The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-03
THE WEEKLY JOURNAL. Issued Thursdays, One Dollar q Year
COUNTY AUDITING,

The investigations which have been carried on by special committee ap- pointed by the members of the legls- lature from New Haven county into the business of auditing the accounts of the coSnty are of rather sugges- tive character. We have very little sympathy with the altogether too llu- man tendency to conclude that an act makes for deliberate graft because 1t sins against recognized principles of business, but we have the fullest sym pathy with every sane and rational att tempt to improve the administration of the peoples business in whatever de- partment 1t happens to be found.
 The fault we have always found with the administration of the business of the counties of the state has been that necessarily their organization has in vited careless business habits. The trouble with the old system of bi- representation upon local administra- tive boards was that it automatically promoted political conspiracies and created unholy political combinations. The counties of the State of Connecticut are popular in no sense of the word, and would be made no more popular, using that term as expressing and de- lining free institutions, if suddenly brought under the control of the minority political party. They have all ways been organized according to the partisan necessities of the political par ty in power in the general assembly. 1t has more than once happened that the people of the state, under the old provisions of the constitution, have clearly indicated their preference for a man for governor who was not in poli- tical sympathy with the party In con- trol of the general assembly, thus jus tifytng, so far as anything can, the be- lief that they desired to have the gen. eral movement of affairs change hands. Except, however, where the legislature changed it's politics with the state de- partments, the old pernicious theory has prevailed of electing commissioners on partisan legislative choice, and the wonder is, not that evils in administra- ton have crept into the county gov- ernment, as in this case of excessive charges for auditing the books of the commissioners, but that more sweeping and deliberate evils have not made their appearance.
 As business proposition, not to mention a proposition in good political morals, the charge of s94O00 last year for auditing the books of New Haven county is indefensible, and would new CT have been possible had these prin- ciples of keen business oversight been enforced which lie at the bottom of ev- cry business success. The same ser vice was performed last year for the relatively preposterous sum of $245.0O It Is possible, of course, that there were reasons why this increase in the cost of auditing should have been made but thus far they have not been given  If we are correctly informed one of the auditors, while not denying that the cost is excessive, whether measured by the cost in the past or by the cost as charged in other counties, takes the ground that whatever reforms are necessary they should be instituted under future auditors It is bit dis coRcerting to be told that Hartford county receives adequate service in this connection for the modest sum of $60 while Windham county scrubs along on $10, Holland on $30, Litchfield on $20 Middlesex and New London on $4C each, and Fairfield on $250 These fig. ures represent such difference In the estimation in which auditing is held as to provoke an admiration for the thrift. ness of the rural counties rather than patience with the habits of the city counties, Hartford alone excepted. Ii is ali the more provoking when in the estimation of business men, who have had experience in such matters two experts should, without addi- tional fatigue, audit the accounts of New Haven county during two days of six hours each at an expense not to exceed the amount paid by Hartford county, namely $60.
 We do not know what action if any fhe legislative caucus intends to take on this important matter, bu. the bare unprejudieed recital of the facts, as We have made it, is more than enough to lead to formulation of plan which shall be=in at once to assure the tax payers that the same care is to be talk en of the county treasury that indivi- duals take of their own money chest The present situation is intolerable.