Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1902 — SAVING OF MONEY [ARTICLE]

SAVING OF MONEY

Public Affairs of the People of Indiana. TIMELY CONTRAST OF METHODS How Money Is Being Saved to the Tax-Payers of the State by the Business Management Being Inaugurated in Our Publjc Institutions. A few years ago there was much extravagance practiced and many a dollar lost in the handling of public money, for no other reason than that system and order were not wanted and never inaugurated to carefully account for the same. , Under the old management of our state institutions, every article purchased was dumped into one or more store-rooms without regard to quantity or quality purchased, and' after the supplies had been delivered it was the business of no one officer to have charge of same and see that only the amount required for each day was delivered to the various departments; but, instead, the head of each department, and often those who were not at the head of the departments in the institutions had keys to the storeroom and authority to help themselves. Such methods could not help but be wasteful and would never be permitted by an individual or private corporation. Not only were such methods practiced, but in ordering supplies bidq were never received and no attempts made to purchase where the tax-payer would receive the benefit by getting the besT pos sfble prices. . Under this method of transacting the state’s business in our institutions, more money was wasted in the indiscriminate handling of supplies in the various store-rooms and buildings than it would take to build a room of sufficient size to accommodate everything necessary to carry in stock. At the beginning of the late Governor Mount’s administration, those who were responsible for the management of the institutions of the state began to introduce new ideas with a view of conducting the affairs of our insti.tutions upon business methods. In order to see what has been accomplished it is only necessary for one to take a day off and visit any of the public institutions of our state as ftiey are today managed. The writer has gone to the trouble of carefully investigating and going through one of the Institutions of the state, and believes what he has found would be of interest to every tax-payer, and will describe, as near as he can, the method and manner of doing business in the institution that he visited.

Upon entering the Institution I was at once satisfied that business methods are being used, from the cleanliness that can be seen on every side and the orderly and gentlemanly manner in which the officers conduct themselve I was more particularly Interested in the large -and com mod ious store-room, where every dollar’s worth of supplies that was purchased for the institution was delivered. This store-room was of sufficient size to admit of systematic methods by which articles of certain denomination and size may be kept, not only separate, but also In cessible at any time.

Into this room every article purchased for the institution was delivered, checked up and compared with a duplicate Invoice WHICH la furnished the storekeeper. It is imperative that this be done before any of the goods purchased are issued to the departments for which they are intended. This duplicate is given a number by the storekeeper, the first invoice received at the beginning of the fiscal year being No. 1 and continuing the numbers consecutively through the year as the invoices are received. The article so purchased Is given the same number as the duplicate invoice, and In addition is givdn the year in which it was purchased. This Is necessary in case the goods purchased shbuld be carried into another year. ' The footings of these duplicate invoices must'compare with the original Invoice from which the vouchers are made, at the end of each month, or upon any day that the superintendent of the institution deems it necessary to call upon the storekeeper to furnish such footings. This part of the system places the goods in the store-room and charges them to the storekeeper upon the books of the store-room as well as upon the books in the chief clerk’s office of the institution. I found that the officer in charge of this store-room was very conversant and knew exactly where to find any one of a thousand articles that were under his care, and that he was able to advise the superintendent at any time he was called upon of the condition and amount of supplies on hand and to accurately show from his records the daily demands upon the store-room by the various departments of'the Institution. I found that this could only be done by a system Of records, requisitions and checks that not only Bhow the amount of supplies coming Into the hands of the storekeeper dally, but the amount that is daily consumed by each department. Upon further examination I found that the head of each department was furnished wish a requisition book, with instructions that he li, at 9 o’clock

