The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1931-07-21
(Official City. State and County
Newspaper
Foreign Representatives
SMALL. SPENCER & LEVINGS
Gncorporated)
Formerly G. Logan Payne Co.
CHICAGO NEW YORK BOSTON
A Big Business

n DIX DuSlktCSS
Burleigh county taxpayers were
given some idea of the tremendous
bltiness to be done by the county
during the next year with the pub
lication Monday of the budget pro-
posed for 1882.
Such matters are drab and unin-
teresting detail to the average citizen
unless he looks at them from the
standpoint of the mar who foots the
bill. He should be just as much in
terested in the cost of taxes as in the
cost of a suit Of clothes, an automo-
bile or any other necessity. He has
just as much right to be, since the
effect on his pocketbook is even more
direct, in n way, than the consider
alton of personal expenditures.
A man may decide to get along
without something for himself but his
share of the tax burden is assessed
against his property and a penalty
assessed if he fails to pay. There is
no getting along without government
in these times, but the cost of govern
ment is very largely what the tax
payers want it to be.
The expenditures listed by the
county for the coming year, as dis
closed in the budget, are unusually
heavy because the county's share Of
the World War Memorial building
cost must be paid and, in addition, the
construction of the new courthouse
and Jail, now being completed, is
listed. These two items, taken to-
gether, total s295, 734.61 and are a
major share of the proposed total Of
$571, 1882.
Housed in the new courthouse and
with new and splendid equipment, it
is improbable that many of these ex-
penditures will be repeated in the
near future and the money paid now
may prove to be an ultimate saving
in actual cash as well as in better
service. Much as it cost, it means a
good deal to Burleigh county property
owners to be rid of the old courthouse
with its attendant fire hazard.
1t may be that taxpayers have ideas
as to how the county's expenditures
may be reduced. If so they should
communicate them to the board of
county commissioners as quickly as
possible for consideration. The county
board, like all honest bodies Of public
officials, wants to follow the wishes
Of it's constituents.
Those persons who have been inter-
ested in the doings of the commits
sioners have adequate information
upon which to base judgments upon
such matters, for every penny of the
county's expenditures has been listed
and published for the world to see.
There is no possibility Of secrecy un-
der the system which the county conl-
mission has adopted for carrying on
its business. The payroll and the
amounts paid to those doing business
with the county are duly published
as part of the commissioners pro-
ceedings, and the taxpayers are given
a definite account of the stewardship
which they have imposed upon these
men.
This system could not be bettered,
for there Is no more efficient check
upon the wasteful use Of public money
than full and complete information
given to the public and a watchful
and vigilant electorate which is as
interested in its tax expenditures as
in the purchase of personal neces-
sites.
The budgets Of all major tax
spending bodies should be published
in similar detail. Not only would
such practice give the bodies affected
the advice Of the tax-paying elector-
ate in planning expenditures but 1t
would act to uphold their hands in
carrying out q program nee 1t Is
launched. The man who knows what
is planned and makes ne protest has
q far different standing. If dis
pleased, than he to whom adequate
information Is denied.