Value of the Manual of Water Works Accounting

Abstract

People do not get typhoid fever if your water works accounting is poorly done. If they did, you would give the water works office the same attention you give the filter plant. People may not die through faulty fiscal management, but the water plant itself may deteriorate and the city may spend large sums unnecessarily for its operation, maintenance, and extensions. And so the immediate purpose of the finance and accounting division is to produce a manual of water works accounting procedure that will be generally useful to the greatest number of your members. The preparation of this manual is a joint enterprise of the Municipal Finance Officers' Association of the United States and Canada and the American Water Works Association. The job was undertaken jointly because of your interest in water works accounting and because of the general and continuing interest of the Municipal Finance Officers' Association and the National Committee on Municipal Accounting in the general subject of accounting and finance. The two associations are working together on the project and are to share equally in the work, the credit, and the benefits resulting therefrom. One may ask how the enterprise came about. The Municipal Finance Officers' Association and the National Committee on Munici-