The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-20
CITYS FINANCES
 SHOWN AT GLANCE
 UNDER NEW SYSTEM
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4)


 
 deemed it wise or necessary to divide the assets and liabilities into ''capital' and "current" as current assets such as reVe- nue from taxes etc., are frequently used for the equipment of capital assets such as buildings, equipment, etc, and capital liabilities such as bonds are sometimes created for the liquidation of floating debts. Whatever property the city owns, whether eral, personal or mixed, is. taken as a whole, available for the general welfare of its inhabitants, and whatever it owes it must pay, and we can see no necessity for confusing the public mind and complicating the accounts by diff ferentiation between these two classes of assets and liabilities; we believe that it Is only necessary and desirable that they be shown under the two general heads and that the total excess of assets over liabilities shall constitute the balancing account. "the city" The only distinc- ton we have made between the moneys in the treasury Is between those which belong to the city as a corporation, and those which it holds as trustee for pr- vate parties such as plumbing deposits, tax redemptions, etc; these constitute trust accounts and appear entirely separate and apart from the city ac- counts on the general banace sheet.
 0nOulu DC dn ASSct.
 Pavements and sewers, while constitut- ing an asset that Is neither remuner ative or realizable, have in some cases in the past been constructed from the proceeds of bond issues, and it is there- fore entirely proper that they should be treated as an asset as these bond issues must of necessity be set up as a liability. Assets of this character and others which are subject to deprication will have charged against them at the end of the year a proper percent there for, and the equipment accounts will be adjusted by annual inventories.
 In order that a complete annual report might be had at the end this years busi- ness December 31, under the new sys- tenn, we have revouchered and reclasSified all the payments from January l, 1907, to June 30. 1907, and also reclassifled the receipts for the same period; this bus ness has all been entered in the new books which have been keut up on this basis since July 1. Some of the expense of the street department prior to July l we were unable to class1ry as accurately sas we desired, owing to the difficulty of determining definitely for what pur- pose the debt was incurred, but this con- dition has been remedied under the pres ent system of purchases by the auditor by which it is known precisely for what ac- 
 given out.
 In determining the amount of cash in the city treasury to the credit of the re- spective funds on January l, 1907, We gave first, credit to those funds or accounts which should have definite balances in them viz.: Sinking fund and trust ac- counts, and as the aggregate of these exceeded the actual cash, the difference represented the overdraft in the general foundation. shown by exhibit 26, the receipts and dis bursements for the next six months fol- lows as per exhibit 2s and are also shown in detail by funds in exhibits 2sa to PSI; exhibits 29 gives the cash in the treasury to the credit or debt of the sev- eral funds and accounts July 1, 1907.
 The general ledger was opened on July 1. 1907, and the result of these opening entries is shown on the general balance sheet, exhibit 30, the constituent parts of which are further detailed in ex- hibits 31 to 54. The real estate valuations are the appraisal of a committee of real estate experts consisting of s. E. Thomp- son, W. R. Brown and T. H. Motion, and the equipment values are inventories taken by each department. The various items comprising the aggregate of un- collected taxes and assessments have been carefully listed from the city treasurers books, and the solvency of each improve ment ordinance is clearly shown by ex- hibit No. 42 The new record for i'm provement ordinances for the treasurers office designed by the present auditor, MT. c. s. Petersen, should absolutely prevent errors in these accounts If ordi- nary care Is used and will greatly facii- tate the work of this office in the hand ling of special assessments; we have, therefore, not made any change in the general method of handling this business except to provide that all transactions are recorded in the auditors ledgers and to also recommend that commencing with January 1 next. the moneys from these