It is apparent from the preceding discussion that the Board of Public Works created
in 1864 and continued in 1867 was intended to be one of relatively limited function.
Its principal job was to dispose of the state's investments in the internal improvement
companies as quickly as possible and to superintend those investments to the state's
best advantage until they were sold. As has been noted, there is no indication in any
of the convention debates that any of the delegates envisioned the board becoming a
major policy-making entity or exercising a pervasive jurisdiction and influence over
the administration of the state government. The term "public works" was thought to
be essentially synonymous with the state's investments in internal improvement com-
panies, and those were to be phased out and never replaced.
What happened in fact, of course, was that the legislature took a more expansive
view of what "public works" encompassed.1 In large part, these departures from the
constitutional intent were necessary. Conditions changed, and new demands were
placed on state government, requiring new types of public programs. These required,
in turn, some person or entity to superintend them.
The legislature apparently gave little thought to this aspect of the matter. Gov-
ernment programs were created haphazardly—to meet this challenge or that one—
without much regard to each other. There is no evidence of any grand design or plan
to revolutionize the function of the board. Rather, it would seem that in enacting its
various and sundry new programs, the General Assembly looked to the board simply
because it was there and because it was a politically and functionally convenient
repository of administrative authority.
Delegating to the board various functions concerning public property or expend-
itures was practical because it consisted of men who were already responsible for
operating the state government. From a political perspective, by placing this new
authority in a troika, each member of which had his own independent political base
or constituency, no single executive official would be given too much power. Finally,
by delegating to the board, which was already in existence as a constitutional entity,
new bureaucracies could be avoided. Government could be kept small.
And so it was that, by latching onto the catchall constitutional authority to "hear
and determine such matters as affect the Public Works of the State, and as the General
1. The attorney general recognized this in 1916. Noting the catchall clause, he observed, "Acting under this
authority, the Legislature has from time to time imposed upon the board various duties of importance, such
as the construction and renting of state buildings, the leasing of state offices, the awarding of state contracts,
the insuring of state property, the floating of state bond issues, the supervision over the State Fishery Force
and its vessels, and the like." See 1 Op. Att'y Gen, 142, 150 (1916).
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