STATE GUIDANCE
At this point the indictment of the county ceases. It is not an
altogether hopeless situation. The very thoroughness of the county’s
failure is the chief promise of ultimate redemption.
Not because the county is constructed on an unsound political theory,
not because it has shocked the sense of humanity, but because of its
riotous misuse of public funds, it has begun to attract the attention
of higher authorities.
Where does the county’s money go? It has been strongly intimated in
previous chapters that the citizens of the county and sometimes even
the county officers know little and care less. Is it economically run?
No one can easily tell, without knowing what other county governments
are costing, service for service and unit for unit. And no one can make
such a comparison between counties unless they have some common basis
of understanding. To establish standards in the use of terms, to make
in other words, each county tell its financial story in a language
understood throughout the state, to bring the information from the
various counties together for comparison, to insist upon a sufficiently
detailed description of financial activities, is the object of uniform
reporting.
And who can force such a coming together for a common understanding
other than the state itself?
Among the states where county government is of appreciable importance,
Ohio was the pioneer in the direction indicated by this suggestion.
The law enacted in that state in 1902 approached the county problem
with the conviction that what was needed above all else was more
light--in an administrative sense; that when the shortcomings of county
government could be reduced to statistics and comparisons (invidious
if necessary) could be made between various units, then some real
improvements might be reasonably expected. Provision was made in the
enactment for a state Bureau of Inspection and Supervision of Public
Offices which should install a uniform system of public accounting,
auditing and reporting in every office in the state. A corps of field
agents known as state examiners were employed on a civil service basis
to make personal examinations in each of the taxing districts. The
findings of the examiners are published, and if money is due the county
the enforcement of the law is left first to the county prosecuting
attorney and then to the attorney general.
New York followed the lead of Ohio by passing in 1905 a law which
requires counties, villages and cities, to report annually to the
comptroller on forms prescribed by him.
“Indiana and Ohio,” says Professor John A. Boyle,[14] “has gone
into the science and art of uniform accounting very seriously and
very effectively. The Indiana law (1909, ch. 55, amended March 3,
1911), creates a Department of Inspection and Supervision of Public
Offices having jurisdiction over every public office in the state.
The administration of the law was entrusted at the outset to one
state examiner, two deputies, one clerk, and fifty-two field agents
working on a civil service basis. Uniform accounting is prescribed and
installed. Comparative statistics are compiled by the state examiner
and published annually, so that the fruits of this department are
available to the public.”
Wyoming has a fair system of audit.
The North Dakota law, while it requires the state examiner “to
prescribe and enforce correct methods,” does not call for a uniform
system. Massachusetts, Kansas, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Florida,
Tennessee, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Washington,
Minnesota, West Virginia, Louisiana, California and Michigan have
more or less complete systems of state financial supervision. The
“black sheep” among the states in this respect are Alabama, Arkansas,
Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri,
New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas,
Utah, Vermont and Virginia.
Now for the results of this supervision.
Professor Boyle has summed up the sort of assistance that the state
bureaus of accounting have been able to give. One instance of such help
is that where county officers had been accustomed in the past to take
long and expensive junkets to inspect public buildings, expert advice
under the new system has been rendered to them in much cheaper form
through the investigators of the state. Examiners have also been able
to point out to county officers many deviations from the letter of the
law, the strict compliance with which is of the most vital importance
in the performance of certain county functions, such as taxation.
In a similar way they have checked up illegal charges against the
county, inadequate audit (or no audit at all), instances of additional
compensation (under various guises) for personal service, illegal
temporary loans and misapplication of funds.
It will at once be seen that the mere possibility of a state examiner’s
visit will have an admonitory effect which in itself will often be
sufficient to keep an official in the straight and narrow path. The
county, in conforming to the reporting requirements, derives a local
benefit wholly apart from any obligation to the state. Upon the basis
of a sound and permanent system of accounting the local officers are
in a position accurately to inform the county of their doings and
make comparison of a financial transaction of one year with those of
previous years. Herein is one foundation stone of a scientific budget.
Under a complete system of state regulation not only are the forms and
standards of uniform accounting established, but a staff of expert
examiners is created to determine by periodical investigation, whether
or not these standards are lived up to.
The remarkable conditions preceding the establishment of the Ohio
Bureau and the important services which it has rendered the state,
are revealed in the following summary[15] of its findings in counties
during the first ten years of its existence.
