concretely, using the experience of my own state. Our legislature meets on the first Wednesday of each year, for a session of three months, more or less, and at each session makes an appropriation for the support of the state government for the fiscal year beginning on July 1 following.

Departmental requests.-The finance law, in part, reads:

On or before November 15 in each year there shall be filed with the comptroller by each state officer, head of department, or proper officer of each state institution, department, commission or board, a statement in detail of all moneys, together with the reasons therefor, for which any general or special appropriation is desired at the ensuing session of the legislature. Each of the reports and statements of desired appropriations thus made shall be in a form to be prescribed by the comptroller. The reports and statements of desired appropriations hereinbefore provided for shall be public records.

This law does not contemplate the preparation by the comptroller of a "budget." The requests from the institutions and departments for needed appropriations are arranged under two main headings: personal service, and maintenance and operation, and go into minute detail, both as to the individual salaries desired and as to many items of supplies, materials, and service needed, under such general divisions as: fuel, light, and power; printing and advertising; equipment, supplies, and materials; traveling expenses; communication; rent; fixed charges and contributions.

The forms on which the requests are made provide for a statement of amounts expended during each of three previous years in minute detail. Each of the general divisions is subdivided. Communication, for instance, is divided into telephone rentals, telephone tolls, telegraph and cable charges, postage, freight, express and cartage, and district messenger service. There are ten subdivisions of equipment, supplies, and materials. For institutions the amounts expended for each kind of food used, for various articles of clothing, etc., are required. In addition to all this, the reasons for the requests, and especially for any increase over the previous year, which may be asked and required to be explained. These requests are received by the comptroller and printed in full detail for the information of the legislature and interested departments, without any accompanying recommendation. Not till the legislature became organized was any effort made by the appropriation committees of the two houses to form an appropriation bill. It frequently happened that such a bill was not passed until the close of the legislature, when it was left with the governor with other "thirty-day" bills, giving him no other alternative than to approve or disapprove it, item by item.

The state has, however, adopted a plan intended to concentrate into one bureau, known as the Board of Estimate and Control, the responsibility of budget-making. This board, which was created in 1921, consists of the governor, the chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Assembly, and the comptroller. It, either personally or through deputies or employees, is required to make a careful and thorough study of the state departments, offices, and institutions, for the pur

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pose of ascertaining all expenses and waste and of duplication of effort, and what departments, offices, and institutions may be discontinued or transferred in the interest of economy, efficiency, and public welfare. It may recommend to any such department or institution a plan for improving methods of operation to limit or minimize waste and duplication and promote efficiency. This board, of which the comptroller is a member, has taken over the principal responsibility with respect to requests for appropriations from departments and institutions of the state, has established a bureau of standards for materials and supplies to be used by the institutions and departments, and is closely associated with the superintendent of purchase in the purchase of material for state use.

On the retirement of the last Republican governor that we have had in New York, the Senate also changed from Republican to Democratic control, with the result that the recommendations of the Board of Estimate and Control, which were made prior to January 1, and which represented in the main the policy of economy of the retiring governor, had little or no effect on the appropriations of that year, because the so-called "budget" is not binding on the legislature.

During the past year, also, we faced a situation that was not favorable to the normal working out of that board's functions, the governor being of one political party and a majority of both branches of the legislature, of another party. The recommendations transmitted to the legislature were therefore referred to as the "Governor's budget," and the legislature proceeded to make its appropriation bill without any reference to such budget, except as they were influenced by the advantage which the governor possessed in his power to veto any item in the bill. What happened therefore was this:

Each department and institution head appeared before the governor's representative on the Board of Estimate and Control prior to January 1 to justify each item in the requests made. A "budget" was prepared, supposedly by the board, but in fact by the governor and his representative (the comptroller and the legislature members were not represented in its preparation), and was submitted to the legislature for its guidance. After the legislature met and organized, the two legislative committees meeting in joint session held a second series of conferences with institutional and departmental heads and proceeded to frame an appropriation bill, confessedly without regard to the recommendations of the governor. Increases and new items included in such bill, when passed, were promptly disallowed by the governor, but as this was done before the legislature adjourned, a supplemental bill was prepared in which many of the vetoed items, somewhat modified, were included and later received the governor's approval.

The story of such a struggle with appropriation bills is not uncommon in state governments, or even in the federal government, but it is not dignified nor productive of efficiency or true economy. With a legislature and an executive of the same political faith the plan on the New York statute books ought to work for reasonable economy and the highest possible efficiency in the state

departments and institutions, and, in my opinion, would be more satisfactory than an executive budget plan, which would leave with the governor alone the authority to fix in advance the limitations of the appropriation bill.

Superintendent of purchase.-A consideration of the manner in which appropriations are made, without information as to the manner of disbursing the money, would seem inadequate. The comptroller has the responsibility for the final audit of expenditures before payment, but in this he is guided, with reference to many expenditures, entirely by the terms of the appropriation bill, and not by any question of economy or efficiency. Principal among the other departments having a check on expenditures is the Department of Purchase, created in 1922, the head of which is called the Superintendent of Purchase, who took over the duties of the former fiscal supervisor of state charities, together with additional powers. The law creating this department reads in part as follows:

[Sec. 117, general powers of department]:-In the manner provided by this chapter and the rules of the department adopted pursuant thereto, the department shall have jurisdiction and control of the purchase of materials, equipment, and supplies required by the state, or by any state department, board, commission, officer or institution, except the legislature, or either house thereof or a legislative commission or committee; and all provisions of statute authorizing or directing the purchase of any materials, equipment, or supplies by any state department, board, commission, office, or institution, or prescribing the manner of such purchase, are hereby repealed. Except as provided in this article, any or all materials, equipment, and supplies needed by one or more departments, boards, commissions, officers, or institutions of the state may be directly purchased or contracted for by the department of purchase, as may be determined, from time to time, by rules adopted pursuant to this article.

