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The appropriations from which the compensation of these employees is paid are as follows:

"Distinctive paper for United States securities: For distinctive paper for United States securities, including transportation, traveling, laundry, and other necessary expenses, salaries for not more than ten months of not exceeding one register, two assistant registers, five counters, five watchmen, and one skilled laborer, and expenses of officer detailed from the Treasury, $400,000.

"Expenses of national currency: For distinctive paper, including transportation, traveling, laundry, and other necessary expenses, and expenses of officer detailed from the Treasury, salaries for not more than two months of not exceeding one register, two assistant registers, five counters, five watchmen, and one skilled laborer; in all, $70,000." (Sundry civil act of Aug. 1, 1914, Pub. 161, p. 15.)

While the act appropriating for the salaries of these employees does not specifically fix the rates of such salaries, the estimates on which the appropriations were based do set forth the rates of such salaries.

You state that these employees are considered as being within the classified service, the appointments being made with due regard to civil-service laws and rules, and that they are paid in accordance with the amounts estimated.

Upon inquiry at the Appointment Division I am advised that the appointments of these employees are no different in form from the appointments usually issued to clerks and other employees of the Treasury Department-the rate of compensation being stated at a fixed sum per annum.

It is well settled that per annum employees are not entitled to additional compensation for overtime work, i. e., work in excess of that usually required of them. The fact that operatives in this mill who are not employed by the United States receive additional compensation for overtime work can in no way affect the rights of these Treasury Department employees; and State laws regulating hours of labor are not applicable to employees of the United States.

Section 3738, Revised Statutes, provides that eight hours shall constitute a day's work for all laborers, workmen, and mechanics who may be employed by or on behalf of the Government of the United States. But this provision is directory only and does not prevent the Government from making agreements with laborers, workmen, and mechanics under which they may be required to work more than eight hours, nor does it require that, where required to work more than eight hours, they shall be paid on the basis of an eight-hour day. (United States v. Martin, 94 U. S, 400; Timmonds v. United States, 84 Fed., 933.)

The question submitted is answered in the negative.

PAYMENTS UNDER CONTRACTS AFTER AUTHORITY FOR USE OF FUND CEASES.

Work done under contracts before the date expenditures from the reclamation fund are prohibited may be paid from said fund thereafter if the physical act of payment alone then remains to be done, but work done after the prohibited date may not be paid from said fund.

Acting Comptroller Warwick to the Secretary of the Interior, November 14, 1914:

I have your letter of November 3, 1914, presenting for decision what payments may be made upon certain contracts from the reclamation fund after June 30, 1915, in view of section 16, of the act of August 13, 1914 (Public No. 170), which provides as follows:

"SEC. 16. That from and after July first, nineteen hundred and fifteen, expenditures shall not be made for carrying out the purposes of the reclamation law except out of appropriations made annually by Congress therefor, and the Secretary of the Interior shall, for the fiscal year nineteen hundred and sixteen, and annually thereafter, in the regular Book of Estimates, submit to Congress estimates of the amount of money necessary to be expended for carrying out any or all of the purposes authorized by the reclamation law, including the extension and completion of existing projects and units thereof and the construction of new projects. The annual appropriations made hereunder by Congress for such purposes shall be paid out of the reclamation fund provided for by the reclamation law."

You mention three contracts as having been entered into for construction work on reclamation projects-two prior to the above enactment and one afterwards-in each of which the work is to be completed, according to the contract, after June 30, 1915; and that one of the contracts concerns a project for which specific allotment was made by the President from the fund provided by the act of June 25, 1910 (36 Stat., 835).

You ask the question, practically the same for each contract, whether payment may be made from the reclamation fund after June 30, 1915, for work done under these contracts before June 30, 1915, but for which payment could not be made in the regular course of business until afterwards.

This question is answered in the affirmative, The stipulation of the act that after July 1, 1915, expenditures shall not be made for carrying out the reclamation law, except out of annual appropriations, must be taken in connection with the requirement that for the fiscal year 1916, and annually thereafter, estimates shall be submitted to Congress of the amount necessary to be expended. Work which it is known will be completed in fact prior to the fiscal year 1916, can not reasonably be the matter of estimate for expenditure that fiscal year; nor does the indefinite contingency of not making payment in

the ordinary course of business furnish a sound basis for an estimate. Such work is to be classed as an expenditure of the year in which it is performed, and if the physical act of payment alone remains to be done, that should not be viewed as throwing it into the next fiscal year.

You ask the further question whether for work done under these contracts after June 30, 1915, payment may be made under the reclamation fund.

This question is answered in the negative. The fact that the contracts were made before the act becomes effective, or immediately before or after its passage, is immaterial. The act specifically includes the extension and completion of existing projects. The work that will have to be done under these contracts after June 30, 1915, must be estimated for and be made the matter of specific appropriation to authorize payment.

In so far as concerns the act of June 25, 1910 (36 Stat., 835), and the contract made under an allotment of the funds provided thereby, the provisions of this act of 1910 do not provide an appropriation different from the reclamation fund so as to authorize the use of these funds irrespective of the act of 1914, supra. The foundation of the reclamation fund was the appropriation by the act of June 17, 1902 (32 Stat., 388), of the receipts from the sale and disposal of certain public lands, to the construction of irrigation works for the reclamation of arid lands. The act of 1910, supra, merely authorized advances to the reclamation fund from funds in the United States Treasury (which funds were to be provided the Treasury by issuing certificates of indebtedness of the United States), but the funds that would be transferred to the reclamation fund under this authority were to be reimbursed the Treasury from the receipts of the reclamation fund.

