Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1909-03-18
fREEHOLDERS CONTINUED.

years. For reasons that we VIII
give hereafter we would recommend
that this committee be continued and
together with your Director be author
lied to take the matter of these dupli-
Gates up with those members who
have approved the bills in question
and endeavor to effect settlement of
the same. This we are satisfied can
be done because in the Judgment of
your committee the duplicate bills
were not rendered or approved with
any purpose of defrauding the county
but are rather the result of careless
ness and confusion in the making up
of the accounts.
In this connection your committee
would respectfully call the attention
of the Board t what in our opinion
is the out of date and the imperfect
method of auditing bills. That our
method is not a safe one is evidenced
by the fact that the various bills above
referred to were all approved by the
Auditing Committee that was acting
at the time and in no case were the
bills found to be faulty or a duplicate
of bill formerly presented. Mem
bers who have been in the Board dur
ing the last two or three years will
led County Auditor who would be
obliged to devote enough time to the
examination of bills to prevent any
chance of mistake or of any duplica-
ton of bills and your committee would
strongly recommend that the Board
give this matter their careful consider
alton. If it is not practicable to have
a County Auditor then the same re-
1te, irr1 hn oh oi cd hxy oil inc
our Auditing committee a clerk whose
duties would be to tabulate the bills
each month SO that the next months
bills might be compared with them
and chances of error greatly leSsened.
The most serious thing your COM
mittee finds is the method that the
member from Logan has adopted in
charging for his team when doing
county work. 1t appears that from
1904 down to and including 1908 the
said member has been in the habit of
charging $3.50 per day for his team
and $1.50 additional for the driver, or
total of $500 per day. We do not
think it will be disputed that what is
commonly known as team consists
of a wagon, pair of horses and a
driver, and hence to charge $3.50 for
team without driver and then
make an additional charge of $3.50
for the driver is burden the county
should not be called upon to bear. The
member from Logan who voluntarily
appeared before your committee at
tempted to justify his action first by
claiming it was authorized by the late
Road Supervisor and also claiming
the man who was his driver was in
the habit of looking after road work
in the vicinity where he was at work
and hence was worth the $3.50 per day
to the county.
Your committee is of the opinion
that there never was nor could be any
authority for such an agreement be-
tween the member from Logan and
the late Supervisor and that it was
certainly never the intention of the
county to pay $3.50 day for team
without a driver. The seriousness of
this matter will be apparent when
your committee advises you that this
$1.50 per day has amounted in the
years from 1904 to 1908 inclusive to
tee submits is due the county from the
member from Logan.
Another matter that your committee
feels must be brought to the attention
of the Board is the fact that in numer-
Gus cases during the year 1908 the
member from Logan has been Off
cially engaged at public sales in var
ious parts of the county and at the
same time has charged the county for
full days work for the very days the
sales we're held. Your committee be-
lieves that the member from Logan
felt that he was we'll within his rights
when he made these charges but we
bring it to the attention of the Board
because we believe you should settle
definitely just what constitutes days
work for a member engaged for
county work.
For example we find instances
where members having attended the
regular monthly meetings of the Board
and having made the usual charge
therefore have then on the same day
made views of bridges, attended spec
ial committee meetings, etc. and made
a charge for same. Your committee
has doubts as to the propriety of this
method and would therefore like the
Board to consider this question, viz:
Has a member the right after attend
ing meeting of the Board or of any
one of the various standing commit
tees and making the proper charge for
same to them make further charge
for such work as viewing bridges, at
tending special committee meetings,
ETC., on the same day?
All of the above is respectfully sub
mitted.
CHARLES WALTON,
Chairman.
HARRY w. JONES,
GEO. DUDLEY WHITNEY,
After the Clerk had completed read
ing, Mr.. Usinger moved that the re-
port be received and filed. He said
the report was true as it referred to
him, and at a future time he wuold
make his statement as to himself.
Mr.. Best asked to have the title of
the report changed as to bills outside
the Board meeting, but Mr.. Usinger