Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-21
TIME TO EMPOWER COUNCIL
TO CONTROL EXPENDITURES
penditures in County Offices Is
ntolerable

lntolerable
E'HPENDITURE of money by public
- officers in Philadelphia should be
under the direct control of the taxing
and appropriating power of the city.
The so-called county officers are in
many respects a law unto themselves.
And where they do not exercise their
own discretion they have been in the
habit of going over the heads of the city
authorities and securing laws in Harris
burg creating new positions and fixing
salaries.
The Council has no discretion in the
premises. 1t must appropriate the
money to pay these salaries.
Fortunately, however, the Council has
little control over expenditures of the
county officers. There are some subordi-
nate positions which it has created and
which it can abolish. And it can decide
how much it will appropriate beyond the
amount which lis called for by the laws
passed in Harrisburg establishing GER
tain positions and fixing the pay for the
incumbents.
The little power which the Council has
over the money required to support the
county departments is now likely to be
exercised in order that money may be
found to pay the imperative expenses of
the city departments.
The last administration, it is now
charged, pared the city appropriations
to the bone and set aside generous
amounts for the use of the county offices
which remained in the control of the
leaders who were dominant under Mayor
Smith. 1t was anticipated that Ware fol-
lowers would be dismissed by Mayor
Moore. Preparation was made in ad
vance to take care of them in the depart
ments that were still controlled by the
defeated leaders. Large numbers of men
dismissed from city departments and
from the sheriff's Office have been ap-
pointed to jobs in the offices of the re-
corder of deeds, the receiver of taxes and
the county commissioners, regardless of
the needs of the city departments.
Mayor Moore and his associates are
doing the right thing in examining into
the payroll of these offices in order to
discover how it can be reduced so that
funds may be found to maintain the city
departments and to give to the police
men and the firemen the pay to which
they are entitled.
That the pay should be increased is ad-
mitted even by the Ware followers.
Councilman Hall has introduced reso-
luton in the Council increasing the wage
of the policemen to So day. The reso-
luton should be passed, and Hall and
Al, l. L.,
that the only way to get the money
needed is to transfer from the appropria-
tions for the Vare-controlled county
offices such sums as will meet the in
creased appropriations required by the
Department of Public Safety. They
cannot object without convcting them
selves of four-fushing in urging better
pay for the police and liremen.
Council has power to transfer the
money from the appropriations for
county departments whenever it sees fit.
While the Mayor and his assistants are
working out the details of this plan it is
expected that they will also begin to
make plans to ask the Legislature next
winter to repeal all laws fixing the
salaries OF subordinates in the county
offices and to place the absolute control
Of the financial affairs of the county in
the hands of Council.
To perfect the complete union between
the county government and the city gov
ernment a constitutional amendment will
be necessary. Such an amendment ap-
plying to counties" containing a city of
the first class could easily be drafted, and
if it were supported by the administra-
ton here it is morally certain that it
would receive approval in Harrisburg.
But without waiting for a constitu-
tional amendment the Legislature can do
| considerable to remove current abuses
Besides repeating the salary laws it can
put the appointment of subordinates in
the county offices under the supervision
! of the Civil Service Commission and re-
move them from purely political control,
so far as that can be done by the appli-
! cation of the rule that no appointment
| shall be made save from an eligible list
prepared after an examination to test the
! fitness of the candidates.
These changes are favored by every
one save few professional politicians.
All that it needs to bring them about is
the concerted action of those who are
persuaded that the present conditions
have been allowed to continue too long.
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pEAPN'S InR AND NIIpC