Where does the county’s money go? It has been strongly intimated in previous chapters that the citizens of the county and sometimes even the county officers know little and care less. Is it economically run? No one can easily tell, without knowing what other county governments are costing, service for service and unit for unit. And no one can make such a comparison between counties unless they have some common basis of understanding. To establish standards in the use of terms, to make in other words, each county tell its financial story in a language understood throughout the state, to bring the information from the various counties together for comparison, to insist upon a sufficiently detailed description of financial activities, is the object of uniform reporting. And who can force such a coming together for a common understanding other than the state itself? Among the states where county government is of appreciable importance, Ohio was the pioneer in the direction indicated by this suggestion. The law enacted in that state in 1902 approached the county problem with the conviction that what was needed above all else was more light--in an administrative sense; that when the shortcomings of county government could be reduced to statistics and comparisons (invidious if necessary) could be made between various units, then some real improvements might be reasonably expected. Provision was made in the enactment for a state Bureau of Inspection and Supervision of Public Offices which should install a uniform system of public accounting, auditing and reporting in every office in the state. A corps of field agents known as state examiners were employed on a civil service basis to make personal examinations in each of the taxing districts. The findings of the examiners are published, and if money is due the county the enforcement of the law is left first to the county prosecuting attorney and then to the attorney general. New York followed the lead of Ohio by passing in 1905 a law which requires counties, villages and cities, to report annually to the comptroller on forms prescribed by him. “Indiana and Ohio,” says Professor John A. Boyle,[14] “has gone into the science and art of uniform accounting very seriously and very effectively. The Indiana law (1909, ch. 55, amended March 3, 1911), creates a Department of Inspection and Supervision of Public Offices having jurisdiction over every public office in the state. The administration of the law was entrusted at the outset to one state examiner, two deputies, one clerk, and fifty-two field agents working on a civil service basis. Uniform accounting is prescribed and installed. Comparative statistics are compiled by the state examiner and published annually, so that the fruits of this department are available to the public.” Wyoming has a fair system of audit.