8. Provide that notice of annual town meetings shall state the business to be transacted, and fix a minimum attendance (of twentyfive) as a quorum for the transaction of business. Town meetings might well be granted additional powers to deal with the local problems of small villages.

9. All cities of over 10,000 population should be separately organized as towns; and in such towns the powers of town meetings and town officers should be vested in the city authorities.

10. Provide for a chief executive officer in each town, and also for a town board, to consist of the supervisor, town clerk, road commissioner (to take the place of the present highway commissioners) and justices of the peace. The town board to act as an executive committee and as a town board of health.

11. In counties not under township organization, one road commissioner and district clerk to be elected in each road district for a term of two years, the district road tax to be levied by the county board.

12. Town assessors and town collectors to be abolished.

13. Provide that town, road district, city, village and, so far as practicable, school elections shall be held on the same date, this date also to be the day for any general primary election held in the spring.

14. The township system of local school administration, recommended by the educational commission, would not only improve educational conditions, but would simplify the general system of local government in Illinois and increase the public interest in both town and school elections.

15. City courts or salaried police justices should be provided for all cities of over 10,000 population.

PART TWO

TYPICAL PROBLEMS IN COUNTY

GOVERNMENT

THE COUNTY EMPLOYEE

BY WINSTON PAUL,

Secretary, Citizens Federation of Hudson County, Jersey City, N. J.

I. The Inefficiency of the Employee

The story is told in a certain county in New Jersey that one of its elective county officials went to the county board of chosen freeholders with a request for four additional clerks. Only two were needed, but he figured the requisition would be cut down and he might consequently get the number wanted. Now this county official and the board were of opposite political faiths, and a representative of the board came to him and said, so the story goes, "You don't need four new men in your office, you need eight." The official saw the point at once and an appropriation was passed allowing for the appointment of four good republicans and four loyal democrats. So eight men were given jobs when only two were required.

When one has occasion to examine the payroll of a county office and to compare the number of men employed with the work to be done the foregoing story is a very plausible explanation of the condition which will frequently be found to prevail. There has been so little attention paid to county government in the past, the number of citizens who came in contact with its offices so few, and the public supervision of these offices so inadequate that practically any county department, taken at random, will show evidences of an excessive number of employees. If you will read the report of almost any investigation of a county department you will find a list entitled "Positions recommended for abolishment."

The elective county officials in New Jersey, the county clerk, register, sheriff and surrogate, formerly received no salaries, but were paid by fees out of which they met the expenses of their officesand usually retired wealthy. Now these officials are on a salary basis. Hudson' and Essex are the two largest counties in New Jersey; they are adjacent and have similar population and wealth.

Hudson county has the largest population and the smallest area of any in New Jersey. It contains Jersey City, Hoboken, Bayonne and ten other municipalities, and its county government costs a trifle under $3,000,000 a year.

In Essex the four elective offices return the county an annual profit of about $35,000, while in Hudson the net cost to the county of the register's office alone is $55,000.

In Hudson county we found positions of similar work and responsibility receiving widely varying rates of compensation. The efficient and industrious employee should welcome the installation of time sheets and job or work records so that promotions and salary increases could be fairly based on ability to perform work, and not on favoritism. It would be advantageous if we could have fewer, but more efficient, employees, who could then receive higher compensation in return for their increased efficiency.

Last fall a study was made of the payrolls and the working force of each county department in Hudson county, and a report was published under the title "Comparisons of Appropriations and Salaries," in which it was shown that there has grown up a system of compensation which resulted in higher payrolls and a larger number of employees than is required in other counties, where an approximately equal volume of work is to be performed. To make the facts more impressive than the mere citing of figures would allow, the graphic method was used to depict the results of the study. In this examination it was found that, as a rule, the heads of departments received salaries out of all proportion to the services rendered, and that, while some subordinates were underpaid, many received higher compensation than is given men doing similar work in other counties. Hudson county is probably exceptional in this, however, as in most county departments the subordinates are poorly paid. Compensation of public employees is too frequently based on "pull," rather than on work performed. The human element is now recognized as a fundamental factor by efficiency experts. It seems strange that we have paid so little attention to the selection and training of competent employees when ninety per cent of the expenditures of some of our county departments goes into salaries.

County officials are usually nominated by party machines and elected by voters who have practically no knowledge of the requirements or functions of the offices to be filled. The numerous elective heads of our county departments are so engaged in keeping their political fences intact that the guarding of the public's fences is left to subordinates. The deputy or chief clerk of these county departments, particularly in the larger counties, is frequently the man who