Better county government, however, involves a good deal more than a mere skeleton of organization. It is not enough to provide the means for fixing responsibility in a general though fundamental sense, in officers who are conspicuous and powerful. That is the beginning of efficiency. And yet “responsibility” in its greater refinements, in its more intimate applications, is precisely the key to what all the various prophets of better government and public administration are preaching. Turn on the light! That is what the Short Ballot movement proposes by the more sweeping fundamental changes in the structure. Turning on the light is also essence of the doctrine of better accounting, better auditing, better budget making, better purchasing and the whole tendency to greater publicity in the conduct of public affairs.
Those county commissioners out in Kansas and Iowa who paid too much for their bridges—what was the real trouble with them? A writer in the agricultural journal which exposed these scandals wound up his article with an exhortation to the people to “elect good honest men.” Such advice was at least a shade or two more constructive than the political preaching of a century ago (which still has its adherents) that public officials tend inevitably to become thieves and crooks; that the best that we can do is to tie their hands by ingenious “checking” and “balancing” devices until it is almost impossible for them to move. To-day one group of political reconstructionists says: “Give these officers plenty of power, and then watch them,” and another group, supplementing the former, says: “Give officers the means of knowing exactly what they are doing; give also the public the means of watching intelligently and minutely; and if their public servants go wrong it is ‘up to the people,’” actually as well as formally. One is quite safe in assuming, for instance, that the offices of those middle western county officials were terribly “shy” on reliable data on bridge construction with which to meet the wiles of the combined contractors.
To begin with, what kind of a bridge was most needed? Did they have records as to the volume and weight of traffic which was likely to come over the structure? Did they seek light from an engineer of untarnished reputation or did they just trust to their “horse sense” and the fact that they “had lived there all their lives and they ought to know, if anybody did”? What did the records in the county engineer’s office show as to the relative durability and maintenance expense of steel bridges as against wooden bridges, under the peculiar local conditions?
Then as to the bids on the proposed structure: how did these compare with the cost of bridges of equal tonnage in other states and counties? How about the current state of the steel market—would it be better to buy now or wait a few months until business at the mills was likely to be slack?
How about financing the bridge project? Should the cost be borne out of the current year’s revenues, should it be covered by a ten-year bond issue or should the next generation of taxpayers be saddled with payments long after the bridge had outlived its usefulness?
A board of supervisors or a county manager or a county engineer armed with an answer to this series of extremely pertinent questions and a modicum of common honesty would be proof against ninety-nine per cent. of the “slick” deals which are so often “put over” on an unsuspecting public and their easy-going servants.
The science of public administration consists principally in knowing exactly where you are and what you are doing—knowledge gained through experimentation, investigation and comparison and by consultation of authoritative standards and with authorities themselves.
We will illustrate this principle in a few of its applications:
The accounting system of any organization, public or private, is useful in proportion to the definiteness of its analyses or classifications, according to what is most important to be known. Thus, in New York State, the statutes authorize boards of supervisors to allow claims on the basis: (1) of specific amounts imposed by state law, such as the stated salaries of judges, (2) of amounts fixed by the board of supervisors under authority of law. In at least one county (Westchester) it was formerly the custom to lump a great variety of claims under the second heading—under the title “county audited bills”—a procedure which was satisfactory enough perhaps, if to know the authority for payment were the only information desired. By such a system it was impossible to tell the cost of running any county office or department without actually tracing each voucher back to its source. Thus, it was found that, in the year 1907 the budget authorization for the superintendent of the poor was $17,485.61, while the expenditures shown by the treasurer’s report were $108,906.58 and the actual cost of the office, when proper additions were made from the “county audited bills,” was $118,464.33. Discrepancies of an equally serious nature were revealed in the case of most of the other offices. The accounting system through its inexact classifications gave information which was useful in protecting the treasurer but which was practically without value as a description of what the county’s departments were doing and how economically they were doing it.
Exact classification is also essential to the last degree in the making of the budget, to the end that actual experience in the way of revenues received and funds disbursed may be made the reliable basis of future activities. In a well-ordered system of state supervision of local accounts the classifications will be made by a state official who will have the power to enforce compliance upon the part of the fiscal officer in each county. So that in time each county will have the inestimable advantage of being able to compare its finances with those of other similar units. A proper accounting system will proceed so far in its analysis as to provide a large amount of data concerning the cost of units of service rendered and materials consumed. Among other things, it will reveal at any and all times precisely what is the condition of the county’s assets both in the shape of funds and of investments; it will show how much the county actually owes and is to owe at any future date.
On the basis of accounts that tell in detailed classification the needs and the resources of the county, the governing body will be able to embark upon the financial voyage of each new year with chart and compass. At a stated time before the budget-making period the heads of departments, having before them the records of transactions and costs in previous years, will frame their requests for future service. But because of the exactness of the estimates required to be submitted, any request for an increase of appropriation will stand out as a shining mark. The department head will thereby be thrown on the defensive, will be obliged to explain himself. The knowledge of that condition will have a distinctly beneficial effect upon any desire of his to seek increased appropriations without careful consideration.
The governing body will proceed, moreover, with the certitude that the public has at its disposal the means of knowing in detail what its government is costing. The business of the year will be treated as a program of public service; and in the framing of that program every interested citizen and group of citizens will be urged to take part through the medium of public hearings. As the Westchester County Research Bureau says: “It would be easy to provide an opportunity for the filing of either objections or additional suggestions by taxpayers and for consideration of these at public hearing at the county seat before the board of supervisors by public notice of such filing and of such public hearing. Such hearings would doubtless speedily end such abuses as are exemplified in our bulletin on the Purchase of County Supplies. In the face of public objection, few supervisors would vote affirmatively for appropriations for such extravagant expenditures. The difference in result would be that between the action of an informed public, able to deliberate in advance upon proposed expenditures, and the absence of action of a public ignorant of the character of such proposed expenditures—the usual condition under present methods of budget provision for public funds.
