The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-05-20

William A. klek few duties had been left him by the preceding administration, and after this last vestige of his author ity was shorn from him, he had not SO much as a set of books. He was powerless to check the Mayor and Comptroller in their admins tration of the city's financial affairs exercising only such perfunctory duties, at the request of the Comp troller, as were absolutely neces- sary. Had he insisted upon retain ing and exercising his powers un- der the charter, the corruption hereafter detailed would have been substantially reduced.
 Apparently equally ilnpotent and subservient was the Board of Fi- nance. Of its duties, detailed in Sections 65-l0O of the charter, it was either unaware or inconsiderate so rarely were they performed con- scientiously. From the evidence which has been presented, i. is ob- vious that the meetings of the Board of Finance were a forinality gone through periodically by the Mayor and the Comptroller, for the purpose of securing what amounted to automatic approval of their acts and thereby permitting the Board to maintain the semblance of con- trol over them. A constant at- tendant at these meetings was Thomas P. Kelly, the Mayors sec- retary, who should have been per mitted no part in the adninistra- tion of the. Boards affairs. Witt, his assistance, however, it appears that the Mayor and the Comptroller dominated the meetings of the Board, which remained, through out the eight years, a flgurehead. The Grand Jury has found no evil dence of any genuine effort by the Board to exercise any restraint whatever upon the Mayor and the Comptroller in their administration of the city's financial affairs. The manner in which hundreds of thousands of dollars of the city's money was expended illegally, with out the approval of the Board oi Finance and without subsequent discovery by it, is striking evidence of this situation. .t.
 Warrants Payable Register
 It had been the practice in the office of the Comptroller to require vendors of goods or services to ren- der to the city voucher stating the nature of the goods or services and the amount due from the city The amounts of these vouchers were then posted on sheet known as a warrants payable register, upon which would be entered all expendi- lures for submission to the Board of Finance and examination and approval by the Board. This war; rants payable register is perhaps the most important records of the Comptroller's office because it con- tains summary of information gathered from practically all the other records in the Comptroller's office and in other departments of the city. In the heading of the sheet at the right is provided a space for the date, list number and page number. The pages would be numbered consecutively throughout the year, while the list numbers would be used for each group of sheets as approved by the Board of Finance. The columnar headings of the sheets are as follows: Previous balance Date Reference
 Encumbrances cleared
 Audited vouchers
 New balance
 Budget item no.
 Department
 Warrant no.
 Payee
 Amount
 Fund and Appropriation Symbol Amount
 The sheet is used not only as a register of the warrants payable, but also as a proof of the postings
 
 thereon, and as a result shows the status at all times of each depart mental appropriation against which an expenditure is to be made. The name of the payee of every voucher is recorded on this sheet, and is the only place in the entire system of accounting employed in which the payee's name is recorded, except in the case of encumbrances previously established, in which event the name appears in the encumbrance register. On the back of the war rants payable register appears the certification of the Comptroller that the items listed on the face of the sheet are correct and should be paid, followed by the certificate of approval for signature by major ity of the Board of Finance, which certification reads as follows:
 We have examined and ap- proved the original vouchers sup porting the warrants listed on the reverse side hereof and numbered from to - inclusive, and we authorize the issuance of the said warrants in payment of
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