The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1911-04-05
RECORDS ARE
in A MIDDLE
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ed that he had no money on hand to
repair any specified bitches, as none
of the books in his Office showed any,
thing to the credit of these specific
drains. However, he stated that there
was money in the drainage fund, but
he would have to refuse to let IL out
for work on any one drain as the mon
ey was not credited to that drain, and
had always been thrown in together
as a whole
The members of the drainage board
and County Surveyor Crabbe then
placed the matter before the commits
sioners. Deputy Treasurer Eddy was
called in to assist i'm throwing some
light on the matter.
Mr.. Eddy stated that the treasurers
office had never received any records
of the bond issue for the drains from
the auditors office. Furthermore he
stated to the commissioners that since
he had been deputy treasurer he had
asked Auditor Lewis to furnish him
duplicates Of the sale Of bonds for each
drain, but that Mr.. Lewis had never
furnished him any such data.
Last June Mr.. Eddy and William Blu
NhOASt NAAEA bOohhEbp6E III Ine ITEAE=
urer's office, but now deputy county
auditor, went over some Of the books
of the drain funds and found errors
in these. They sent the books back to
Auditor Lewis and asked that these
be returned to the treasurer and i'm a
corrected form. These also have never
been turned back to the treasurer.
The drainage board has, i'm all of it's
work, made a duplicate record Of the
work and money spent on each drain,
and this has always been filed with
the county auditor. However, he has
made no further record of it, sufff-
Gent to allow the treasurer's once a
record OF the money spent and bal
ance, with interest for each ditch dug.
IL has developed that when the
county commissioners had accepted
bids for the construction of a drain
and ordered the sale OF bonds. Mr..
Lewis sold these bonds direct to par
ties at the twin cities and never allow
ed them to go through the office of the
treasurer, as should have been. done.
The first thing that the treasurer
knew about these bonds being sold was
the information received from one OF
the local banks that the sum of about
$4,000 was deposited at the bank to
his credit He would then take the
warrant to the auditor and ask him
where the money came from. The
auditor would then, for the first time.
tell the treasurer regarding the sale
Of the bonds.
With this system of the auditors. the
treasurer would be compelled to write
to the purchasers of the bonds, getting
description OF the drains for which
the bonds had been issued, when IL
they had gone through the proper
channel-the treasurers once and then
to the bond purchasers--this troubJ a
would have all been abolished.
There is money in the ditch funds.
but the treasurer doesn't know how
much, because of the lack Of informa-
ton from the auditors office. The
treasurer doesn't even know when the
interest is due and there is nothing
to show the records or the warrants
that have rot been presented for pay
ment.
The commissioners have decided to
employ an expert to 90 over the books
OF ex-Auditor Lewis and start out
new set of drainage board accounts.
This expert win be employed to bring
the books UP to date, but as the task
is such large one 1t is not known
whether or not many OF the drains IN
the county will get repaired this sum-
mer for until the amount of funds
available for each ditch is known, can
the repair work on any one ditch be
started.
The investigation OF the matter was
continued this afternoon by the drain
age board and the commissioners.