Las Vegas daily optic. [volume] (Las Vegas, N.M.) 1880-1908, 1897-01-22

An Ex-Territorial Auditor on Some
Demands of the Hour.

To the Editor OF the Optic.
SAN ANTONIO, N. NJ, January 18Th.
1S97.-Complyipg with your request to
express my views as to the most need
ed legislation to be enacted into laws
at the approaching session Of the legis.
iature, / consider, among the many
important subjects that ought TO oc
cupy the minds Of our members in that
body, the following:
Our finance laws should be amended
in the interest Of economy In cur ex-
penses, both Territorial and county
The salaries nov paid should be fixed
proportionate to the services rendered
by the officers and to the sources from
which the funds intended for said
salaries are derived. The clerks of the
district courts are paid from the Ter
r%itorial treasury an annual salary Of
3 1900, payable quarterly. This salary
was created by law in 1889 in lieu of
fees paid the clerks, prior to the pas
sage Of that law, and it was provided
by said law that all fees in cases before
the district courts should be collected
and paid quarterly into the Territorial
treasury by each of said clerks. 1t was
considered, when said law passed, that
the amount OF fees collected quarterly
would cover the salaries paid the clerks
and leave a surplus to the Territory.
My experience while occupying the
Office of Territorial auditor convinced
me that this system worked most un-
favorably to the Territory and to the
injury of other Territorial officers,
who shared their salaries from the an
nual appropriations made for the salary
fund. The clerks, in many instances,
hardly returned one-fourth of the $500,
paid them quarterly, thus getting an
excess Of 5000 over fees returned as
collected. If we consider that these
officers are also paid fees by the United
States, equivalent to as much as their
Territorial salaries, it is but just that
the law be SO amended by the legis-
lature as TO reduce their present
salaries in proportion to the amount of
fees accounted annually by them.
The Office of county collector should
be abolished, and the county sheriff
made ex-oficio collector in each county,
as before, allowing him a fixed salary,
instead OF commission for collections
made. In combining the two Offices
in the sheriff, the law approved Frbru.
AIRY 2Sth, 1895, fixing the compensa
tion and fees of sheriffs, should be
repealed, and the provisions in Chap.
II of the laws OF 1898. as to said com
p%ensation and fees, re-enacted. The
combination of the two offices in one,
will prove, as before, TO be more con
venient and beneficial to the people.
The Office of county superintendent
of public schools should also be abol-
ished, and the probate j1dge, in each
county, made ex-officio school superin-
tendent, with an additional compensa-
ton for the services performed by him.
The duties of d probate judge are few,
and he can also perform those of super
intendent of schools by the allowance
of a reasonable compensation, which
shall not exceed one-half Of what the
actual off GERS holding said position.
are getting from the school fund in
each county; the other one-half so
saved would be an increase to the
school fund.
The above are but few of the many
suggestions that / could make, if time
permitted me to do as 1 would like to,
In the interest Of good legislation, and
with the hope that the views expressed
by some other of our fellow. citizens
through the columns OF your valuable
paper, upon some other subjects Of leg
may meet with success at the
hands Of our legislators, / remain,
Yours very truly,
DEMETRIo PEREZ.