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Bureau of Accounts. The Bureau of Accounts is the agency utilized primarily to carry out the purposes of Section 20 of the Interstate Commerce Act, which authorizes the commission to prescribe a uniform accounting system to be adopted by the carriers subject to the act, and to prescribe the classes of property for which depreciation charges may properly be included under operating expenses and the percentages of depreciation which shall be charged with respect to each of such classes of property. Authority is given the commission to employ examiners to inspect the accounts, records, and memoranda of such carriers. A Board of Examiners has been organized in the Bureau of Accounts to make both special examinations for the purpose of gathering specific information relative to particular questions and general examinations to determine whether the accounting orders and general transportation rules and principles laid down by the commission are observed by the carriers, and to observe not only any irregularities in accounts themselves but also in practices as reflected in the accounts. The ultimate object of the work of the Board of Examiners is to create a condition whereby improper practices will not occur because of the certainty that they will be reflected in the accounts.

At the present time the bureau is still largely concerned with the liquidation of accounting matters resulting from government operation of railroads. Final certifications are being made of the annual average operating income of carriers in the "test period," and examinations are being made to verify the claims of carriers for compensation or benefits due them under Sections 204 and 209 of the Transportation Act.

The Bureau of Accounts is under a Director and three Assistant Directors. A field force of examiners, with headquarter in seven branch offices, located with a view to accessibility to the railroad accounting offices, conducts examinations of carriers' accounts to detect violations and in general to observe whether the accounting orders of the commission are complied with. The examiners at each office are under an Examiner-in

"The activities of this bureau during the period of government operation were largely confined to examination of carriers' accounts relating to operating income for the test period in order to provide the basis of compensation due carriers from the government.

Charge. The examiners of the central office at Washington review the reports returned by the field investigators and handle correspondence relating to interpretations of orders and such other office routine as is inevitably associated with work of this nature. A special section of the bureau was created in 1920 to consider the problem of depreciation, and preliminary studies and analyses are now being made in order to carry out the provisions of the law relating to depreciation.

Bureau of Statistics. This bureau contains six sections: Administrative, Annual Reports, Operating Returns, Wage Statistics, Accident Statistics, and Mechanical Tabulation.

The bureau itself is under a Director, while the sections are under section chiefs. The first and last sections listed above are self-explanatory. The Annual Reports Section receives and examines annually reports from over 3100 corporations, including steam railroad companies, electric railway, sleeping car companies, express companies, telephone companies, water lines, telegraph and cable companies, and pipe lines. It prepares the annual statistical publications, "Statistics of Railways in the United States," the "Preliminary Abstract of Statistics of Common Carriers," and the annual report of express companies; also the quarterly commodity statistics. The Accident Statistics Section prepares quarterly and annual bulletins of railroad accident statistics. Analysis is made of the causes of accidents in a form adapted to the requirements of those engaged in accident prevention.

The Operating Returns Section prepares the following monthly statements:

Operating revenues and operating expenses of Class I steam roads, by regions and districts.

Operating revenues and operating expenses of individual large steam roads.

Freight and passenger service operating statistics of Class I steam roads, by regions.

Operating statistics of individual large steam roads.

Freight and passenger train service unit costs of Class I steam roads.

Revenue traffic statistics of Class I steam roads.

Summary of reports of large telephone companies.

The Wage Statistics Section examines and compiles monthly reports of the service and compensation of railroad employees to meet the needs of the commission and the Railroad Labor Board.

The work of all of the above sections includes examination of the reports received from the companies to detect any accounting and statistical errors and to determine whether the reports have been made in conformity with the classifications and forms prescribed by the commission, and they conduct such correspondence as is necessary in the work of correction. Questions of interpretation of accounting rules or principles arising in the conduct of the work are referred to the Bureau of Accounts for settlement.

A staff of statistical analysts, attached to the office of the Director of the bureau, is continuously engaged in research and analysis of the information made available by the compilations of the various sections of the bureau, in order to throw light upon such important problems as the separation of operating expenses between freight and passenger service, the division of costs between line and terminal, etc., information as to which is essential to the commission in exercising its powers under the law.

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Bureau of Valuation. To carry out the work contemplated by the Valuation Act of March 1, 1913 (37 Stat. L., 701), the commission established the Bureau of Valuation, which will remain, though in modified form, an important and permanent bureau, since it is provided in the law that after an initial valuation has been made the work performed shall be kept up to date. The territory of the United States was divided into five geographical districts: Eastern, Central, Western, Southern, and Pacific. To handle the various problems involved in the project, administrative five-member boards of engineers, land attorneys, and accountants were created, one member on each board for each district. For each of these three divisions of the work, field and office staffs were established. The field work of the Engineering Division has now been completed and the field parties have been disbanded. The field work of the other two divisions is also approaching completion, so that it has been possible to abandon the various district offices hitherto maintained and to centralize the entire organization in Washington.

The entire work is now under a Director of Valuation, who has the usual administrative assistants and an engineering and legal assistant. The three sections of the bureau, Engineering, Land, and Accounts, are under officers designated as Supervisor of Engineering, Supervisor of Land Appraisals, and Supervisor of Accounts, respectively. The experts in these sections prepare the underlying valuation reports which are submitted to a socalled "Tentative Valuation Committee" consisting of the Director of the bureau, who is chairman of the committee, the solicitor, and a staff of attorneys. This committee issues the tentative valuation reports which, after approval by the commission, are submitted to the carriers for criticism pending final publication as provided in the law.

APPENDIX I

OUTLINE OF ORGANIZATION

EXPLANATORY NOTE

The Outlines of Organization in this series of monographs have for their purpose to make known in detail the organization and personnel possessed by the several services of the national government to which they relate. They have been prepared in accordance with the plan followed by the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency in the preparation of its outlines of the organization of the United States Government.' They differ from those outlines, however, in that whereas the commission's report showed only organization units, the presentation herein has been carried far enough to show the personnel embraced in each organization unit.

These outlines are of value not merely as an effective means of making known the organization of the several services. If kept revised to date by the services, they constitute exceedingly important tools of administration. They permit the directing personnel to see at a glance the organization and personnel at their disposition. They establish definitely the line of administrative authority and enable each employee to know his place in the system. They furnish the essential basis for making plans for determining costs by organization division and subdivision. They afford the data for a consideration of the problem of classifying and standardizing personnel and compensation. Collectively, they make it possible to determine the number and location of organization divisions of any particular kind, as, for example, laboratories, libraries, blue-print rooms, or any other kind of plant possessed by the national government, to what services they are attached and where they are located, or to determine

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1 House Doc. 458, 62d Congress, 2d Session, 1912-2 vols.

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