Arizona republican., 1914-02-23
IMPROVEMENT
 COSTS GIVEN
State Engineer Reports on Tempe Bridge and the Phoenix-Tempe Highway,
 But Does Not Make Any Comparisons

From the state engineers office there has just issued a report that shows 1 in detail the cost of construction of I the Tempe bridge and of the Phoenix I Tempe highway. In these reports the i items of expense are segregated that 1 the reader can at once determine where and to what extent each source of eX pense entered into the general cost. It | further shows the per diem average of men employed on the works and in the camps and the average per diem cost per man. As to whether it proved more economical to use convict labor | than it would have been to construct
 the bridge and highway under contract or by force account does not appear and cannot be determined as to the lat l ter unless it be known how the amount of work that was performed by the prisoners per day would have com ! pared with that performed by day lab | orers and what would have been the wage per day for day laborers. It is 1 evident to all who see the bridge that better work could not have been done had it been a contract job and it ap- pears that the construction is quite as satisfactory as if it had been built on | force account.
 1 The average number of convictS on the Tempe bridge from June 1911 to i! August 1913 was 57, of these being
 in the camp and 4S on the bridge work
 The cost per day per man, all told and
 allowing the rebate from the state, for 1 maintainance was 31.5 cents and the pro rata per man per day for the ex- pense of guards was 3S.4 cents or 6s9
 cents per man, but applying these fig ureS to the convicts employed on the actual bridge work was 91.9 per man.
 This is evidently much lower figure
 than the daily wage of a day laborer and the query arises in the mind of
 the reader as to how much more work
 a paid laborer would perform in a day than a convict
 On the Phoenix Tempe highway
 work the average per diem net cost of
 maintenance of a convict was S6 cents
 and the cost of the guards apportioned
 to each convict was 49 cents a day.
 thus bringing the cost of convict labor
 on the road work up to s1.35 per day.
 or about a third higher than was the convict labor on the bridge work. In
 the report on the bridge cost there is
 credit of s6,404S7 for equipment left
 over. and in contrast to this are the items for rental of stock On the bridge
 work the rental of teams and wagons
 was s5.423.76 and on the highway work
 s3.5S2.21 besides which s575 was paid
 for stock killed On the two jobs there
 was paid for rental of stocCk s9,3S097
 with no offset of possession of any of this stock as entrusted with the credit of S6,404.S7 for tools and equipment
 that was left over after the bridge work was completed It therefore would ap- pear that for it's highway and bridge , work the state should not only own } the tools and equipment but the stock employed on such work as well in the t interests of economy.
 l For the construction of the Tempe
 bridge there was expended for mater
 ials used s3S,67612 and on this the
 freight was s7,106.33 making the total cost of materials s45,7S245 or about 8
 per cent of the total cost of 2,624.20 $ Miscellaneous supplies, coal. oil and : the freight thereon s475710 Net cost of tools and equipment, allowing for : value of that remaining after comple- tion of the work is s479959. Teams. . | wagons and the feed bill for the stock
 figured s9310.24. Salaries were paid to
 engineers. draftsmen. officemen, fore
 men, timekeepers. carpenters, etc. amounting to s32,39636 The camp sup v plies for the paid men cost s6.47332 and
 there were miscellaneous expense ' charged of s237266. The net cost of
 the prison labor was s13,455.67. The 3.64 miles of state highway GOV
 cred in the engineers report cost s33.-
 77S.56 or about s9277 per mile The
 report shows that material cost
 s6,625.66; stock rental and loss. feed
 and depreciation of equipment sSO7061 \ paid labor and salaries sS,50499 mis- S cellaneOus expenses $16S3.19 and net = cost of prison labor sS,74411
 0 During the period that these two l, public improvements were in progress
 there were 20 escapes. II from the
 bridge camp and from the road camp | and of these were recaptured, from . the bridge camp and from the roat S camp.