80 Board of Public Works

Assembly may confer upon them the power to decide," and giving a broader meaning
to what constitutes the "Public Works of the State," the legislature gradually expanded
the jurisdiction of the board into dozens of areas wholly foreign to its original purpose—
public contracting, economic regulation, public finance, and, as we shall soon see, the
state personnel system and distribution of the state largesse. Some attention was given
to the board in the context of the debate in 1921-22 over executive reorganization,
but it was not until the mid-1950s that anyone took a serious look at what had oc-
curred. Once having taken that look, it was decided that what had occurred—the
radical transformation of the board—was a good thing, and all that was done as a
result was to clear the tracks for more of the same.

The last sixty years have been the period of most rapid expansion for the board.
That expansion has closely paralleled—indeed followed—the expansion in state gov-
ernment itself. For convenience, it is well to divide this modern era into parts. The
first decade—the 1920s—was, perhaps more than any other period, a watershed for
the board, a time when it teetered on oblivion but was rescued by Gov. Albert C.
Ritchie and given substantial new responsibilities of an ongoing, institutional nature.
The 1930s, of course, saw the Great Depression—a forge from which the board emerged
as the most powerful agency of state government.

The last forty years saw a more structured expansion of the board's role—not so
much in reaction to traumatic external stimuli such as war or depression as the product
of deliberate reorganization of a rapidly expanding state government apparatus. This
recent expansion, however, has been the most dramatic, both in quantity and in qual-
ity; and, again for purposes of organizational clarity, it seems appropriate to split off
the final two decades (1960-83) for consideration in a separate chapter.

The rocking back and forth of the board's fortunes actually commenced in 1915.
In that year, due to the lack of a rational budget system and the haphazard way in,
which state funds were appropriated, the state once again found itself facing insol-
vency. The legislature had appropriated some $2 million more than the state had in
revenue, and fiscal disaster was averted only by an emergency treasury relief loan.
The budget, such as it was, was balanced with borrowed funds.

At its next state convention the Democratic party, in righteous indignation,
adopted a platform pledging an executive budget system for the state. "The basis of
the system," said the platform, "shall be a report made either by the Governor or by
the Board of Public Works to the Legislature of the estimated income of the State
during the succeeding two years, together with recommendations as to the appropri-
ations or expenditures to be made for all purposes during the same period of time."
The recommended appropriations included in that report could be reduced by the Gen-
eral Assembly, but not increased. The party platform also pledged creation of a com-
mission "charged with the duty of devising and recommending a detailed plan for the
budget system."²

Such a commission was appointed by the convention. It was thus a political com-
mittee. It was chaired by Dr. Frank J. Goodnow, then president of Johns Hopkins
University, and it has since become generally known as the Goodnow Commission.