The Benton weekly record., 1884-04-26
The Report OF the Experts.

| To t3s Honorable the DISTRICT Court in ana
for the County Of Choteou. Territory
Of Montana, and to the Grand jury
of said County at the AprN term 1884,
Of said Conrt.
We, the undersigned, who, on the 29th
day Of September, 1888, were appointed by
said district court to examine into the
condition Of the books and records
Of the county officials of said county ot
Chotesu, teg leave to submit the follow
ing as the result Of our examination;
We commenced our labors with the re-
cords Of the county commissioners and
with the year 1880, and continuously con-
Quoted the same up to and including the
December, 1888, session of the commiss-
toner's.
We have to report that we found the
files of this Office in great disorder, the
warrants and vouchers being in the great
est confusion. We 'were compelled to
spend a great deal of time in arranging
the same before we could at all intelligent.
lv PASS upon them. Some Of the warrants
we were Tot able to find, they not being
among the files, although marked "cancell-
edN On the records, and we were also unable
to find many of the vouchers, or bills,
upon which warrants had been granted.
We noted In particular that large num-
bt-s Of the Touchers-and, in fact, We can
safely say the majority of them-have
been audited and allowed by the commits
si0Ger>, although the same had not been
verified by the af1d4vits Of claimants us re
quired BY law, Rev. Stat. p. 4S2 sec, 357.)
THIS ilce1Ularity is not confined to the
claims of any one year, but through all the
years Of our examination.
We have to report that many bills pres
ontel to the commissioners for allowance
have tot been sufficiently itemized to al
low Of careful. auditing; particularly so is
this the case in bills tor the board Of prison.
ers in The equity Jail, and for mileage OF
officers i'll sewing criminal process. The
bills for these items have been very heavy.
and should have been carefully scrutinized
before being allowed. We think that in
al bills for mileage the points to which
he officers had gone, and in the bills for
BOARD of prisoners, the dates, between
which prisoners had been confined, should
lave been required by the commissioners
before allowing the same; instead Of this,
n many cases, the totals simply have been
given.
In regard 70 the auditing of bills, we have
o report that q reprehensible negligence
las obtained. We found cases where
ne additions had not been verified, and
'thers wherein charges have been paid
vice. As examples, we refer to warrants
4nd Il Of the June se<si on Of 1888. The |
OUChers for these warrants we've simply
no sheets of one bill-the fist sheet
umming up S137, and the total of the |
Wo sheets $2l650 after first making some
light deductions, showing that the bill
ad been examined; We found that the first |
heet had been separately allowed for 1924. |
0, and the second sheet for S2099 90, thus |
il0Wing the sum Of $l37 twice. As |
mother instance we cite No $50 of the |
eptember session Of 1883. This is war
ant for 500, of which s110 had been al
owed and paid for by warrant GIG of
So. There have been number of just
uch items as the latter. We have set
lese irregularities out at large in the
5hedule hereto annexed, marked Exhibit
|. 1t is to be observed that claimants
resenting many of these bills have made
attn that the same are wholly unpaid
Many bills have been allowed that, in
ur opinion, were unwarranted by law,
1Fy being either in addition to salaries
roscribed By the legislature as in full for
il services, or such as the commissioners
MI no power 10 allow. As an instance of
.is latter class take warrant No. $50 of
december, 1882, $500 of which is By way
4 reward for the arrest OF an alleged /
"rse thief. who, it may be remarked. after
etHg confined in jail through tire winter,
as at the next session OF the grand jury
for want Of evidence to indict
Ve have included these several irregulari-
les in said Exhibit A. which shows an ac-
regate of $2,S66.50 moneys expended
ithout authority Of law, and for which
le county has received no benefit. Other
lis, as TO the legality of which doubt
night exist, but to which We think atten- ;
1n should be called, we have set out in
! appendix to said Exhibit A. :
In several instances We found that war
nts had been issued for amounts larger I
an what had been allowed by the COM /
issioners; we have enumerated them in {
zhibit d. from which it will be seen that
e excess foots up s12S.97. {
The statute prohibiting auditing officers |
I'M acquiring claims against the county t
). 5. p. 535, sec. GIL, VIC find has been !
equently disregaraed, and claims to 7
u anann+ rf 80 TN - boz. Ian,, ill.,