STATEMENT OF FINDINGS TO NOVEMBER 15, 1912
COUNTIES
------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+-----------
| Findings for| Illegal | Unclaimed | Total |
Year | Recovery | Payments | Moneys | Illegal | Returns
------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+-----------
1903 | $50,268.93| $18,808.91| $807.92| $69,884.76| $10,741.93
1904 | 57,805.54| 2,504.41| 10,339.95| 70,649.90| 2,222.31
1905 | 246,280.58| 7,421.87| 25,389.52| 279,091.97| 24,847.83
| | | | |
1906 | 295,082.80| 14,227.52| 5,218.21| 314,528.53| 232,156.78
1907 | 646,397.50| 115,906.91| 18,049.13| 780,353.54| 322,911.08
1908 | 103,764.26| 43,333.31| 9,829.15| 156,928.92| 41,171.53
| | | | |
1909 | 410,282.51| 320,137.17| 23,219.42| 753,639.10| 66,219.91
1910 | 146,024.04| 106,410.00| 22,241.18| 274,675.22| 24,438.36
1911 | 233,547.24| 129,007.02| 7,921.90| 370,476.16| 37,735.34
| | | | |
1912 | 112,926.80| No report | 118.26| 113,045.06| 96,015.16
------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+-----------
Ttls |$2,302,379.30|$757,759.32|$123,134.54|$3,183,273.16|$858,460.23
------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+-----------
TAX ADMINISTRATION
A branch of local fiscal administration which is in far less
satisfactory shape is that of taxation. In no department is
“nullification,” as has been already shown, more constant and
serious. The situation is complicated. In seventeen of the states,
including every one north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers, and east of
the Mississippi, except Illinois, Indiana and Maryland, the county
as a whole has very little to do with assessments for the general
property tax, the unit for assessment in that section being the town
or township. That in nearly all these states the general property tax
may be said to have broken down, would seem to be indicated by the
establishment of a permanent state tax commission or commissioner in
all of them except Pennsylvania. In thirty-one states in the South and
West, the county is the unit of assessment, and in its favor it may be
said that in this rôle it has proven a far more satisfactory performer
than the town. The county is small enough to serve as a convenient
unit for assessment operations and assessment records and furnishes
the basis of a system of fewer units than if the town were the basis.
Under the county plan, moreover, there are fewer opportunities for
communities to compete against each other in their effort to escape
their just share of the general burden of government. It is significant
that most of the western states have seen the advantages of the county
as the local unit of administration.
But the county, for all that, appears to be incapable of standing
on its own feet in tax matters. Even under the most favorable
circumstances there remains an important duty for a state commission to
supervise the work of the county assessor or board of assessors to the
end that the letter of the law may be obeyed with the utmost uniformity
throughout the state. Such a commission must see that the county
does injustice to neither individuals nor the state through inequal
assessment and that the tax sales are in accordance with the law.
The county, in short, has a useful place in the general scheme of tax
administration, but it must be a _supervised_ unit.
CIVIL SERVICE
In the administration of the civil service law the county also does
well to lean upon the state. The same considerations that apply in
accounting and tax matters apply with equal force in the selection of
the employees. Most of the counties are too small to serve as units in
which to install facilities for conducting examinations and publishing
useful records. The superior powers of the state commission over
the localities in these respects are emphatically not a destructive
check upon the county’s officers. They do not detract from local
responsibility. They simply enable them to apply to their work the
most effective means available.
In New York the state civil service commission regulates the service in
eighteen counties. In New Jersey the adoption of the civil service law
involving state control rests with the people of each county. Hudson,
Essex, Mercer, Passaic and Union counties have taken advantage of the
law.
Administration apart from fiscal supervision in other departments,
such as charities, prisons and public health, has advanced much more
slowly than reform in the fields which have been mentioned. But every
indication for the future is toward greater control through accounting
and supervision. The county acts locally in the enforcement of state
obligations. The real trouble comes when one undertakes, arbitrarily,
to place any given county activity in the local or state category.
The catching of a thief, for example, is a very essential part of the
state’s most fundamental duty to protect property, but the locality
where the crime is committed is very keenly interested in having the
machinery of the county set to work to punish the deed. The locality
pays the sheriff his salary or his fees, but the state, in protecting
the property of its citizens, is probably justified in guarding against
extravagant or dishonest use by the people of the county even of their
own money.
And so it is impracticable and not by any means necessary to give the
county quite unbridled liberty to control all its officers. Central
supervision is a middle course that protects the state and instead of
impairing, really conserves the county’s interests. The state, without
instructing the county as to _what_ it may do with its purely
local powers, may lay a firm hand upon it in telling _how_ to
use those powers effectively. Such a course is conceived in quite a
different spirit from the destructive sort of state meddling which was
described in the preceding chapter, which proceeds from the legislative
branch of the central government. What the state government actually
does when it regulates or supervises is to hold up the county official
to standards of performance. This is the proper work of officers or
boards in the administrative branch. It relates not to _what_
the county shall do as a matter of broad policy, but _how_ the
county shall redeem its obligation in matters of routine, detail and
technique. The state agency may have only the power to “visit and
inspect,” like the New York State Board of Charities, or it may, like
the Comptroller of the same state, actually impose forms of procedure.
In either case, local officers otherwise unstimulated to efficient
work, as they must be under the present system of government, are thus
given moral support from a responsible quarter. They are subjected to
a cold, unescapable comparison with other officers in other localities
and they are given the benefit of expert advice on many obscure and
complex phases of public administration.
[14] See _Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science_, May 1913. pp. 199-213.
[15] Prof. John H. Boyle, _op. cit._, p. 203.