Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-09-29
RECKLESS EXPENDITURES.
The Peoples Money Spent With a Lasasl
 Hand hr sh. G.t..su,.. r.

ney ought 10 De returned to the place of first selectman by the local voters of the town or Waterbury. is one which every voter and taxpayer in the town of Water bury ought to solve for himself. And to do this review of the work done by him during the past year may not be out of place. If I send my servant to buy for me ton of coal or a load of wood. and i'm stead of doing as I direct him, he buys | ten tons of coal or ten cords of wood and runs me into debt to this amount, of course the question occurs to me whether desire to retain such servant in my employ. Probably most men would discharge him on the spot.
 The statute laws of the state provide that the legal voters in town meeting may make appropriations to pay the current ex- penses of the year; and it is further pro- vided that if any selectmen shall expend | the money of the town in excess Cf the | appropriation or shall enter into any con- tract which shall more than exhaust the | appropriation. he shall be fined or i'm | prisoned or both at the discretion of the | court. There Is a clause in the statute | which provides, that the expenditure may exceed the appropriation. provided it is | for the necessary repair of roads or bridges or the necessary support of schools or paupers, in cases arising after I hausted.
 At the beginning of the year the ques-
 tion. what are the powers and duties of our selectmen when an appropriation had been
 made in town meeting. to expend in excess
 of that appropriation, came prominently
 before the public; and the question was
 discussed in all its phases and bearings;
 and if there was any one thing that seemed
 to be settled in the minds of the people, it | n, ,sz Nhak T Al
 lectmen to exceed single dollar more
 than was appropriated, except where
 it was strictly necessary for roads and
 bridges. paupers and public schools. They
 voted distinctly that no money should be
 borrowed unless with the consent of a town meeting; that if any more money
 was needed than had been appropriated, another town meeting should be called for
 the purpose of taking advice in the mat.
 ter. The town meeting laid a tax of three and one half mills on a dollar. smaller tax than had been laid within the memory of
 ings appropriated an additional twenty thousand dollars for the roads and for the poor because of the stringency of the
 times; and at one of the meetings it was
 voted that the selectmen might borrow an additional ten thousand dollars to meet the emergency. The assets and resources of the town were carefully examined and the meeting was adjourned a number of times and the needs of the town were fully and fairly discussed and settled by that town meeting. Now let us see whether we can say to Mr Pinney. we'll done thou good and faithful servant.
 From their report it will be noticed that the seleetmen expended money in nearly | every deparment in excess of the appro- | priations which were made that the total expenditures in excess of the appropri- ations are S56. l51 10; that the amount ex- pended on the poor at the almshouse in excess of the amount appropriated is S4, 4,- 266 94. The .amount appropriated was | SlOOOO. In addition to this amount the selectmen received s555. 30 as rent and they not only expended the amount ap- propriated and the amount received; but also they have expended in excess of these two sums. S4.7l1.6i. Now in view of the recent light which has been thrown upon pauper expenditures and which every body else except the selectmen saw very plainly | before, how is it that the selectmen were
 so prodigal with the taxpayers moneyi Does not everybody know that to be gen.
 erous with paupers only breeds more pau
 pers or keeps those who are in want tenn. porarily. always in want. But was this I tACcSS tAPthuGu the Deneut or the | poor? We should like to hear what Tom
 Moran and Billy Doran and a few other
 heelers have to say. If we are not greatly | mistaken you will find that these men and
 their gang will be at work from now on
 until election day with loud mouths shout I ing for E. W. Pinney and for Gods poor. | There was appropriated to build the new bridge at the almshouse and for repairs on
 other bridges. g 2.25O; but the selectmen
 have expended s7.155.90 for bridges and | repairs, $4 .9O5.9O more than was appropri- ated. and this before the first of Septem-
 Der; how much has been expended since of course we shall not know until the bills come in at the end of another month or | two. The almshouse bridge was com pleted and 1t was stated recently that Mir Tracy was planking the Bank street bridge | over the Naugatuck river. How much he | received for this of course we cannot tell
 but on looking into the report on page II | Order No 266, we find that Mir Tracy was paid for roads not under Contract for widening the highway S300. We wonder | whether this piece of highway widened | which cost the town $500 was that piece of
 work done by Mir Tracy himself in front of
 his own homestead just below Pearl Lake, and if it was we desire to ask the selectmen whether they took into account when they paid this sum. any benef which was con- | ferred on MT Tracy's property on account | of this improvement. Now when stop to think of $500 expended for repairs on this bit of highway. I only have to observe that s300 ought to have repaired that highway from its junction with the Nauga- tuck turnpike to its whole course out to its junction with the old plank road. h. deed one half of this amount would have been ample for this purpose.
 The appropriat )n for the board of health was exceeded s65.15; burial of soldiers, $175. This amount was not taken into the account in fixing the assets of the town. At the City hall the excess is S3O9. 70; for collection of tax the excess Is $623 fl; election expenses, ,s614 S3.
 We noticed that the selectmen paid Mir Henry scoyill $50 rent for the use of his beautiful lawn on election day for the voters of the second ward, and we ponder for moment to enquire if Mir Scovill's assessment indicates that his property has any such value when 1t comes to assessing taxes. For hospitals the excess is sI,- 995.S7. For interest there was appropri- ated $l 300; there was expended Sl27 50 in excess of this sum.
 The selectmen were expressly prohibited from borrowing money, the law provides expressly that the selectmen may issue town orders in payment of it's in- deotedness, that on presentation of these orders to the treasurer he shall accept them as they are presented to him and that from the time of their acceptance until they are notified to bring them to hIm by public notice they shall draw interest. but the sslectmen have methods of their own, which they think are better than the legal methods; it enables:them to have a large deposit of cash onl hand at all times and at end of the year. al least in the present in- stance we have an outstanding loan account against the town for s33.000. At the annual meeting Hast year Mir Pinney stated that there were outstanding unpaid bills of s7. 7.2S3.43. There was an appro- Irihtlnn rnada for aalx