The Expense Account Scandal
An investigation by the state bureau reveals that the Industrial Insurance Commission chairman was padding his vouchers to cover personal travel and family expenses.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The state bureau of inspection has checked up the expense accounts of Chairman Floyd Daggett of the Industrial Insurance Commission, and has found that he padded them with regularity, turning in vouchers totaling more than $260 in excess of his real expenses from hotels at Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane alone. The checking was too expensive a job to be carried any further. It showed that he secured cash from hotels and included it in his vouchers, as well as 'C.O.D.' items for things delivered to him at hotels and paid by the hotel. Also, that his wife and other relatives occasionally traveled with him at state expense. The charges against Commissioner Daggett were pretty well borne out by the check, and the report is now in the hands of the attorney general for such action as he thinks best.
“The checking was too expensive a job to be carried any further.”
Public oversight of state officials' expense accounts remains a bedrock of civic integrity. This 1916 scandal echoes modern concerns about transparency and the misuse of taxpayer funds for personal benefit.
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