'with. Sick leave, for example, should be provided for, possibly with maximum limits, and with the stipulation that the department head provide such means as are necessary to prove that the employe was actually sick and unable to work without injury to his or her health. Fractional day leaves should be provided for so that the employes may attend to important personal affairs; ordinarily, the best plan for such leaves is to provide that they shall be made up by overtime work during the same pay period or that they shall be charged against vacation time. Vacations should be provided for under rules that will prevent vacations being taken when the organization unit in which the employes work is particularly burdened with work. Two or three days' special leave in a year may reasonably be allowed for such emergencies as the attending of special ceremonies. and specially important fractional day leave accumulations. All other leaves should be granted only without pay and the amount of leave without pay should be limited.

In order to provide such a set of regulations the more fundamental matters should be covered in the law and some such body as the proposed Budget Commission which has authority connected with the control of expenditures should be given the duty and power of preparing the regulations in full or to approve regulations in the case of such large departments as the State Board of Charities and Corrections, the State University, the proposed State Board of Education, the Department of Health, and any other large departments which may be presumed to have special problems to consider.

Recommendations:

It would be futile to tabulate and recommend the adoption of the principles enumerated above without indicating what steps would have to be taken with that end in view. The preceding discussion is as brief a statement of the principles themselves as it is practicable to make.

Fiscal problems which differ as between different departments can be solved best by having department officers who are interested in them undertake to work out the sound practice

continuous an interest in plans and costs as the chief executive, and his review, if at all comprehensive, is of almost incalculable value to himself, to the administrative officers concerned, and to the General Assembly.

3. That the General Assembly, before taking action on the plans and estimates of departments and institutions, as reviewed and commented upon by the Governor, should be supplied with complete and intelligible data as to fiscal needs, uniform as to the manner of presentation.

4. That statements of expenditures and expenditure plans should be prepared in consolidated form in order that the totals can be compared with the total revenues and the expenditure and revenue plans can be harmonized.

The importance of supplying the General Assembly with intelligible and complete data, in addition to the requests of State agencies and the recommendations of the Governor with regard to these requests, must not be underestimated. All the preliminary budget work-this is, the part preceding consideration of items by the General Assembly-is designed primarily to assist the appropriating body in making its decisions. The conception of an executive budget, taken from the British procedure, is sound in that it represents an ideal of executive leadership in intricate technical details which can hardly be handled wisely by a legislative body without assistance. This conception of an executive budget will be seriously misleading, however, if it ignores the fact that the principal and primary purpose of all the earlier procedure is to gather and present information to the Legislative body in such complete and intelligible form that that body can act intelligently in deciding upon a revenue plan and in allotting funds according to the real needs of the various State agencies. The legislative body can hardly be expected to know enough about the details of fiscal affairs to make appropriations wisely without assistance from the administrative officers; the degree of justice and wisdom with which it acts depends less upon its innate justice and wisdom than upon the completeness of the

CHAPTER VIII

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

General Appraisal of Financial Administration:

It is hardly necessary to add to what has already been said as to the inadequacy and failure of the present system of financial administration or to present further arguments to prove that this failure seriously affects the pocket books of taxpayers and the efficiency with which the State's activities are conducted. The facts set out in preceding chapters lead to the conclusion that the State financial affairs have not been subjected to any effective control or direction but have on the other hand been given a very limited amount of systematic thought and attention. That the results have not been more serious than they have been is an indication of the native conservatism and sagacity of the members of the Legislature and Administration who have worked without complete or reliable facts or figures and without the essential elements of a system of control to aid them. It is an indication also of the high type of public official that the Commonwealth has been fortunate enough to secure for certain of the larger departmental offices, as, for example, those in charge of educational and welfare activities.

Initiative and imagination in finding a way to correct the shortcomings do not appear to have been characteristics of many of our public men. The steps needed to bring about improvements of various kinds, however, are not so obvious that the failure to initiate constructive measures of the right kind can be regarded as indicating gross disregard of opportunities except, perhaps, in one constitutional fiscal office, that of the Auditor of Public Accounts.

Under present conditions, it is especially apparent that the members of the Legislature cannot give to fiscal affairs the close attention needed since their duties are confined to attendance at biennial sessions of sixty days' duration.

penditures as embodied in the requests of departments and institutions and the significant facts as to income.

The estimates submitted by department and institution heads may be said to be the first budget; the second is that of the Governor. The Governor's budget is important but in practice the procedure should not be based upon its acceptance because there are invariably some important changes made by the Legislature. The Budget Officer should assist the Governor in his review; the Governor should be able to rely upon the Budget Officer for the study of all details.

The compilation of the Governor's budget consists merely of adding a column to the detailed tables of estimates to show the recommendations made by the Governor with explanations and of adding the tables to summarize the program advocated by him. The actual compilation, as in the case of the requests of departments and institutions, should be made by the Budget Officer.

The Legislative Budget: The legislative committees should take up the budget item by item and should have a full explanation of each from some source or other. The Budget Officer should in effect become the legislative budget officer while the General Assembly is in session. He should work with the ap propriating committees of the House and the Senate and for budget purposes during this time should be entirely under their direction.

The third-and in one sense the only true budget is that of the General Assembly; this is the one that is to become a fact. One of the greatest weaknesses of the budget procedure in many States is that the final and actual budget is never compiled; statements and schedules to show what has been done, what is intended, and what the effect upon the State treasury will be are never prepared. Far more significance is to be attached to statements and complete itemized schedules supporting the true plan, adopted by the Legislature and actually to be enforced, than to such statements and schedules

3. That the Auditor of Public Accounts be made responsible to the General Assembly.

4. That all fiscal agencies of the State, except that having independent responsibility for auditing, be placed in a Finance Department under the Governor.

The last two changes require Constitutional amendments and therefore cannot be made immediately. The first two are logical starting points in a program for better fiscal administration. The representation of the General Assembly on the important fiscal committee and commission, involving meetings between sessions of the Legislature, would eliminate a fundamental obstacle to develop. Some such means of getting the support and active interest of the General Assembly may be regarded as essential, and although it represents a departure from the traditions of this State, this is not in a direction that has been untried or unsuccessful elsewhere.

The creation of a Budget Office, to be known by that title and run with full recognition of the importance of the budget work, is necessary in order that the Governor's principal fiscal agent can work to full advantage and in order that the requisite detailed facts and figures will be prepared for effective use by both the Governor and the Legislature. The fault of the present arrangement as regards the office of State Inspector and Examiner is that the information collected through two years of work is now not made use of to any appreciable extent, and in no way meets the budget needs. The relatively small change to create a Budget Office will preserve and greatly extend the usefulness of the present office. It is a change which should be made as soon as practicable.

Other organization recommendations look toward the eventual establishment of the two principal financial offices believed to be essential to the best administration of financial affairs of a State and other government. These are (1) an audit office independent of the administration but responsible to a continuing body that can require an adequate discharge of the duties of the office, viz. the Legislature, and (2) a