settled in 1944 than in 1943, war conditions continued to affect the settlement work. One of the retarding factors was the concentration of the Office upon the audit and settlement of war expenditures, with a resultant delay in the settlement of other accounts. Another was missing papers or parts of accounts. In this connection several months of completely audited accounts of a disbursing officer may have to be held awaiting completion of the audit of an earlier account before settlement can be made.

The general status of fiscal officers' accounts in the General Accounting Office for the fiscal years 1942 to 1944, inclusive, is set forth in the following table. Further details will be found in appendix D, page 119.

GENERAL CONDITION OF VOUCHERS

The number of vouchers received during the fiscal year 1944, 61,314,160, exceeded by 35,236,058 the 26,078,102 received during the fiscal year 1943, and as a result thereof, there were available for audit in 1944, a total of 74,343,236 vouchers, including the backlog of 13,029,076 on hand as of July 1, 1943, as shown in the table on page 120, appendix D. Of this number, 41,077,559 were audited during the year, or an increase of 76 percent over the number, 23,335,441, audited during 1943, leaving a backlog of 33,265,677 vouchers on hand as of June 30, 1944.

While the production in vouchers audited was not sufficient to maintain the audit as a whole in a current status, and while the backlog of 33,265,677 vouchers gives cause for concern, one encouraging aspect of the situation is the fact that the field audit activities described in chapter IV, although not in operation or fully staffed during the entire year, accomplished the audit of 19,357,990 vouchers, or 49 percent of the number audited in the general audit work.

In view of these factors, and the further fact that four of the five audit subdivisions established in the field will have been in operation and more fully staffed during the entire fiscal year 1945, it is hoped that by the end of the year much will have been accomplished toward bringing the audit work of the Office to a more current basis.

GENERAL STATEMENT OF COLLECTIONS

The collections of $39,978,829.74 made during the fiscal year 1944 through efforts of the General Accounting Office were more than double

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the amount of $18,932,537.69 similarly collected during 1943, and more than four times the amount of $9,339,745.86 collected during 1942. Of the total amount of $39,978,829.74 collected during 1944, $24,955,128.79 was collected in the general audit, $13,005,462.02 of which represents collections made in the war contract project audit. In the general claims and transportation work, a total amount of $8,146,027.34 was collected, consisting of $1,790,640.81 on general claims and $6,355,386.53 refunded as a result of post audit of transportation accounts. Collec tions of $5,200,150.08 were made in the audit of postal accounts and claims, of which amount $5,070,664.97 represents collections on accounts with foreign countries for air mail transit and other postal services incident to superintending collection of debts due the United States for the service of the Post Office Department, as required by statute. Also, collections and recoveries in the amount of $1,677,523.53 were made during the year as a result of inspections and investigations made by the Office. A consolidated statement of all these collections and recoveries will be found in appendix D on pages 120 and 121.

It may be of interest to note that the total collections and recoveries made by the General Accounting Office during 1944 exceed by $12,453,289.78 the total expenditures made during the fiscal year by the Office from appropriations available for obligation during this period.

Administrative Activities

PLANNING, BUDGET, AND ORGANIZATION

During the year covered by this report, the General Accounting Office has met the full impact of the war program, a program that has taxed to the limit the facilities of every branch of the Office. While this report shows a noteworthy increase in production over the preceding fiscal year in practically all phases of the work, accomplishment of these results was attended by many problems requiring administrative consideration.

Established August 5, 1941, to study internal organization, procedures, flow of work, control of work, and functional methods and policies, and such other matters as directed by the Committee on Organization and Planning, as well as to prepare budget statistics, estimates, and justifications for the Budget Officer, the Planning and Budget Section, in cooperation with the divisional and staff officials, has been actively engaged in studying, formulating, and presenting to the Comptroller General programs covering operating requirements and budgetary control and aiding in the solution of management problems arising in the administration of the Office.

The paramount objective of the planning and organizational activities undertaken during the year was the expansion and improvement of the structure of the Office to the extent necessary to meet a constantly increasing workload. Continuous attention was given to the establishment and operation of the machinery necessary for a prompt and careful audit of war expenditures, and for the maintenance of production commensurate with the volume of work being received. This was accomplished, in part, by giving effect to the decentralization of work functions initiated at the close of the preceding fiscal year and by a decentralization of other phases of the work during the current year.