The intent of the act of 1914, supra, is that expenditures for reclamation projects shall beginning with July 1, 1915, be the matter of annual appropriations, and as to work thereafter under these three contracts such appropriations, if made, must be viewed as exclusive.

RESPONSIBILITY OF PAYMASTER IN THE NAVY FOR OVERPAYMENTS— RIGHT OF PAYMASTER'S CLERK ON RECEIVING SHIP TO RATIONS.

Paymaster in the Navy held not liable on account of overpayment of nurse on leave with pay. For facts and reasons for conclusion, see decision.

A paymaster's clerk attached to and doing duty on a receiving ship is not entitled to rations.

Decision by Comptroller Downey, November 16, 1914:

W. H. Wilterdink, passed assistant paymaster, United States Navy, applied October 12, 1914, for a revision of the action of the

Auditor for the Navy Department in settlement No. 6285-D, dated September 30, 1914, disallowing the following items in his account: No. 14. (Nurse) Louise Person.-Pay for 4 days excess leave at $50 per mo., $6.67, and 5 days subsistence at 25 cents per day, $1.25, disallowed Sept. 30, 1914. This nurse was granted 38 days leave (Nov. 24-Dec. 31, 1913) while she accrued from Nov. 30, 1912, only 33 days leave.__

No. 5. T. A. Culhane, pay clerk.-Amount credited on roll as commuted rations Jan. 1, 1914, to Mar. 31, 1914, inclusive, 90 days, at 30 cents per day, disallowed Sept. 30, 1914. Not entitled to rations while attached to a "receiving ship." (See Comp. Dec., Aug. 25, 1910, and 24 Ct. Cl., 114.) Change in procedure as outlined in G. O. 170, dated Mar. 21, 1912, in no way changed the status of the pay clerk on duty with the "receiving ship" accounts_

The appellant states:

$7.92

27.00

"2. Concerning the case of Louise Person, when this disallowance appeared as a suspension on certificate of settlement No. 6015-D, dated June 17, 1914, I submitted an explanation to the Auditor for the Navy Department under date of June 23, 1914, copy inclosed. The facts are fully stated in this letter and, inasmuch as there was nothing in the handling of this account nor in the information furnished by the commanding officer of the hospital which should have put me upon inquiry that the information furnished by the commanding officer of the hospital was incorrect, I do not believe that the sum involved in this case is a proper charge against my account. "3. Regarding the disallowance in the case of Pay Clerk T. A. Culhane, noted above, I have to invite your attention to the letter of the Auditor for the Navy Department dated January 29, 1914, No. 76753-REA, in which claim for commutation of rations from March 4, 1913, to December 31, 1913, was allowed. It was upon the strength of this claim that commutation of rations was credited on the rolls of the receiving ship at Boston from January 1, 1914.”

Nurses are entitled to cumulative leave of absence with pay at the rate of 30 days for each calendar year of service in the Nurse Corps (female) of the Navy. See acts of May 13, 1908 (35 Stat., 146), March 23, 1910 (36 Stat., 249), and Navy Regulations, 1913, article 4428.

Said nurse was appointed to date from November 30, 1912, and was therefore entitled to leave of absence with pay not exceeding 33 days to December 31, 1913.

The appellant in this case was paymaster of the receiving ship at the Boston Navy Yard. The nurse whose payment is in question was on duty at the naval hospital at Chelsea, Mass. The roll upon which payment was made was certified by the surgeon commanding to the paymaster. The surgeon, as commanding officer of the hospital, certified as to this nurse, during the month of November, that she was on leave with pay' seven days. It is and must be conceded as to these seven days in November that the certification.

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was absolutely true from every standpoint. Not only was she granted leave with pay for these seven days, but there is no question made about her being entitled to it. As to December, it was certified by the commanding officer to the paymaster that this nurse was "on leave with pay" 31 days. But it appears that this was four days more than she was entitled to. Is the paymaster to be held liable for the amount of the overpayment?

It is well settled that a disbursing officer may not pay and escape liability simply because some one has certified that a voucher or pay roll presented for payment is correct. Notwithstanding such certification, he may yet pay at his peril. In spite of such a certification as that in this case, the paymaster might be so charged with knowledge of the impropriety of the payment or so put upon inquiry as to render him liable for an overpayment when made. But with such a certification before him and an absence of any knowledge either that the nurse was not entitled to the leave or of any fact putting him upon inquiry as to whether or not she was entitled, what duty to go behind the certification rested on him?

In a decision of this office of June 25, 1913 (65 MS. Comp. Dec., 1623), a disallowance in a paymaster's accounts of an overpayment on account of leave was affirmed and the paymaster held liable, but it clearly appeared in that case that the paymaster was put upon inquiry as to the facts of the case, and so clearly did this appear as one of the reasons for the disallowance that it was said in the decision that "the appellant shut his eyes to these facts and blindly made the payment in question." And the only certification upon which the paymaster might rely in that case was a statement addressed to the officer (an ensign) that up to a given date he would have 25 days' leave with full pay due him.

In that case reference was made at length to a decision of July 15, 1909 (50 MS. Comp. Dec., 119), in which a question submitted was as to the sufficiency of a certification by the officer himself that the leave granted to and taken by him was not in excess of that authorized by law. It was said that this office would not accept as sufficient such a certification and that it involved a conclusion of law as well as a statement of fact. Neither of these cases are conclusive as to this case or furnish much by way of guide to its determination, since there is so much to distinguish it from them.

We do not deal in this case with the nurse's legal conclusion as to the leave to which she was entitled; neither do we find in it any facts putting the paymaster upon inquiry or justifying the conclusion that he shut his eyes to known facts and blindly made the payment. The certification in this case did not deal with or in any manner present any question as to the legal rights of the nurse. It did not involve any legal conclusion, but in my judgment simply certi

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