re-
suit of our examination:
We commenced our labors with the
records of the county commissioners ans.
with the year 1880, and continuously
conducted the same up to and including
the December, 1883, session Of the COM
missioners:
We have to report that we found the
files of this office in great disorder, the
warrants and vouchers being in the
greatest confusion. We were compelled
to spend a great deal of time in arrang-
ing the same before we could at all in
diligently pass upon them. Some of
the warrants we were not able to find,
they not being among the files, although
marked cancelled on the records, and
we we're also unable to find many of the
vouchers, or bills, upon which warrants
had been granted. We noted particu-
larly that large numbers of the vouchers
in fact, we a safely say the
majority of them-have been audited
and allowed blythe commissioners, al
the same had not been verified by the
affidavits of claimants as required b.,
law. REV. Stat. p. 482, sec. 357.) This
ir~regularity is not confined tothe claims
of any one year, but runs with varying
frequency through all the years of our
examination.
We have to report that many bills
presented to the commissioners for al
lowance have not been sufficiently
itemized to allow Of careful auditing;
particularly is this the case in bills for
the board of prisoners in the county Jail,
and for mileage of officers in serving
criminal process. The bills for these
items have been very heavy, and should
have been carefully scrutinized before
being allowed. We think that in all
bills for mileage the points to which the
officers had gone, and in the bills for
board of prisoners, the dates between
which prisoners had been confined,
have been required by the COM
missioners before allowing the same;
instead of this, in many cases the totals
have been given.
In regard to the auditing of bills, we
have to report that a reprehenslble neg
ligence has obtained. We found eases
where the additions had not been veri-
fled, and others wherein charges have
been paid twice. AS examples, we re-
fer to warrants 3 and IA of the June
session of 1883. The vouchers for these
were simply two sheets OF one
bill-the first sheet summing up Sl37,
and the total Of the two sheets S2l6.5O
first making some slight deduc-
tions, showing that the bill had been
we found that the first sheet
had been separately allowed for Sl24.5O.
and the second sheet for S2O9.9 10, thus
allowing the sum of S124.50 twice. AS
another instanse we cite No. 28O of the
session OF 1883. This is a
for $50, of which S110 had been
allowed and paid for by warrant 9l6 OF
1882. There have been a number of just
such items as the latter. We have set
these Irregularities out at large in the
schedule hereto annexed, marked Tx
hibit A. 1t is to be observed that claim
ants presenting many of these bills have
oath that the same are wholly un-
paid.
Many bills have been allowed that, in
our opinion, were unwarranted by law,
they being in addition to salaries pre-
by the legislature as in full for
all services, or such as the commission
ers had no power to allow. AS an IN
of this latter class take warrant
No. 939 of December, 1882, $500 OF which
is by way Of a reward for the arrest OF
an alleged horse thief, who, it may be
remarked, after being confined IN jail
through the winter, was at the next
session discharged by the grand jury for
of evidence to indict. We have
included these several irregularities in
said Exhibit A, which shows an aggre-
gate of $50, $780, so moneys expended with
out authority Of law, and for which the
county has received no benefit. Other
bills, as to the legality of which doubt
might exist, but to which we think at
should be called, we have set out
an appendix to said Exhibit A.
In several instances we found that
had been issued for amounts
than what had been allowed by
he commissioners we have enumerat-
ed them in Exhibit B, from which it
will be seen that the excess foots up
b128.97.
The statute prohibiting auditing Off
GERS from acquiring claims against the
county (R. S. p. 538, sec. GIL, we find
has been frequently disregarded, and