Executive Order 664

Under authority vested in me by law it is ordered:

 That on and after August 15, 1907, the positions of General Auditor and Local Auditor be abolished.

That there be appointed for the Commission upon the Isthmus an Examiner of Accounts, and in Washington, D. C., an Assistant Examiner of Accounts.

The duties of the Examiner of Accounts on the Isthmus shall be:


 * (a) To inspect and examine all vouchers prepared and paid by the Disbursing Officer on the Isthmus.


 * (b) To inspect from time to time the accounts of all officials of the Commission on the Isthmus charged with the care of funds or property of the Commission, and to annually verify property accounts by an inventory of all property.


 * (c) To semiannually, or oftener if public interests seem to require, count the cash in the hands of disbursing officers and other officials on the Isthmus intrusted with the custody of funds of the Commission or of the Canal Zone Government.


 * (d) To check up from time to time, as the interests of the Commission seem to require, through inspectors to be appointed by him, the returns of laborers and employees working by the day or upon an hourly basis in any of the several departments or divisions of the Commission. Inspectors now charged with similar duties under the disbursing officer shall be transferred to the jurisdiction of the Examiner of Accounts.


 * (e) To check from the appointment records the pay rolls of employees engaged upon a monthly or yearly basis.


 * (f) To examine periodically the general books of the Commission kept by the Disbursing Officer.


 * (g) To keep a record of claims payable to and of accounts and bills receivable by the Commission, and to check against the same collections made by the Disbursing Officers. It shall also be his duty to direct the attention of the Disbursing Officer from time to time to unsettled claims, accounts, or bills receivable by the Commission, and to urge their collection. Statements of all claims due the Commission or bills and accounts receivable shall be promptly transmitted by the department whence they originate to the Examiner of Accounts, in order that he may have an independent record of the claims, accounts, and bills receivable with the collection of which the Disbursing Officer is charged. The original evidence or documents supporting such claims, accounts, or bills receivable shall be transmitted to the Disbursing Officer for collection.


 * (h) All vouchers for accounts payable or receivable shall be examined and checked by him as soon after payment as practicable. He shall also, at a later period and as promptly as possible after transmission to him of the Disbursing Officer's account current, certify thereon his administrative examination of and transmit the same, together with accompanying vouchers, to the Auditor for the War Department, for final audit. He shall not, however, keep duplicate sets of vouchers or of the documentary or other evidence from which the vouchers are prepared, but may keep a voucher register.


 * (i) If he dissents from any voucher paid by the Disbursing Officer, he shall note his exceptions and submit the same to the Disbursing Officer for correction, before the latter's account current is made up. If an agreement shall not be arrived at between the Examiner of Accounts and the Disbursing Officer, a statement of the unadjusted differences shall be transmitted by the Examiner to the Auditor for the War Department with the Disbursing Officer's account current.


 * (j) He shall also audit the accounts of the Canal Zone Government.


 * (k) He shall be appointed by and report to the Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, and it shall be his duty to call the attention of the Chairman to any irregularities in the accounts or books of any officer or employee of the Commission.



The duties of the Disbursing Officer on the Isthmus, in addition to the payment and disbursements of the funds of the Commission upon properly prepared vouchers, shall be:


 * (a) To assemble the original documents, papers, and other evidence from which the vouchers are prepared.


 * (b) To collect all claims due the Commission or accounts and bills receivable.


 * (c) To keep property accounts with the various officers upon the Isthmus charged with the custody or use of property.


 * (d) To keep the general books of the Commission, which shall properly classify all the expenditures made by the Commission, and apportion expenditures and the cost of labor and supplies among the several departments in the proportion in which they are used by the several departments.


 * (e) To furnish at all times access to his books, original papers, and documents, to the Examiner of Accounts and his representatives.


 * (f) To distribute expenditures made by the Commission under the proper appropriation heads.


 * (g) His books shall show the amount expended by each of the several departments during each calendar month, and from the beginning of the work, and exhibit comparative statements of expenditures for the same calendar month of the previous year.


 * (h) His books shall likewise contain an exhibit of the work done by each department of the Commission, and by the Commission as a whole, and shall show the comparative cost of doing similar work between corresponding annual dates and between the several departments.


 * (i) In the total cost of the work, as performed by the several departments, and by the Commission as a whole, account shall be taken of the general expenditures of the Commission, whether on the Isthmus or in the United States.


 * (j) He shall transmit weekly abstracts of the general books to the Disbursing Officer a Washington t, in order that duplicates of the same may be kept in the United States.


 * (k) Requisitions for public funds shall be submitted to the Examiner of accounts for notation.



The Assistant Examiner of Accounts, so far as the requirements of the work in the United States demand or permit, shall perform for the Commission in the United States similar duties to those performed by the Examiner of Accounts on the Isthmus, and shall likewise inspect the accounts of Special Disbursing Officers not employed on the Isthmus, which shall be forwarded to him at Washington for that purpose before transmission to the Auditor for the War Department. Abstracts of approved expenditures by the Special Disbursing Officers shall be periodically transmitted by him to the Disbursing Officer upon the Isthmus for entry in the general books.

The Disbursing Officer in the United States, so far as the requirements of the work in the United States demand or permit, shall perform duties corresponding to those of the Disbursing Officer on the Isthmus, except that the general books kept by him shall only be duplicates of the general books kept by the Disbursing Officer on the Isthmus. He shall weekly transmit to the Disbursing Officer on the Isthmus abstracts of all payments, disbursements, and collections made by him and statements of approved vouchers outstanding.

The original documents from which the vouchers are prepared shall be transmitted to the Auditor of the Treasury for the War Department by the several Disbursing Officers, with their accounts current, through the Examining Officers. Duplicates of such documents, however, shall be retained in the office of the several Disbursing Officers as part of the records of the Commission. 

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 * August 15, 1907.