26 University of New Hampshire [Bulletin 339 



in determining: its own road policies, for the wishes of the town are 

 always considered and usually followed. Moreover, under the general 

 supervision of the division engineer, the actual road work is carried 

 out under the town's own chosen road supervisors, and the laborers 

 are usually townspeople. 



Although the Duncan aid is an outrig-ht donation to low valuation 

 towns, its use is not supervised in any manner by the State highway 

 department. The State annually pays directly to the town its C|Uota 

 of Duncan aid. Aside from an annual post audit of town expenditures 

 by the State Tax Commission and the general legal requirement that 

 this money be spent in the support of Class V roads, the town is un- 

 restricted in its use of Duncan aid funds. 



The chief reasons for the lack of supervision of this grant are 

 worth consideration. First, because of the comparative smallness of 

 the total amount of the Duncan aid, the legislators may have felt that 

 supervision would involve a needless expense. Second, since the town 

 is only limited in the expenditure of its Duncan aid by the require- 

 ment that it must be spent in the support of town roads, the town in 

 many cases uses this money for current road expenses so that it may 

 reduce its own contributions for current maintenance. These mis- 

 cellaneous expenditures do not lend themselves to supervision as 

 readily as does a more standardized program of permanent road im- 

 provement, such as the TRA program. 



Both of the above argvmients undoubtedly have merit, but they 

 should be examined more closely. It is true that in amount the Dun- 

 can aid is small compared to the total State expenditures for roads. 

 Under the old Duncan formula it involved a total outlay in 1940 of 

 only $51,245. Under the new Duncan formula aids will be increased 

 to $104,390. The proposed Duncan formula would increase the outlay 

 to approximately $152,756. Nevertheless, it does not follow that super- 

 vision of the Duncan aid is unnecessary. Such supervision would not 

 involve an additional expense. A trained engineer of the State highway 

 department is already located in each of the nine highway divisions 

 into which the State is divided. Although the engineer's chief func- 

 tion is the supervision of all State highways in his division, he also 

 supervises TRA expenditures. The office of the division engineer is 

 ideally situated to supervise Duncan aid expenditures. 



Despite the fact that a town may use its Duncan aid to reduce its 

 own contribution for current maintenance expenses, its expenditure 

 of the Duncan aid could be readily supervised by highway division 

 engineers. As in the case of Town Road Aid the division engineer 

 could maintain a close watch over expenditures of the Duncan money 

 by withholding his approval of a particular expenditure unless it 

 could be justified. 



The money which the town raises from its own tax resources to 

 l)rovide for current road maintenance or for permanent road improve- 

 ment would, of course, not be restricted as to amount or the uses 

 made of it. 



Supervision of a town's Duncan aid expenditures by the division 



