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Show Highway Department Needs Engineers, Not Politicians State road officials have repeatedly repeat-edly maintained that the greatest obstacle to development of Utah highways Is the fact of their Inability In-ability to secure engineers because of the low wages paid for such employees. em-ployees. In addition It has been rumored recently that Chief Engineer En-gineer Roy McLeese Is considering leaving the state because of an offer of-fer from a neighboring state of a much higher salary than he Is receiving re-ceiving In Utah. Certainly Utah cannot afford to lose a man with the proven, ability of Mr. McLeese, especially when it would probably be Impossible to Induce In-duce any other competent engineer to take the Job at the salary now paid McLeese, who is receiving $4500 a year. Chief engineers of adjoining states receive from 84800, to $7500, while in several of the states the assistant assis-tant engineer receives considerably more than Utah's chief engineer. And yet Utah's administrative cost is by far the highest in the west. This is because Utah pays each of its three road commissioners $4500, making the state's total administrative administra-tive cost $18000. ' The members of the highway commission are not engineers, and It seems to us thut the sole function func-tion of the commission Ls to direct the political aspects of the highway department. The highway commission commis-sion is too much of a "political action" committee, and "personnel director" organization, and It seems to us that if the funds for this type of service was turned to the employment of trained engineers, Utah's road system would develop much, more rapidly. What Utah needs Is more road building and less "political fence building." t |