Bisbee daily review., 1916-02-20

ihabit of getting the contract for mak- Ting the duplicate rolls and thereby ! getting a few hundred dollars from the county each year for doing work that profited the county nothing.
 The Tax Commission adopted this same scheme which is now in opera ton and is saving approximately Sl0,- 0OO.0O a year for all the counties in the state. It was a saving of $l.000 a year to Cochise county and the accu- mutation of these needless books for which storage space must be supplied, without impairing the system O ftrans- acting all the business connected with assessment and the collection of taxes. In the session of 1912, your secre- tary began the agitation and creating sentiment in favor of abolishing the offices of County Superintendent of Roads and creating the office of County Engineer in their stead. A bill for this purpose was introduced in the Senate through Senator Harrison of Santa Cruz county There could not be sufficient support gotten at this ses- sion to pass this bill, but at the 1913 session the sentiment created having grown into a belief in the system, the bill was passed This system may not have proved itself in the first years operation, to be all we hoped for it. but it has proved to be far more efficient than the former. The new system is infinitely better in one phase that the County Engineer is appointed by the Board of Supervisors and can be dismissed from the office for cause at any time, while it is the next thing to impossible to remove an elected officer in this state at this time, regard les sof his inability or dereliction.
 Another law that was passed at the 1912 session of the legislature, that would have been a great saving to the taxpayers and would have left the pre- cinct judicial department unharmed if not improved, was that providing for abolishing all justice precincts and re- districting all counties into new pre- cincts by the boards of supervisors of the several counties. This was done in
 
 September, 1912, and the number of precincts reduced from g to z This act was contested by the combined precinct officers who lost their cause in the Superior Court of this county. appealed it to the Suprm Court in which tribunal the law in part was de- clared unconstitutional, but that part of it that provided for only one jus tice of the peace and one constable in each precinct was held operative This left us half loaf and saved the tax payers $500 a mont hin Bisbee and Douglas since the zrst of January, 1915.
 Not willing to let the matter rest here, in 1913 by an arrangement with the Code Commissioner, another law was put into the code providing for and making it the duty of the super visors in the seperal counties to fix the salaries of all precinct officers, at their July meeting proceeding each general election. This was done be- { fore the last general election. thereby reducing the monthly payroll of pre- cinct officers in Cochise county from $3,120.00 to S1,765.O0, making a say ing of S1,355O0 each month to the taxpayers.
 This list merely covers a few laws that your secretary was largely respon- sible for their origin and fro1I which the taxpayers of our county have re ceived their direct benefits. Other laws that have to do with the appro- priations of money and public improve ments were given special attention. | that affected the whole state directly and the several counties indirectly. if the term might be so used. But it might be considered presumptive if an attempt were made tn discuss legis- lative measures that were prevented from passing bys outside efforts, but | which would surely have proven ex- pensive and yielded 2 oreturns to the i taxpayers in the application hings prevented are some times of much more value tha nthe sane things pro- | noted
 Local and County Business. 1 The first year of our operation was viewed with more or less suspicion and distrust by county officials, but that attitude has constantly dwindled until there is scarcely trace of it left.
 Our constant aim to help always and never hinder when the official efforts were legitimately and properly directed has been so apparent to the most doubtful. that we have earned and have been awarded a respectable standing by officials and all other per sons who have not had some ulterior motive discrediting fair and econom- ical efforts in the transaction of pub lie business.