Article Text
Treasurer Collins is carrying as cash three Marion county past due school warrants of $5,000 each. He claims to have loaned the school board of Ma- rion county this sum. The school board, however, claims never to have received the money, or at least only a part, and repudiates a part of the loan, if not the entire amount. Your committee begs leave to state that the foregoing portion of this re- port has reference particularly to the general accounts and funds of the treasurer, and the following portion refers to the accounts, transactions, etc., of Treasurer Collins with the de- funet Merchants' National bank of Ocala and the tax certificate redempt- ion fund. According to the books of Treasurer Collins, and the date of sus- pension of the Merchants' National bank of Ocala that bank was indebted to the state in the sum of $10,927.01. The books of said bank, by a certified copy of Treasurer Collins' account, show that the state waa, indebted to the bank at the date of its suspension in the sum of $1,018 23. Your committee has had copies o the account kept by Treasurer Collin with said bank, and the account o said bank with Treasurer Collins ano the monthly statement of his accounts furnished Treasurer Collins by sai bank, but the said accounts have beer so irregularly and improperly kep and there are so many apparent ficti- tious entries made on the bank books, and irregular entries made on Treas- urer Collins' book, and so many items and vouches of credit missing, and figures juggled in such a manner, that it has been impossible to fully and completely reconcile the account kept by Treasurer with said bank and your committee have had to rely entirely on the amounts which the comptroller certified to us he should have had on hand belonging to the tax certificate redemption fund. Your committee further reports that on October 23, 1896, Treasurer Collins drew a check for $22,000 on the Mer- chants' National Bank of Ocala, in favor of the National Rank of the State of Florida, and sent said check to J. N. C. Stockton as president of the said bank, with instructions to collect the same in cash, and if said Merchants' National bank could not pay the check to accept such credita as could be procured; that said Stock- ton, acting as trustee for Treasurer Collins was compelled to, and did ac- cept securities of the supposed valu- ation of about $65,000. Referring es- pecially to the testimony of W. H. Baker your committee reports that the securities are supposed to be worth about $15,000, und thot said Stockton holds such securities to secure the loan of $15,000 hereinbefore referred to, leaving the item of $22,000 totally unsecured. Your committee would report, as more fully shown by the testimony of C. B. Collins, that as shown by the ac- counts kept by Treasurer with the Merchants' National Bank of Ocala, at the time of its failure, was actually due the state of Florida $32,927.01, sup- posedly for the tax certificate redempt- ion fund deposited therein. The act- ual shortage of said redemption fund is $34,967.01, for which the state has no security, leaving a shortage of $2,- 040 to bersonally accounted for by Treasurer Collins. Your committe further reports that Treasurer Collins claims that the tax certificates redemption fund paid in- to his hands for the quarter ending September 30, 1896, and December 31, 1896, and a balance due for the quarter ending June 30, 1896, aggregating the sum of $34,967, were moneys lost in the defunct Merchants' National bank of Ocala by reason of its failure, but your committee are forced to conclude from Treasurer Collins sworn state- ment, that said tax certificate redemp- tion money was not in the bank at the time of its failure, but other gen- eral funds of the state aggregating in amount $34,967, or greater part there- of, were used and deposited in said bank and the tax certificate redemp- tion fund for the quarters ending as above referred to, were used by Treas- urer Collins to reimburse funds which had been abstracted from the general funds of the state, and deposited in said bank. Your committee also reports that Treasurer Collins received $15,710.96 as the state's proportion of the tax fund for the quarter ending June 30, 1896, and which he claims was held by in cash in the treasurry, until April 6, 1897, and for that reason your com- mittee are unable to say whether these funds are properly disbursed from the tax certificate fund or not. # THE DANGER
