Montana labor news., 1938-08-25
By MINERS UNION RELIEF
COMMITTEE

"a"
Within recent weeks much pub
licity has been given to a dispute
between the state welfare board and
the office of the attorney general
relative to opinions issued by the
attorney general as to the provision
Of funds for direct relief when coun-
ty cash for that purpose is exhausted.
Pending agreement Of a method Of
%arbitrating the dispute, direct relief
was discontinued in Silver Bow
County for a few days. Most of the
publicity in the local daily press
seemed to have been written with
the object in view of conveying the
impression that the shutdown of re-
lief was solely the fault of the attor-
ney general-and that with some
monstrous personal intention to be
served.
We feel that some brief, non
technical explanation should be
made of the issue for the benefit of
our unemployed miners and others
on relief. The following is a sum
mary of the opinions in question:
PUBLIC NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
GENERAL RELIEF
Held: When cash available for gen
eral relief purposes in the poor fund
is depleted, and no transfers of sur
plus funds from other funds, or
items within the poor fund can be
made, the county is entitled to a
grant-in-aid for general relief,
2. The county cannot issue regis
tered warrants against anticipatory
revenue in the poor fund.
3. Registered warrants not repre-
senting cash on demand may not be
issued in payment Of relief.
4. 1t is mandatory upon the state
to make grants-in-aid to counties
when poor fund cash is shown to be
exhausted.
PUBLIC WELFARE-COUNTIES
WARRANTS
Held: The State Department of
Public Welfare has available funds
to meet the counties needs for gen
eral relief. It is mandatory that the
state make grants-in-aid for general
relief to the counties when the coun-
ties cash is exhausted. The counties
must not issue registered warrants
upon the county poor fund for gem
eral relief purposes.
STATE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC
ERAL ~RELIEF-ANTICIPA-
TORY WARRANTS
Held: l. The State Department has
available funds and must make
grants to the counties for general re-
lief when the counties poor funds
are exhausted.
2. Unless the counties avail them
selves of their rights through appro-
pirate measures, they forfeit the
same, and if state funds are not used
as required by law, the counties
only alternative is to issue anticipa-
tory warrants pending an adjudica-
ton of the matter.
In regard to the first opinion, it
must be explained that Silver Bow
County's relief fund has long been
exhausted and, after using their
credit by issuing warrants against
the money for that purpose expected
to be collected for the year, has re-
ceived some aid from the state. This
mortgaging the future in addition to
expanding the funds against which
cash warrants can be issued has been
a standard practice and has been in
sisted upon by the state welfare
board as a prerequisite to granting
any county cash supplementary aid.
An opinion as to the legality of this
procedure was requested by Will
liam Taylor, county attorney of
Anaconda. The opinion holds that
the state must come to the aid of a
county when its poor fund cash is
exhausted and hat mortgaging the
future is unnecessary.
The second opinion decides that
the state welfare has funds for
grants in aid to counties needing it