The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-08-26

walks, lights; the removal of ashes,
 etc
 Fundamental to effective and eco-
 nornical administration of any kind of
 activity~~hether it be a. business cor
 poration or a municipal corporation,
 IS the form of organization adopted
 through which the operations are
 carried OF.
 Reorganization of the Administrative
 Machinery of Government.
 As pointed out in Part 1 of this re- port, Bridgeport has a widely decen-
 tralized form of organization. This
 plan is fundamentally wrong and it
 should be understood at the start that only a fundamental change from de centralized to a centralized form of organization will be curative of pres ent ills. Not only are students of the science of government agreed upon this point, but also those who have observed the practical workings of municipal government concur an the opinion.
 The evidence of the unsuitability of the present form of government for a city as large as Bridgeport is con tained in the report of the. Special
 Retrenchment of the State of New York, published in 1920.
 This committee was appointed to 1 investigate and report on the possi-
 bility and the methods Of secur1ns retrenchment in governmental expen- ditures, especially in the cities and {! counties
 Apparently the decentraHzed form l of government, referred to in the re- port consisting of boards and com l missions, is confined to cities of the l third class, or having less than 5o,- 900 population.
 "The testimony of officials repre-
 senting cities of the third class gov erned by some variety of the Federal l type developed two well-def1ned crita- cisns of existing conditions; namely, 1 that widely decentralized organization l is uneconomical organization, and that unpaid service on the part of l citizens under any plan of organ1za- | tion is ineffective and wasteful. 1Iany municipal officials, represent ing cities governed in whole or in part by boards and numerous elected | officers, complained of a lack of cen | tral supervision, coordination and re- 1 sponsibfity in their cities The lack | of central control and responsibility we were informed, leads to overen- phasis of the relative importance oi certain functions of the government and general competition for pubic
 funds regardless of financial condi- tFons. In the competition for funds the functions administered by politi- cally dominant personalities often re- ceive greater attention than Is war ranted by their relative importance and by financial conditions. This is the experience of cities not provided
  power and responsibility for balanc- ing the various demands for funds against each other and balancing all expenditures against revenues. Another feature of decentrahzed administration by boards and num- erous elected officials which was free ly criticized by the cities is unneces- sary duplication of organization. This duplication appears in the field of public works where it is a common thing to have two or three independ-
 ent agencies in charge of public works and public utilities. The City of Dun- kirk with and elected city engineer, an elected street commissioner and an elected board of utility commissioners presents an example of divided con- trol of engineering features in pub lie works and utilities Another ex- ample of duplication which waS pointed out in the conference is the common existence of education Dup lication of organization health depart ments and in the departments of ed ucation- Duplication of organization for accounting and purchasing is decentralized organization.
 'sThe criticism with regard to part time service of citizens is practically unanimous. This service appears
 most commonly under a board system where unpaid citizen boards are charged with general administration of such functions as health, education police and fire and public works. The sessors with nominal salary is also quite common. As was repeatedly pointed out, the theory of this plar l is that able business men can be charged with the general adninistra- tive responsibility thereby saving the