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mittee's recommendations and the reasons
therefore.
In recent days the question period has
sometimes gotten more into a debate or a
colloquy than a question period. Please
keep in mind that the period for ques-
tioning the committee chairman is designed
to allow questions only for the purpose of
clarification.
Do not ask questions for debate, please.
You will have time for that during the
debate portion.
Delegate Sherbow.
DELEGATE SHERBOW: Mr. Chair-
man and ladies and gentlemen of the Com-
mittee: I cannot think of a subject with
less sex appeal than budget and appropria-
tions, but I cannot think of a subject that
is more important to the welfare of the
State of Maryland and its people.
I am one of those in this room along
with Governor Tawes and Judge Child who
can remember when the budget of the State
was less than $50 million. Today the budget
is over a billion dollars and is ever grow-
ing.
This is a matter of extreme importance
to every citizen and while these items may
seem as dry as dust, they are to be con-
sidered very carefully. Again as I re-
minded you yesterday, throughout this
area, and it is our last report, you will
find words of art. They have legal meaning
to the legislature, they have meanings that
sometimes are not exactly what you would
use in colloquial expressions, but they are
not lightly to be tossed aside, because of
the meanings that they have acquired over
the years.
As you know, Maryland has adopted the
executive budget. It is its great claim of
distinction in the field of fiscal administra-
tion and management. It came about be-
cause prior to 1917 the creation of our
budget was in the nature of a harum-
scarum thing.
The legislature made appropriations, the
governor made suggestions, and when the
session was at its end, no one could tell
whether the State had provided for more
expenditures than its income or had not.
As time went on and the legislature met
every two years it developed that as usual,
they were arranging to spend more money
than they were taking in, and the era of
a deficit budget was in existence.
Out of this kind of bad fiscal manage-
ment, came the determination to straighten
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this out and as has been the practice in
Maryland, our State called upon its citi-
zens to come to its aid in the form of a
commission to make a study of this entire
problem.
The commission at that time was headed
up by the illustrious Dr. Goodnow, Presi-
dent of Johns Hopkins University and out
of his report has grown the executive budg-
et as we know it today.
In its very simplified form, it provides
that the governor of Maryland shall find
out how much the State needs in order to
put through the programs that the legis-
lature provides for and how much money
the State needs to put through the pro-
grams that he thinks the state ought to
provide for.
It is his job also to find out what are the
sources of revenue, when is the money
coming in, where it is coming from, and
then make sure that he does not ask for
appropriations that are greater than the
amount of money that is in sight.
In those days they had a lot more cour-
age and maybe clairvoyance than we have
today, because in those days the legislature
met every two years. It met in January
and the budget would go into effect July
1st for the next two years, so you can see
the legislature and the governor had to be
smart enough to figure not only what the
income they would have would be, but what
the outgo would be for a period of nearly
two and a half years in advance.
That has been changed as a result of
another commission study of which I was
the chairman which provided that we
should have a session of the General As-
sembly every year.
It is now a matter of course. You all ac-
cept it. There are no restrictions. The Gen-
eral Assembly meets, and with the pro-
visions of the legislative article that you
already approved, it is perfectly clear now
that the General Assembly will meet every
year, not only for the consideration of the
budget, but for all other matters which
properly comes before it.
But back in those days the budget had
to be predicted far in advance. At that
time the studies that continued to be made
were made by department heads and out
of this ultimately grew what was a Depart-
ment of Budget.
It so happened that attached to this de-
partment was the Department of Procure-
ment, which is not of any concern of ours
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