The Park Governments of Chicago 129 



blacksmith, plumbing, carpenter, tin, and paint shops. They are 

 located in Garfield Park, in a one-story structure, 850 feet long. 

 Each shop is under the direction of a foreman. The cost of the 

 building is not distinguishable in the accounts. The hand and 

 machine tools are carried at $2,554.79. No inventory is recorded. 



Shop Costs. 



Although the shop forces are engaged on both new work 

 and repairs, and the former becomes an asset and is properly 

 chargeable to construction, while the latter is a matter of main- 

 tenance, there is such lack of adequate cost keeping that one 

 cannot be distinguished from the other on the books. In fact, 

 the shop accounting is so defective that the elements of labor and 

 material are not assembled on the books so as to show even the 

 total cost of shop operation during any month or year. Several 

 accounting forms are provided for obtaining costs, but some are 

 not used as intended, and even if they were do not lend them- 

 selves well to scientific costing. It is practically impossible to 

 determine any unit costs of past work from existing records. 

 Instead of being based on definite job orders and specifications, 

 much of the work is started on verbal orders from the master 

 mechanic as a result of verbal requests to him from those in 

 charge of different park activities. No individual time reports 

 are used ; the time of the entire force being reported by the mas- 

 ter mechanic, who has no clerk and whose duties take him often 

 from the shops. Finding some swinging seats being made in the 

 carpenter shop, and quantities of bronze bushings for motorcycles 

 being made in the machine shop, the Bureau's accountants 

 attempted to determine the costs thereof, but no record of such 

 work being done appeared on the reports, except that in the latter 

 case the machinists were reported as working on "motorcycles." 



LINCOLN PARK COMMISSIONERS 



Organization and Equipment. 



The mechanical department of the Lincoln Park Board, 

 although under the single management of a master mechanic, is 

 housed in two separate buildings, neither of which is well adapted 



