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Show County Financial Report Fails In Law Requirements That Sanpete county officials intend in-tend to ignore a state law passed by the 1927 legislature was evidenced by the publication of the "Financial Report of Sanpete County for 1927" in the Manti Messenger last week. The state law that has gone unheeded unheed-ed is Section 1555, Chapter 63, page 105, Laws of 1927. This law specif-j specif-j ically state that "The County Audi-I Audi-I tor shall prepare and publish dur- in the month of January of each I year, in some newspaper of general ; circulation in the county, a detailed statement of the financial condition ! of the county , and all receipts and expenditures for' the previous yeai lending December 31st, showing:" I A number of items are then given but the " - which has been ignored ignor-ed by the Sr.nnete county auditor , follows : I "Each v.-jrran'. issued, to whon and on what account; provided, thai i if more than one warrant has beer issued to one individual on the same account during the year, the aggre-! aggre-! gate amount shall be shown in the j statement as one warrant;" The following extract taken from the report and which shows all of ; the County General Fund Disburse-: Disburse-: ments and contained in the publishers publish-ers report will show how the above section 1555 of the state laws of , Utah has been ignored: I Salaries S2R.2G6.33 , County Criminal Prosecu- j tions 770.51 , Traveling Expenses of lj County Officers 3.161.80 j County Farm Agent . . . ;" 1.314.4 5 , Erjoks and Stationery .... 3,6G9. ji" . County Commissioners Ex- j penses 987.00 ' Fuel and Lights 04-1.71 j Telephone 3S6.73 Court Houe and Grounds 2,120.73 i; (Continued on Page 4) cEAL) Ernell J. Mortensen, " County Cleric and Ex-Offisio Auditor of S.npete County, State o: Utrh." . .n : . ,tensen as a County Clerk, we should like to see the accounts of the county coun-ty audited by a certified public accountant ac-countant and then the report of the audit published as required by the state law and not in a way that is convenient to county officers, but fails almost completely to inform the taxpayers to whom and for what . their money has gone. .. .;. $ . .j. .j. .;. $ j. .. : o be sure that the officers we elect and appoint do their duty. We believe be-lieve that county officers should furnish fur-nish their own bonds and perhaps they do. But at any rate we would like to know just where this little wad of tax money went and for what! "Printing assessment rolls, plates, etc" $1,500.00. It would be interesting inter-esting to know where all this money for printing goes. The-" state law says we should know this. The report as printed in the Messenger Mes-senger closes with this quotation: "State of Utah, ss. "County of Sanpete" "I, Ernell J. Mortensen, County Clerk and Ex-Officio Auditor of Sanpete County, State of Utah, do hereby certify that the above and foregoing is a full, true and correct report of the financial condition of Sanpete County, State of Utah for the year ending December 31, 1927. "Furniture and Fixtures" $888.37. We know a furniture deaeler who would like to know to whom this was paid. "Appropriations" $189.65. For whom and why were these appropriations appropri-ations made? "Premiums, County Officers bonds" $1,073.20. Evidently the county has to pay out this sum for bonds roufily Financial Report Fals In Law Requisites (Continued from- page one.) Contingent expenses .... 433.64 Board of Prisoners 553.30 Furniture and Fixtures . . 888.37 Quarantine and health . . 974.70 Civil Juries 344.60 Maps and Plats 640.95 Jury Commissioners .... 38.00 Bee Inspector 200.00 Insane and Inquest 191.97 Transitory Herds 151.43 Appropriations 189.65 Elections 238.94 Court Report Fees 400.00 Premiums, County Officers Offic-ers bonds 1,073.20 Juvenile court expenses. . 135.00 Printing assessment rolls, plates, etc 1,500.00 Total $49,282.19 If time and space would permit, we "-ould publish the entire report as contained in the Messenger, as the disb-rsment of each item are "rather vpgue, similar to those- published above. Taking the items in the order or-der listed above, we would like to know just how much of the $29,-. $29,-. 343.38 listed to salaries went to each of the several officers, and we are entitled to know so are all other faxpayers of the county. Then there comes the item of $3,161.89 for traveling expenses of county officers. offi-cers. It wo"ld be interesting to know who got this and what for nnd the state law says that we should know all about it. The itpm for the county farm agent satisfies us as it stands, but we would like to know who got all nf the $3,669.46 for books and stationery. sta-tionery. One county printer has informed in-formed us that not a penny of this did he see. Then comes an item which is a puzzle indeed: S987.60 for "County Commissioners Expenses." Would it not be gratifying to have this item clarified statins: to whom pnd for what cch riennv of this p mount was sppnt. The state law savs we have a risrht to know this. Fol and liehts sho"ld also ' be ;-m'zed as sho"ld the item of 3S6 -73 for telephones. The w-arrants were not issued to "Ful and Lights" nor to "Telephone." fnev were is-sred is-sred to different ind'vidual or companies com-panies for these items. The state law says we should know who these persons or companies were. All of the ofher items of disbursement' shovld be clarifVd b-t pcn-wMl" vould we like more information on the following: "Contmo-ent Exnenses" this little lit-tle item of $133.65 could cover a multitude of sins although we do not claim that it does. |