each morning, to fill up with pen and ink one of these blank requisitions by naming therein the articles and amount wanted, with the understanding that he is to only draw one day’s supplies at a time. He must numbeT this requisition and he must also keep in his bpok the stub which will be an exact copy of the order sent from the store-room. He is also instructed to date his requisition one day in advance, and as soon as the storekeeper receives these requisitions from the various departments of the institution be immediately sends them to the su-' perintendent’s office, who carefully considers the various articles asked for, and if in his judgment they are necessary* he gives his approval by signing each requisition and sending them back to the storekeeper. The storekeeper then carefully goes over each requisition, giving it the store number. If there is anything called for on the requisition that is not in stock, he at once makes an order on the superintendent for the items. This request must be in the hands of the superintendent at 10 o’clock each day. I found that the storekeeper very carefully weighs out and measures up rttl'H ril'Hrla. f«lWl fc. Hyi-a.nh ment’and delivers them at 3 o’clock of that day, getting the officer’s receipt for . the., supplies on .the. requisition heretofore made. The storekeeper then takes these requisitions and credits himself on the stock record with the amount of each item issued, the credits being in dollars and cents and being the actual cost that is shown by his duplicate invoice. This stock record is a large book that will show at a glance every article that is in the store-room. In the first column of this record is given the amount of the article on hand at the beginning of the month, then the amount received during the month, the invoice number, price and total value. Then follows 31 spaces for the daily issue for the month, the total of which is the issue for the entire' month - deducted from the amount on -band and purchased during the month, leaving the amount _on hand at the end of the month. Or, in o her words, the storekeeper at any time c~n tell from this record exactly what he has on hand of any article with which he is charged, and can furnish an accurate inventory of the $5,000 worth of supplies that are usually in stock, by having one day’s notfce. After the requisitions referred to are completed, and entered on the books of the storekeeper, they are sent to the clerk’s office, where an abstract of the footings es each day’s supplies are made and entered into a book for that purpose, showing the daily cost of each department, and at the end of the month a recapitulation is made showing the monthly cost of each department. It was very noticeable in making'this examination, that it was possible fhr the superintendent, at the close of each day’s work, to accurately tell what it had cost for that day to run each department and to also tell exactly what It had cost to feed each inmate of the institution for that day, which amount varied from six to seven cents per day. One department of this store-room that was very interesting to me was what they termed the "condemnation” room, and before the head of any department is permitted to draw anything new from the store-room, he is compelled where possible to duplicate it with the old or worn-out article. This article is condemned by the storekeeper and stored away in this room in lots of ten or twenty, so that at the end of the year they can be carefully counted by the board of man--agers- and orders given for their disposal. This feature alone more than twice over pays the officer who is responsible for the safe-keeping of all the supplies purchased for the institution. I also found that this storeroom was the manufacturing center of the institution; here all institutional clothing, shoes, tebaceo, or any article that is necessary to be made for the inmates, was manufactured and an accurate cost of same was kept by the storekeeper. It has been demonstrated that a great saving is made to the state by the institution manufacturing these articles. The tobacco for which they had been paying from 28 to 32 cents per pound was now being made for from 8 to 9 cents and a much better quality than they had purchased. Shoes that cost from $1.50 to $1.60 per pair were now being made for $1.21 and a much better shoe. Discharge clothing, or suits that are given the inmates when they are released from prison now cost the state about $4 per suit and a better suit than could be bought for twice that money when purchased under the old way of doing business at the institution. It has certainly been demonstrated that system and order is our public institutions lead to economy, and the people of the state are to be congratulated upon the manner in which the public affairs of our state are being handled, and there is nothing about a public institution that will Induce its officers to he economical more than to have their daily transactions on record so that same is subject to inspection at all times by the board of managers, superintendent, or, the public. System and method are the fundamental principles of economy, and as long as the state of Indiana continues as it Is in the management of its state affairs, the chancd for scandal and corruption in the' handling of public funds will be reduced to the minimum. I find further that In consulting the statistics of the state, if the per capita cost of maintaining our a’tite institutions in 1899 had been what It was in 1891. it would have cost the state $340,539.76 more money. This saving can lx? accounted for in no other Way than by (he strict btiaim-HK management that has been introduced.