Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1909 — WILL LIGHTEN THEIR BURDENS. [ARTICLE]

WILL LIGHTEN THEIR BURDENS.

After speaking about the many burdens that fall upon the shoulders of the township trustee the Rochester Sentinel says: . “Then to cap the whole business the law enacted by the last legislature, he must have his accounts gone over by a field examiner sent out by the state at a salary of >lO a day and all expenses paid. Yes, verily, instead of kicking the trustee and magnifying his faults, if he has any, it is the duty of every citizen to help ease the burdens of the poorest paid and most abused officer in all the land.” The Rochester Sentinel is perfectly sincere in what it says and pays a deserved tribute to a very important official, but it is laboring, It seems, under a misunderstanding of the public accounting law passed last winter. In the first place the field examiners do not get “all expenses paid”-*—Not by the public*. Outside of railroad fare to and from the locality to which they are sent they must pay all of their own expenses. But in the next place, which is most important, the public accounting board was not created to make trouble for the township trustee or any other official. On the contrary its purpose is to make it easier for officials handling public money to discharge their duties and to enable them to do it at a Jess expense to

the people. When the new system is in working order it is believed that the township trustee and all other officials—and the public’likewise—will bless the day it was established.