100 years ago in The Record
Monday, Jan. 7, 1918
“Thousands of dollars are being paid out by the property owners of the section to support men who will not – at any rate, who do not – do a real day’s work, except at the polls [on] election day,” a Record editorial writer protests today.
At the end of 1917 our paper began a series of editorials calling for cuts to city government in Troy. Today’s editorial turns the paper’s attention to county government. The common theme is saving money as a wartime necessity.
“In a year of war when every dollar wasted is a dollar paid to the German autocracy, the board [of supervisors] should scrutinize with strictest care its payrolls,” the writer asserts, “If it performs its duty as a pro-American, loyal body of representatives, it will find places to cut.”
Finding places to cut shouldn’t be hard after our paper points them out. For instance, “The supervisors name a doorkeeper at four dollars a day [$70 in 2018] and two messengers at $75 each [$1,321]. In war times this is money thrown away. One man sufficient for all the duties of these positions.”
Our writer is just getting started. “The county clerk draws a large salary and should expect to render faithful service to the county in return. As a matter of fact, he is little more than a visitor in his office. As long as he has ten assistants presumably he finds it unnecessary to work a full day each day for the county. “One of the assistants should be dropped, thus offering the people of the county an economy of $1,080 [approximately $19,000] a year. If the county clerk finds the duties of his office can not be performed properly with nine men, he can and should be the tenth. If he prefers not to settle down to a seven or eight hour day in return for his large salary, he should provide the pay to his substitute.” In addition, “The county detective is a comparatively useless officer. This is not his fault. He is the result of one of the measures run through the [state] legislature some years ago to provide for a political favorite. Efforts should be made to repeal the law providing for such a county employee. The two district attorney’s officers can do all the work the county detective now performs without being overburdened.” The Record has been nonpartisan in its criticism of wasteful public employment. County government traditionally has been dominated by the Republican party, while Democrats have controlled the city government for the last six years.