The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-10-22
GEM HARD WORKER
BUT A LAX SYSTEM
PROVES A HANDICAP
Method of Keeping Time So
Loose That it is Far From
Being Practical.
DATA NOT REQUIRED
System of Reports i'm Street
Department Should be
Provided by the City.
DATA NOT REQUIRED

| one of the hardest working men on
! Mayor Zimmerman's Official stan. He
! takes a keen interest in his work. but
his efforts are robbed OF their effect
tveness by an inefficient system which
has prevailed in the street depart
ment for many years
! From thirty 10 fifty men are on the
payroll of the street department
/ throughout the year. The laborers are
paid 20 cents per hour and when the
/ payroll of the department is made out
| semi-monthly il lists the names of the
employees. the pay rate they receive
| and the total number of hours they
! have worked. This payroll system
would be satisfactory providing the
method of ascertaining the number of
hours each man actually works was
accurate.
How the Time is Kept.
Under the GEM system the labor
ers in his department are. for the most
part, split up into small squads and
| assigned to various kinds of work
] street cleaning. alley cleaning, street
repairing. hauling of trash and dirt,
sewer work, etc. The time these men
work is kept by Commissioner Gem,
! by his son. Frank GEM (who has been
on the city's payroll, at the rate of
S1.25 per day, during a period of sew
eral months he has also been in the
employ of a tailoring establishment,
/ and by Assistant Commissioner Knoll
lenberg.
| Gem has frankly admitted that he
has almost worn off the hoofs' of his
| horse. getting about the city keeping
| track of the two or three gangs whose
/ la EaanS Rpt u-hn ha iC
with them he has no knowledge wheth-
er they are actually working or
whether they are loafng on the job.
! knollenberg, very hard working and
efficient city official, is with one gang
| practically the entire time il works
i each day and can keep an accurate
tally on the number of hours his men
work. Frank Gem has been assign
| ed to the work as time keeper for the
wagon drivers who haul TO the dump"
! Ii has been charged by men i'm that
branch of the street work that young
Gem has made a practice of seeing
. that the men begin their work each
morning. then calling at the dump"
/ late in the afternoon to ascertain the
/ number of hours they have worked
| during the day.
System Furnishes a Leak.
The system of time keeping now in
vogue undoubtedly furnishes a serious
! leakage in public funds. Last year the
| payroll of the street department, in
| cluding the salary of the commission
| er. $1,000. amounted to SS0.431.13. At
the same time the payroll OF the
street department of Dayton. a city al
most five times as large as Richmond,
( amounted to a little over s2l .OcO DAY.
tons streets are not the best kept in
I In
! with the streets of Richmond.
| If the Richmond street department
! had had some efficient method of keep
! ing time and recording other valuable
data pertaining to the work of that de-
! partment il is reasonable to believe
| that the city would not have been
! charged with so many hours of labor
| by street workers, and there undoubt-
| edly would have been enough Informal
ton at hand to form a basis for re-
| organization OF the work Of the de-
partment. IL the administration so de-
sired. probably resulting in the reduc-
I tiOn of the number of employees OF the
! department. and certainly increasing
! the standard of efficiency.
An Example of Time Keeping.
/ While on the subject of time keep
J ing a common incident in the street
commissioners office is recalIed-thRt
! of Commissioner Gem iuquiring OF an
employe, prior to the making out OF
! payroll, the number of hours he has
worked on certain day. This is typi-
! cal of the loose methods which obtain
! in the conduct of the affairs of the
| street department.
Gem states that il Is impractical to
employ a time keeper for every one OF
the small gangs OF men employed by
his department. But the suggestion is
made that if each gang had a fore
man that official could be intrusted
with the work of keeping time
This method would also permit the
commission to spend more time in his
| office, receiving complaints and super
vising the general work OF his depart
ment.
Another Serious Fault
But the lax system of time keeping
| is not the only serious fault to find
with the conduct of the affairs of the
street department. The very ineffi-
cient method of making reports on the
work of the department is deplorable.
Until this has been remedied il will be
impossible 10 administer this most i'm
pOrtant branch Of the city government
on a business basis.
An investigator. to offer an example
of the lax system OF keeping data on
street work. sought TO find in the an
nual reports of the street commission
er the amount of money expended out
OF the departments funds for the years
1910, 1911 and 1912, for the making
and repairing of macadam streets
Such statistics were not 10 be found
| in the reports and item by item they
had TO be dug out" Of the commits
sioneT's books then an adding machine
employed TO ascertain the totals.
Nc Daily Reports Filed.
Accurate data is kept for the most
part on the repairing and making OF
streets, but there has never been
system of filing daily reports on the
'oads of crushed rock, dirt, ashes and
trash hauled, amount OF filing and the
streets where filings are made, cubic