The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1914-09-23
DUTIES OF AUDITOR
ARE TOO DIVERSE ',
Efficiency Commission Secretary Re
fers to Board Of Control Bulletin
in Speaking Of Official Duties.
ASSIGNMENTS RECOMM ENDE b
Departments If Government Should
be Given Individual Supervision
For Proper Business Method.
lBy ]. s. Pardee.

(By J. s. Pardee.
st. Paul, Sept. 20. Especial to the
Pioneer Unless it be the state
auditors department, no board or
commission has greater trust or
a more diversified line of supervi-
SION
This statement, in bulletin is
sued by the board of control, is ex-
actly true The duties, as the eff
cheney commission holds, are too di-
verse to be required of any one man.
The duties of the auditor, as the
commission also holds, are too di-
verse to be laid upon any one man.
The board of control is not COM
planning. It's statement is in good
temper all the way through and is
a conservative recital of the boards
multifarious duties. In fact the
courage and fidelity with which the
board stands to it's impossible bur
dens of duties is one of its admirable
traits. So far from complaining,
the members of the board insist that
these duties should be retained as
they have been assigned and argue
only that it would be disastrous to
put them into the hands of single
executive.
Poor Arrangement.
The efficiency commission on the
other hand takes the view that it is
a poor arrangement that puts so
much Diversity of duty in one place,
whether it is a single executive or
board of three members. 1t is not
the multitude of items that makes
a burden too heavy It is as easy
to sell ten thousand papers of pins
as a dozen. It is the diversity of
duties that creates, an impossible
Work For One Executive.
The efficiency commission recon-
mends that the duties should be so
assigned that every man will have a
full load of naturally related tasks
but. none that are incongruous. Then
it will be found that a single execu-
tive with sufficient help can attend
to them. all.
Even with three members there is
some reason to believe that the board
is now overburdened.
Exactly the same thing is true
of the auditors office to which the
boards bulletin refers. The duties
are not so many that they could not
be handled by one man. They are
too diverse.
Not a Fair Chance.
The state has not given the auditor
a fair chance to be auditor because
it has laid so many diverse duties on
him. It has found it necessary, in
fact, to assign a large part of the
duty Of auditing to other officers On
the other hand the auditor has not
had fair chance to develop a land
policy or a drainage policy or
program for the other executive du-
ties in which he has had large and
often a preponderating part because
he could not give his whole attention
to that side of his job. The state
has made the situation an impossibili-
ty and has then resorted to make
shifts to take care Of duties that
could not be fully discharged by any
one man. And if we had three au-
ditors acting as a board instead of
one, it would not have made it much
better.
According to the efficiency COM
MISSIONS plan there should be one
man acting as auditor who should
have charge of all the auditing and
should be spared all conflicting du-
ties. There should be one man in
charge of development policies and
he should be responsible for them all.
There should be one man in charge
of the institutions and he should be
relieved Of every inconsistent bur-
den.
That is the business method Of or
ganization.
,-ead tic Pioneer want ads.