Charges of misconduct were brought against Mr. Ahearn, in 1906, by the Bureau of City Betterment (later called the Bureau of Municipal Research). When Mr. Ahearn requested an investigation by the Commissioners of Accounts, Mayor McClellan accommodated his desire. The report of these commissioners, handed in to the Mayor, July 16, 1907, severely arraigned Ahearn’s administration, and after specifying particulars, the report denounced “the inefficiency, neglect, waste and corruption disclosed in the course of this inquiry.”[2] The investigation showed that in the three years that Mr. Ahearn had occupied the office of borough president, he had control of an expenditure totaling $21,994,477. Of this amount it was shown that $1,608,762 was spent in the purchase of supplies without public tender being asked, as required by law. It was proved that many of the payrolls (amounting to an aggregate of $5,942,187) were padded with the names of men who never did a day’s work for the department. Even in the expenditures made under contract--expenditures totaling $14,447,473 in the three years--it was proved that little effort was made to compel contractors to observe their obligations. Fully a third of the total expenditure--the third amounting to $5,400,000--was lost to the city, it was asserted, by the manner in which the department was administered. There were still further losses to the city; and although, also, there was plenty of money at Mr. Ahearn’s disposal for the repairs of street pavements, that work, it was held, was considerably neglected. The evidence in the commissioners’ investigation and the evidence presented by the City Club in subsequent hearings ordered by Governor Hughes showed that supply contractors often made profits ranging from 100 to 200 per cent. (and in at least one case 300 to 500 per cent.) more than the regular prices prevailing in the open market. Among other disclosures the testimony revealed that $144,500 had been paid out for asphalt “fire burns,” which in reality were not “fire burns” at all; they were defects that the asphalt companies were obliged to repair without charge. The favorite contractors were such Tammany district leaders as Bartholomew Dunn, Thomas J. Dunn and others.