State The first step in this country toward State supervision of municipal accounts and accounting appears to have been taken by Minnesota in 1878, when an act was passed creating the office of public examiner, with power to audit the accounts of State and county officers and to enforce a correct and uni form system of bookkeeping in counties.
Minnesota's action was followed by Massa chusetts in 1879, when it placed the accounts of certain county officers under the supervision of the savings bank commissioner. Later, in 1887, there was established the office of comptroller of county accounts. Without following the va rious amendments to the Massachusetts statute, it may be said that it does not confer power on State authorities to force or compel the estab lishment of uniform accounting methods. It does require the State to install such systems when invited or requested by municipal au thorities to do so. Substantial progress and valuable and constructive work has been done in that State without finding it necessary to en act mandatory legislation. The power of sug gestion and moral suasion has met with re markable success.
The Wyoming constitution of 1892 made the office of State examiner of county accounts constitutional. That official has the gener.1 su pervision over such accounts and a well-organ ized bureau has been in existence since Wyo oming first became a State.
Other States which have enacted similar legislation are North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, New York, Iowa, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Idaho, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire and New Jersey. In but few of the States has State supervision been completely inaugurated and established. In some of them the authority is to examine accounts; in others, to establish uniform accounting practices and, in some few, the measure of supervision is limited to certain classes of accounts, as is the case in New Jer sey where the commissioner of accounts exer cises jurisdiction in respect to sinking fund accounts only. Perhaps the most comprehen sive statutes are those enacted in Ohio and New York.
The Ohio law was passed in 1902. It con fers upon the auditor of the State jurisdiction to establish a uniform system of accounting, auditing and reporting for all counties, cities and towns in the State.
The New York act confers upon the comp troller of the State, except in respect of first class cities and counties wholly contained within such a city, authority (a) to cause the accounts of each county, city, town and village to be inspected and examined periodically, as he may deem necessary; (b) to formulate, pre scribe and install uniform systems of account ing in several groups of municipalities; (c) to require of fiscal officers of municipal corpora tions annual reports upon blanks prepared and furnished by him, and (d) to tabulate the sub stance of such reports in comparative statistical form so arranged as to reflect the financial condition of each corporation, its sources of revenue and the purposes and objects for which its funds have been expended.
Although these States have assumed super-• vision over municipal accounting, it does not follow mat each municipality is keeping its accounts according to a uniform plan. Perhaps the situation in New York is typical of that ex isting in other States. No municipality of any considerable size in New York remains unin fluenced by the work undertaken by the State comptroller. Nevertheless, of 1,500 municipali ties in the State, uniform systems are being suc cessfully operated in no more than 300 of them. The work moves slowly because of the limited number of men employed and for the further icason that in smaller municipalities the officers are reluctant to have their accounting methods revised.
Who Should Keep Accounts.— Generally speaking, every office and department of a municipal corporation which collects or receives money or which is authorized to expend or authorize the expenditure of public funds should keep accounts thereof. In every mu nicipality there is a chief fiscal officer. He may be called comptroller, auditor, accountant, treas urer, chamberlain, commissioner of finance, commissioner of accounts or any one of a num ber of names. Just what official is the chief Escal officer depends entirely upon the provi sions of the governing law and in that respect it is to be deplored that such laws do not al ways outline with clarity who the principal fiscal functionary is. But that official, by what ever designation known, keeps or should keep complete records of all fiscal transactions of the corporation. It is frequently found that the elements of authority or duty necessary to vest in a single office power adequate to consti tute the incumbent thereof the chief fiscal officer of the governmental unit are distributed be tween two or more offices.