The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-03-25
BIGGEST PAYROLL
IN WHOLE WORLD
Postal Department Pays Help
200 Millions a Year.
Employees Who Draw Regular
Checks Number 100000.
PAID FROM LOCAL OFFICES
Each Postmaster Is Paymaster
in His District.
Data on Each Employee Kept
by Head Office.
tRy RORERT f. WILSON.)


partmental employee recently told
house appropriation committee that
the postoffice department maintains
the biggest payroll on earth, some OF
the members of the committee looked
surprised The employee then went to
tell about the 100000 postoffice en-
ployees who draw their regular pay
checks from Uncle Sam, the total pay
roll amounting to something like
5000, 100000 a year.
1 went through the postoffice de-
partment trying to find the paymaSter
who takes care of this vast roll. l had
a visionary idea of blank checks
spread out in great sheets, while the
paymaster signed them perhaps sew
eraI hundred at a time by means OF
the telautograph instrument used in
certain other government offices
where many checks have to be signed.
But the biggest payroll on earth is
not paid off in this fashion. Instead
of a single paymaster there are 56,111
paymasters, that being the number of
postmasters holding commissions on
March 8, 1916. Each postmaster is
practically an independent business
man, meeting the expenses of his own
office out of it's receipts and returning
the profits, if any, to the department
together with his accounts for audit
ing.
Audit in Washington.
1t is in the auditing that Washing
ton here handles the gigantic post
office payroll, but it is the treasury
department which handles it. Three
whole floors and part of fourth in
the ten-story postoffice department
building are given over to the auditors
who are direct employees of the treas
ury department. The postoffice de-
partment has about l, 500 employees in
Washington, but it takes $50 treasury
employees to audit the books of the
postoffice department.
Each postmaster is virtually his
own boss in managing the finances of
his own office, except that he can en-
ploy only authorized help and that he
every month. The postmaster pays
his office clerks and mail clerks and
mail carriers. Thus IN several of the
largest cities the postoffice payroll
ranks with those or the largest local
industries. There are 39,792 office
clerks and mail clerks in our post
offices, all being paid by their local
postmasters. In addition there are
$4,000 city carriers, making the total
postoffice payroll for the local mail
delivery number about 1870 names.
10000 Railway Clerks.
Then there is another large branch
of the service-the railway mail ser
vice. The railway mail clerks. too. are
paid by postmasters. For the railway
mail service the country is divided into
to certain large postoffices in each
district for their pay. There are 49,
900 railway mail clerks.
The largest division of postoffiee
employees is made up of the rural
mail carriers, $4,000 of them, or a
carriers. Their paychecks, too, come
from postmasters, but not from their
local pOStmaSterS. In each state one
city is designated as the paying sta
ton for the rural carriers. To this
office all the other postoffices of the
state send their excess receipts, and
from these funds the postmaster in
the designated city pays all the rural
carriers of the state with his official
checks. The New York postmaster
pays all the rural letter carriers in
New York state; Philadelphia for
Pennsylvania; Cincinnati for Ohio;
Chicago for Illinois; Milwaukee for
Wisconsin, and so on.
Kept at Home.
Thus large share of the postoffice
receipts never reach Washington but
are paid out locally in salaries to the
postoffice employees The principal
work here is auditing the payroll For
this purpose the auditors maintain a
card index system, with a card for
each of the 140, 900 employees, giving
his name, date of appointment and
rate of pay. Each month the total
payroll is checked over name by name,
and every three months the auditors
strike the balance sheet
The postoffice has no topheavy sal
aries, nor any very small ones Per-
hapS no business institution on earth
has its payroll so evenly balanced in
this respect. Exclusive of watchnen
and scrub-women, the smallest salary
paid Is $500 year. The postmaster
general draws the largest salary
$4,000. If the postoffice were a pri
vate corporation its president would
draw $4,000 a year. while his assist
ants and divisional managers would
get salaries ranging from $4,000 to
5000 On the other hand, the
clerks in this private institution would
probably not average $500 a year. LET
alone having as the minimum salary