“It is easy to prevent the official adoption over public objection of extravagant estimates. It is difficult to prevent extravagant misuse of public funds appropriated in lump sums, or to rectify such misuses after such expenditures have been incurred.”[24]
Complete knowledge and complete mutual confidence and understanding on the part of the public on the one hand and its agencies of government on the other—that is the big and seemingly reasonable promise of a budget system of the right sort. It cannot be put into operation in the fullest extent without those structural changes in county government with which we have already dealt.
A special field in which exact knowledge is particularly essential as a safeguard against theft is that of the auditor. To many a county treasurer the auditing demands of the government appear to be met when some basis of authority for a payment has been established. Sometimes even then the authority in question is not a legal one for often it may not be established by reference to the letter of the statute but by the precedents set by previous incumbents. Not “What does the law say about it?” but “What did —— do in such cases?” is apt to be the question uppermost in the mind of the official. How many millions of good money have slipped through county treasurers’ hands through such a procedure will never be known. The state examiner who has not discovered many an old-fashioned county where many such illegal payments have been made is rare indeed.
But such post-mortem checking of illegal payments is, for the most part, but a sad business. Modern standards of auditing organization and practice aim to insure more completely that the authority for payment shall be established before payment. The auditor should certainly be wholly independent of the disbursing officer and some authorities would also insist, of the appropriating body. Least of all should the auditing be done by the appropriating body itself or through its committees (as is true in some states) for such an audit through lack of first-hand consideration and definite fixing of responsibility rapidly degenerates into a perfunctory performance. It is even the practice in some counties to audit bills in full board by acclamation!
And since so large a portion of county claims are for material and supplies for use in the construction and maintenance of roads, bridges and institutions, the work of audit cannot fail to be closely associated with the purchasing system. The purchasing agent by whatsoever name called, is, after all, a special sort of auditor, dealing with a variety of commodities instead of funds. As in every other branch of public service, successful purchasing depends primarily on exact information, relating in this case, to standards of utility of various articles, the present and the probable future state of the market, the exact condition of present supplies, the honest fulfillment of contracts. Such information may come through stock ledgers, inspectors, trade journals or chemical tests.
In the county of Alameda, Cal., as a result of investigation, publicity and political pressure resulting in changes in the purchasing procedure in the county offices, the sum of $810,205 was saved on the one item of cost of elections in the years 1912-1916. Blank affidavits of registration dropped from $16.50 to $3.30 per thousand, election ballots from $22.12 to $1.65. On advertising, election proclamation, etc., there was a saving during the period of 1700 per cent. And this is by no means an unique experience. It is typical of results obtained under careful scientific purchasing methods in public work everywhere.[25] Accurate records, a study of unit costs, “pitiless publicity,” standardization and elimination of senseless waste and lost motion constitute the explanation. The Tax Association is now urging the consolidation of public purchasing agencies throughout the county in order to take advantage of the still greater economies which accrue to the large buyer.
It is not only in its material interests that the county will be in need of exact information. Where the county comes into contact with the human factor the importance of working in the daylight cannot be overlooked. It will not do for the officer in charge of the poor to keep records “under his hat” concerning the inmates under his charge. Similarly, the probation officer will investigate and account for the delinquencies and the special needs of his wards, in a really informing way. And the sheriff, so long as he shall be the peace officer of the county, will furnish a record of crimes committed within his jurisdiction which will possibly lead to suitable preventive measures.
It is a high standard of administrative efficiency which we have set up. No single county so far as we know, measures up to it at present. No county, apparently, without compulsion from the central state government, has even made any serious progress along these lines except at the instigation of a privately supported research bureau or tax association. County administrative organization and procedure is virgin soil for constructive civic effort.
But administrative procedure is not more important to county betterment than the personnel of the organization. “Politics” in administration has come to mean the antithesis of scientific standards. Mediocrity and incompetency sit enthroned where party expediency takes precedence over the interests of the whole county.
Therefore abolish “politics!” No single county of its own initiative has taken a more important step toward that end than Los Angeles, California, under its special home-rule charter, which is not—able for the advanced character of its civil service provisions. Among other things it creates a bureau of efficiency, consisting of the civil service commission (three members), the secretary thereof and the auditor of the county. To quote the language of the charter, the duty of this bureau is that of “determining the duties of each position in the classified service, fixing standards of efficiency, investigating the methods of operation of the various departments and recommending to the board of supervisors and department heads measures for increasing individual, group and departmental efficiency, and providing for uniformity of competition and simplicity of operation.” The commission is required to “ascertain and record the comparative efficiency of employees in the classified service” and has power after a hearing, to “dismiss from the service those who fall below the standards of efficiency established.”[26]
With a combination of a structure of government designed to fix general responsibility, an administrative procedure designed to let daylight into public business and an administrative personnel free to serve the interests of the public, the people of the county will be in a position to just about get what they want, within the measure of power granted to the locality under the laws of the state.
[24] “The Making of the County Budget,” Westchester County Research Bureau, 1912.
[25] Excellent results have been obtained by the purchasing agent of Onondaga County, New York, Mr. Frank X. Wood.
[26] For full text of provisions, see Charter of Los Angeles (Appendix B).