Among the projects involved was the decentralization of the work of receiving and auditing accounts of Army Finance Officers. To accomplish this, there were established on July 24, 1943, for the duration of the war and for not more than one year thereafter, Army Audit Branches of the General Accounting Office at Atlanta, Ga., Chicago, Ill., Los Angeles, Calif., and New York, N. Y. Each of such branches includes subdivisions of the Audit Division, the Reconciliation and

Clearance Division, and the Division of Personnel. With the exception of the branch at Chicago, which had been established on an experimental basis during the prior fiscal year, none of these offices were in operation for the full year. However, reports from these activities show the audit of 19,114,165 vouchers during the year, a production of approximately 75 percent of the work received. On the basis of such reports and the improvements made during the year in controlling the flow of work, it is anticipated that even greater progress will be made in the fiscal year now current.

Another major project studied during the year was the moving to Cleveland, Ohio, of the work of receiving and auditing accounts of Navy disbursing officers. A Navy Audit Branch of the General Accounting Office was established at Cleveland on June 3, 1944, and is expected to produce results comparable to those now being attained in the Army Audit Branches.

More extensive treatment of both the Army and the Navy Audit Branches will be found below in chapter IV.

The restaffing and readjustments in work made necessary by the moving of the Postal Accounts Division to Asheville, N. C., gave occasion for a reexamination of the organization and procedures of the Division, and several organizational changes were made during the fiscal year 1944. These changes included the establishment of an Issued Examining Unit in the Electrical Accounting Section; a Postal Savings Section with a Postal Savings Audit Unit and a Postal Savings Service Unit; a Settlement Section with a Presidential Offices Unit, a Fourth Class Offices Unit, and a Review Unit; and a Coordinating and Computing Section with a Coordination and Control Unit, a Computing Unit, a Registering Unit, and a Stenographic Unit. In some cases, preexisting organizational units were abolished. The study of the divisional organization is still continuing.

In the case of the Claims Division, after several months of preliminary surveys a new organization was set up on April 1, 1944, along functional lines, with an Office of Chief of Division and 14 sections, including military and naval, contract, miscellaneous, and Indian tribal claims sections, freight and passenger transportation sections, and the necessary review and servicing sections, for performance of the work for which the Division is responsible, as described in chapter II under "General Claims Work" and "Transportation Audit and Claims." The new organization was adopted with a view to improving the efficiency of the work performed by the Division under conditions arising out of its increasing workload and personnel.

Other projects on which action was taken during the year include the establishment of additional field stations and an additional zone for the

field audit of war contracts; the transfer of certain records of the Postal Accounts Division to the Reconciliation and Clearance Division; the abolition of the Audit Review Section and the Current Accounts Section of the Audit Division; the transfer of certain Army pay recording functions from the Reconciliation and Clearance Division to the Audit Division; the revision of internal procedure under the Certifying Officers' Liability Act of December 29, 1941, 55 Stat. 875; and the establishment of a Check Service Section in the Reconciliation and Clearance Division, and a Check Accounting Section of the Reconciliation and Clearance Division in the Army Audit Branch, New York, N. Y.

ADMINISTRATIVE FINANCES

At the close of the fiscal year 1943, balances on hand totaled $1,692,290.33, of which only $85,546.63 remained available for obligation in 1944. The first mentioned amount, together with total appropriations of $29,029,437.75 and collections of $49,674.48, made the total accountable funds for the year 1944 $30,771,402.56. Expenditures for the year, through the Treasurer of the United States or the Chief Disbursing Officer, were $27,819,687.95. The amount of $76,573.36 was carried to the surplus fund of the Treasury and $36,495.92 of the amount collected was deposited as trust funds or miscellaneous receipts. Thus, there was left a balance on hand June 30, 1944, of $2,838,645.33, of which amount only $54,132.13 remained available for obligation in the fiscal year 1945. The above expenditures involved the processing of 8,822 vouchers and pay rolls in 1944, as compared with 6.474 in 1943.

During the year 1944, 13,440 special deposit collections totaling $2,612,840.54 were made, while in 1943, 3,373 collections totaled $366,764.93.

A financial statement is included in appendix D, page 123.

PERSONNEL

All personnel management functions of the General Accounting Office, as indicated in my annual report for the fiscal year 1943, are centralized in the position of the Director of Personnel, who assists and reports directly to me in personnel matters. Other management policies and principles recognized in our centralized personnel program comprise the following:

1. The Director of Personnel, in cooperation with the principal staff officials, and the heads and assistant heads of divisions, plans and develops policies and procedures for the conduct of personnel