The state departments, under the checks provided, present their bills for maintenance expenditures monthly to the comptroller for audit and payment, and do not themselves handle the funds. Institutions, however, have treasurers who, on the basis of estimates filed and approved, receive from the state treasury the funds needed for a three months' period in advance and use this money to pay their own bills. Exceptions are found in the handling of the funds of all the hospitals for the insane by a general treasurer in the state hospital commission, and of those of the prisons by the superintendent of prisons, but this does not materially affect the principle involved.

Estimates.-The estimates which are submitted to the superintendent of purchase for approval go into the minutest details concerning the quantity or amount of each item needed, whether it be flour, sugar, cereals, meat, fish, butter, shoes, blankets, utensils, or what not. These estimates are checked carefully with the experience of former years for the corresponding period, due consideration being given to changes in prices or in the population of the institution, and other contingencies. The estimate being allowed, in whole or in part, the institution is so notified, and may proceed to make the purchases, submitting in due time proper vouchers and accounts for final audit by the comptroller.

An opportunity is given the institution to submit supplemental estimates or

re-estimates in case a disallowed item is considered absolutely necessary, or should it be found that the estimate as allowed is insufficient to cover the purchase desired.

Purchases; contracts.—Institutions and state departments are subject to regulations in the matter of purchases. Certain items may be purchased in the open market with approval of the Board of Estimate and Control while others, such as coal, flour, sugar, etc., are purchased on contract by the superintendent of purchase, who secures estimates from each institution and department as to the amount of an article or group of articles that will be needed for six months or a year, and, having determined the probable aggregate amount of the article needed, he advertises for bids and enters into a contract with the lowest responsible bidder, after which he notifies each state department and institution of the name of the dealer from whom the article is to be purchased. The institution or department then purchases as the need arises. In some instances purchases for the entire state are made from one contractor; in others, as, for example, for meat, flour, or coal, the contracts are made with dealers in different parts of the state to avoid the extra expense of transportation from a distant point.

Personal service.-Institution employees and nearly all of the employees of state departments are appointed under Civil Service regulations, the salaries in institutions being fixed by statute on a sliding scale with an annual increment to a maximum point. Departmental salaries, however, with a few exceptions, are not based on legal requirement, and sometimes vary for similar positions in the several departments.

A few years ago the Civil Service Commission was directed to make a survey of the pay-rolls of all departments and institutions, with a view to classifying duties and salaries and recommending uniformity of titles and salaries for like work. A change in the office of the governor was, however, accompanied by a cessation of this study on the part of the Commission.

Appropriations made are highly segregated, either by the terms of the bill or by the department, with the approval of the Board of Estimate and Control. The comptroller, in his monthly audit of bills, will prevent the diversion of funds intended for one purpose to any other use. Emergencies arise, however, which could not have been foreseen, and the Budget Committee of the legislature is authorized to approve the transfer of unused funds in one item to another when the need of such transfer is made apparent to such committee.

Then, too, at times it becomes necessary to seek appropriations from the legislature for anticipated deficiencies in the current year, as a department head may not expend for any given purpose more than the amount actually appropriated for that purpose or made available for it by transfer.

What I have described is not an executive budget. As I have already indicated, I am not prepared to advocate such a plan. The executive and the legislative departments are both interested in good government and reasonable economy, and together they must work out a means of supplying funds to the

various branches of the government to enable them to function. There should, therefore, be team work in the task. The executive budget is an ultimatum by the governor to the legislature, "Take this, or any part of it, but add nothing!"

The other extreme is the old plan by which the legislature took the same attitude toward the governor. The plan on the statute books in New York, by which the budget is to be prepared by representatives of the governor, the legislature and the comptroller, after conferences with the several departments and institutions, ought, with reasonable sanity and foresight, to meet the needs of the state with the maximum of economy. Without sane statesmanship and integrity no system will guarantee the best results.

PUBLICATIONS AND UNIFORM SOCIAL DATA

Emma O. Lundberg, Director, Social Service Division, United
States Children's Bureau, Washington

For the student of the history of public provision for the dependent, delinquent, and handicapped there is no more valuable source of material than the reports of state boards of charities and similar departments. Interesting as this material is for the researcher into historical backgrounds of social work, this would have little weight in a plea for more adequate reporting and interpretation of vital facts, especially in this day of agitation for economy. What then is the purpose that should be served by the reports issued by state departments dealing with social problems? What is the object of the presentation of facts relating to the work of a public agency? Just what end is the statistical material and discussion intended to serve?

A study of the publications of several state boards of charities and corrections over a period of fifty years indicates that the idea of what a report should be has changed radically in some states. One receives the impression that in the earlier years of provision by the state for the socially disadvantaged there was what Matthew Arnold calls "intellectual curiosity," a tendency to philosophize on the causes and on the correction of the evils encountered. In later years the interest in some quarters seems to have been greater in regard to stock and crops and the fiscal management of the state's institutions. It is an interesting fact that in the states more recently undertaking work along social welfare lines the annual reports partake more of the character of the earlier publications of the pioneering states, colored, of course, by the modern approach to the causes and their prevention.

The earlier reports are permeated by the personalities of the leaders in the National Conference of Charities and Correction, which originated in 1874. It is well to remember this intimate relationship between the state boards and the National Conference, which was, in fact, a conference of the state board people for discussion of their problems. At each annual session of the National Con