The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-04-27

hIlU pIOpCHy PdJoDAV' pO"'V"O'N'
 Group 2: Claims against overex' pended appropriations, but whicf are for essential functions of city government, $36,184.12.
 Group 3: Claims not properly chargeable against 1887 appropria' tions for which no budgetary pro- visions was made, $2,595.30.
 Group 4: Claims against over drawn appropriations for purposes not essential to city government 8, ,109.08.
 Floating Indebtedness
 Captain Robinson remarked thai all of the claims came within the intent of the terminology, floating indebtedness" and as such would be liabilities of the city if reduced to judgment in the courts. He rec commended that the amount be added to the 1887 deficit, making an approximate total of $500,OOO saying that this undoubtedly could be taken care of by the surplus re- source sinking fund revenues and predicting that there would be a balance available for the 1888 costs
 Criticism was implied within some of the groupings of payments for cement, in two instances at $2.1O 8 bag, bought from the So. N. E. Tel Co.,, rental of a polling place for $5o at the Franco-American hall; for flowers, printing, gasoline, memorial tablets. Christmas trees, and adver- Using.
 Telephone Company Explains
 Commenting on the auditing company's reference to the citys purchase of cement from the Southern New England Telephone Company at $2.10 bag, Manager E. L. Beebe stated this morning that the cement was used in mak- ing authorized conduit changes for the Waterbury Fire Depart ment last year.
 The cement was one item in a bill rendered the city for labor and supplies in connection with conduit jobs covering a period from June to September. The labor and supplies were furnished by contractor work ing for the Telephone Company. The contractor billed the Telephone Company which, in turn, billed the City of Waterbury.
 Upon reviewing the city account this morning, the Telephone Com pany discovered that through a clerical error total net cost for three bags of cement, which was listed by the contractor as $2.10, was considered as the price per bag In making out the bill to the city. AS five bags were used on the job, the city was billed $10.50. The cost per bag should have been sixty-one cents, plus the contractors charge of nine cents per bag for handling or seventy cents per bag. The cor rect total is therefore $3.50 for the five bags and the Telephone Com pany is issuing a credit memoran- dunn for $7.O0 to the city, MT. Beebe explained.
 M. J. Daly and Sons
 One instance of comment was Ill the case of the M. J. Daly and Sons Inc. where an over-payment o1 s608 was made by error, in 1885, ano the firm told the auditors that at- tempt was made to return the money but that the controllers of' flee had informed them that there was mo method available to handle such transaction" and that the money had been applied against other bills due the concern, esti- mated as about $250,000 during the last eight years. There is a balance due the city from the Daly con- pany now amounting to $28.66.
 A bill from the Frank Pope com pany, dated in 1884, was for $934 due as rebate of processing taxes and another for $50 was alleged to have been paid to the Pope con- cern when it should have gone to Joseph Pope & Sons. The auditor said that he obtained affldavits from numerous vendors because vouchers were unvailable.
 Among the comments in the re- port was the following:
 Invoices for Printing
 Invoices for printing of alder manic minutes and budgets and budget estimates indicate a varia- tion in price of $2.17 page to $9.6O a page. Attention is directed to the following charges for printing min- utes of the board ol aldermen, the budget and estimates by the Water bury Democrat: