GENERAL AGENT'S REPORT. rather than to create new permanent offices, and fill them with incumbents who might be distasteful to the incoming Agent. This course has added greatly to the personal labors of your Agent, but has saved the State a great deal of money, while the experience gained meanwhile indicates more clearly than at first, precisely what is needed to carry out these laws most effectively. The name and compensation of every temporary officer, from what appropriation paid, and for what reason employed, will be given in full detail in the record of the several sub-departments. The original force of the Alien Commission, and the Superintendency of Alien Passengers, (which offices, other duties being added, were consolidated into the General Agency of the Board,) consisted of fourteen permanent officers and one temporary assistant in the work of transportation. After their consolidation, the department was organized anew, with reference to the amount of business then existing, by appointing four deputies, four clerks and two boatmen-eleven officers in all, including the General Agent, with a margin for the temporary assistant in transportation previously mentioned. Το this permanent force no addition was made till 1867, when the Board voted to appoint a third boatman and a fifth clerk; the former because the yacht "W. S. Thatcher" was transferred to their custody; the latter to aid in auditing the complicated accounts of the cities and towns, which duty had been specially assigned to this Department by the Legislature of 1865. In January, 1868, the boatman was dismissed, and his place supplied by an executive officer, or confidential clerk, for the General Agent's office, whose services were likewise dispensed with on June 30th of that year. These are the only changes in the permanent organization since the creation of the Board, and, as it stands to-day, the fifth clerk is the only addition to the ten regular subordinate officers. PERMANENT OFFICERS. The following is a list of the officers at present in the permanent service of the Department, with their respective salaries, for the year ending September 30, 1868: Thus it appears that the number of officers regularly employed by the General Agent is 11, at a gross compensation of $9,700, and an average salary for the present year of $881.82. Your Agent feels bound to invite the attention of the Board once more to the inadequate remuneration of his assistants. The contrast between the Bureau of the Charities and the other Departments, in this particular, is indeed striking, especially in view of the exhausting nature and actual risks of the work and the hours of labor required. By reference to the Report of the Honorable the Auditor of Accounts for 1867, it will be seen that nearly all the junior clerks in the several Departments at the State House receive $1,300 each per annum for thirty-four hours work per week; that the watchmen receive $1,200 a year and the messengers $1,000; while the eleven employés of this office, most of whom have GENERAL AGENT'S REPORT. been in the public service from eight to sixteen years, receive on the average less than $900 for a service of more than fifty hours per week; that is to say, for 50 per cent. more work they receive 50 per cent. less pay than the clerks of the other Departments. In fact, of the whole eleven, only two receive over $1,000. In the judgment of the undersigned, it is high time that this gross inequality should be remedied. It is true that when the Board was first established and the work was not excessive, to avoid prejudice it was desirable that everything should be done on the cheapest basis, consistent with accuracy and fidelity. The "situation" was appreciated and accepted by the employés; but now that the work has been trebled, it is unjust and absurd that these faithful officers and patient waiters should actually receive less by 12 per cent. than those who perform manual labor at the State House. It is useless to say, "If they are not satisfied with their compensation, let them leave; there are enough who will be glad to take their places at the present rate of pay." The fact is, these men are experts; they have learned a calling; they are training juniors to fill their places. If all should go, those places could not be made good, and in a single twelvemonth the State would lose more through the inexperience of "new hands" than a proper increase of their salaries would amount to in twenty years. From these faithful subordinates your Agent parts with unfeigned regret. He freely acknowledges his exceeding obligations to them for personal kindness as well as faithful service, and it is his earnest hope that the Board will continue to augment their rate of compensation till they are placed on an equal footing with their co-laborers in the other Departments. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS. As the financial year of the Board terminates on September 30, and that of the State on December 31, a very inconvenient discrepancy usually occurs between the statements made in the Auditor's Report and those presented by the Board, by which legislators in particular are liable to be misled. Effort has been made to make these years identical, but without success. The undersigned has therefore been accustomed, in publishing RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES. the detailed Receipts and Expenditures of the expiring financial year of the Board, to present therewith a statement of the same in full for the last preceding financial year of the State. He therefore offers the following account, in aggregate and detail, of the Receipts and Expenditures for the year ending December 31, 1867 1. H. B. Wheelwright, General Agent, $3,000 00 2. S. C. Wrightington, First Deputy, Substitute to October 1, . 1,500 00 800 00 1,300 00 800 00 500 00 200 00 |