Explanatory Notes, Table 10

1851. $36,000 received by the general revenue account from the sale of state bonds to the school fund is included as a net receipt.

1852. Under miscellaneous is included the $5,000,000 in United States bonds received from the United States under the terms of the Boundary Act.

1856. Under miscellaneous is included $298,421 refunded by the United States for that amount of the revenue debt of the republic paid by Texas.

1861. The interest coupons on the United States bonds held by the school fund are counted as cash receipts. State warrants received in the collection of revenue are not counted as the equivalent of cash receipts.

It is impossible to separate taxes from fees and miscellaneous receipts and all are included under miscellaneous.

1862-1863. The bulk of taxes is under miscellaneous.

According to a statement in the report of the comptroller for 1868-1869 the total received from sales of land during the Civil War was $373,923.84. This is $133,466.79 greater than the sum of the items in Table 9 for 1861-1865, and the difference is due to defects in classification of receipts as given in the reports of the state treasury. According to the report of the comptroller the following funds received the proceeds of land sales; the university fund, $137,344.44; the school fund, $11,910.50; the general revenue fund, $224,668.90. Only $225.52 of the receipts was in specie, while $43,502 was in state warrants and $330,-196.32 was in Confederate currency.

1877-1878. In the report of the comptroller only the general revenue, the available school and the permanent school funds are given separately by years. The net receipts for the two years to the funds which are not separated by years are as follows:

This failure of the report to separate the receipts by years vitiates the statistics in Table 10 for 1877-1878. Another defect in the report is the failure to separate the interest on state bonds held by the permanent school fund from the interest .on the other bonds held by that fund.

1885. $215,837.55 of the receipts under miscellaneous was from the Land Board, and the report does not state whether they were from sales or from lease of land.

1886. $415,000 of the receipts under miscellaneous was from the Land Board.

1887. $125,000 of the receipts under miscellaneous was from the Land Board.

1888. In miscellaneous is included a refund by the United States of $922,541.52 expended by Texas on frontier defence.

Interest on state bonds and interest on land sales of the asylum funds were not separated by the comptroller, and the amount given is not included in Table 10.

1889. There is a failure again of the comptroller to classify the receipts of the asylum funds, and, consequently, their receipts are not included in Table 10. No classification of these, receipts was made in the report of 1890.

Beginning in 1889 and extending through 1915 the receipts by the state department are not classified in the comptroller's report of the receipts from that department, and as their classification in the report of the secretary of state is not for the same fiscal period as are the receipts given in the report of the comptroller, the receipts by the secretary of state are classified under miscellaneous, except since 1906.

1906. Miscellaneous receipts are large because of a refund by the United States Government of $375,418.94 for expenses incurred in frontier defence before the Civil War.

1907. Beginning with 1907 the classification found in the report of the secretary of state is followed, although the total of the receipts differs from the amount given by the comptroller. The amounts given by the secretary of state were received in his office during the fiscal year, but they were not all paid into the general treasury during the fiscal year. The comptroller gives only the amounts paid into the general treasury by the secretary of state. An intelligent system of state accounting would enable one to find somewhere in the state reports a classified statement of this latter amount, but it cannot be found in any of the Texas reports. The receipts from corporation franchise taxes and from charter and permit fees are too large to be classified under miscellaneous, and this is the justification in following the report of the secretary of state since 1906. It was only in 1906 that his report became satisfactory enough to follow even to this extent.

1909. Miscellaneous receipts are large because of the heavy penalties collected by the state from companies adjudged to have violated the anti-trust act of the state. Receipts from the office of the attorney general amounted in 1909 to $1,770,212, all of which has to be classified under miscellaneous.

The report of the comptroller for 1909 omits the statements of the special treasury funds, except the available.school fund. A fit of executive economy caused a foolish condensation of the report of the comptroller, the result of which was a withholding of the statistics which an enlightened state should provide for its citizens and for those outside the state who are interested in state finances. The report of the board of regents of the University fortunately, though by accident, contains the statistics of the available university fund. The reports of the comptroller since 1908 are very defective in their statements of the university funds, but the blame for this should be divided with the general land office. The latter in making its deposits does not distinguish between land rentals and interest on land sales. The reports of the regents in 1909 and 1910 contain a correct statement of the available university fund, but this state-ment is omitted since 1910 and only an income and expenditure account is given. The latter account is followed for this table, though it is not just what is desired.

1912. There is a typographical error of $600 among the items of receipts of the general revenue fund, and $600 is added to miscellaneous to make up for this omission.

1914. The interest on land notes held by the available blind, deaf and dumb, lunatic and orphans' asylum funds can not be ascertained from the comptroller's report, but the amounts were obtained from the comptroller's office.