stated the realities of the situation, that
from the beginning the great handicap in
preparing a budget for a constitutional con-
vention is that you have very little with
which to compare it. A constitutional con-
vention is a rare animal. Even when you
try to compare it with recent constitutional
conventions in other states, the comparison
is, if not meaningless, misleading. Michigan
met for seven and a half months. They had
long recesses. New York, the most recent
convention, is a high salary, high income
state. A lot of money was pumped into
that convention. If we took the New York
standards as a basis in estimating our
budget, I think we would be very un-
realistic.
The Rhode Island Convention is another
thing. That has gone on for two or three
years, but they only met a few days out
of the month.
When you look at other recent constitu-
tional conventions, there was very little you
could get your teeth into by way of provid-
ing an experience factor on which you
could estimate the budget items for this
convention.
There was some help from the budget of
the General Assembly, and the committee
had the advantage of a comparison of that
budget with our budget. This proposed
budget, indicates that the salaries, for ex-
ample, are not out of line at all. I do not
know whether the General Assembly was
distributed to the delegates, but our com-
mittee had the advantage of seeing that,
for instance, in the last session of the Gen-
eral Assembly, the budget for staff was
$316,990. The Michigan Constitution was
329 thousand plus dollars. Our budget in-
dicates roughly $302,816 for staff. So these
figures, while they are in the ball park, are
still not too enlightening, because it is very
hard to compare the duties done by the
staff of the legislature with the duties car-
ried out by the staff of the Convention.
A number of our people, for example,
the parliamentarian, is a parliamentarian,
but he also does research for a number of
committees, including the Rules Committee.
There are other people in the same position.
So there is no question we have suffered
from the ability to compare the budget
with something meaningful.
At the time of. his appearance before the
committee, the President went through all
of the various items and he indicated very
frankly that there are a number that are
probably overestimated. Take, for instance, |
the per diem compensation of the delegates.
Every time a delegate does not attend a
meeting, $25, to put it one way, is saved by
the State of Maryland. Or if the delegate
does not attend, unexcused, another $15 is
saved. There are other items where the
estimates are probably overstated. For in-
stance, if you check the memorandum sup-
plied by the Secretary with the estimated
telephone expense, it begins to look as
though that may have been overstated.
While we took the General Assembly's ex-
perience for the estimated telephone budget,
apparently this may be a little high. You
do not communicate with home as often as
our delegates do down here during the
legislative session. But whatever the reason,
it begins to appear that this item is prob-
ably somewhat overstated.
There is another item that probably is
overstated, an arbitrary figure of $5,000
was allotted for the extra expense of dele-
gates that might have to go throughout the
state or out of the state to attend meet-
ings. Again, according to the Secretary's
memorandum as of October 23, we only
spent $318.60. It is quite clear that item
is probably overstated.
One point on the salaries of the staff.
The President testified before us so far as
he had personal knowledge, every single
member of the professional staff was re-
ceiving less for his services here in three
or four months, whatever it may be, than
he was receiving in outside life. So we do
not have the problem of a lot of high-priced
jobs. I know for a fact, I think if you look
at the list of the secretaries' salaries, it is
perfectly clear that these girls are not be-
ing paid what the average secretary would
realize in a similar job in private employ-
ment or even, I think, in the state gov-
ernment.
On the other hand, I suppose it must be
conceded there are so items which in the
end may turn out to be underestimated.
For example, $2,400, under Xerox, which
reproduces this plethora of material which
inundates us each day or did recently,
again we are just going on the daily cost
basis of the amount of consumption.
Whether this will decrease or increase, I
do not think is known. Right now I think
very frankly, if you look at the figures Mr.
Martineau supplied us, it looks like this
may have been somewhat underestimated.
Of course, the really critical and expen-
sive item is printing, as for instance the
final printed edition of the transcript of
the proceedings in this Convention, no one |
