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budget to be prepared, that the studies will
be of such a nature that the legislature
will have its own analysts who are experts
on some of the great big departments, so
that when the time comes, it will not be
the legislature looking at the budget and
saying "Why do you need three more
stenographers in your department over last
year", which is not the way to check the
budget, but "What is this program that
you estimate will cost one million ; what
do you estimate it will cost three years
from now, or five years from now? What
are we embarking upon? Plow do we con-
sider these changes?"
This is the difference between a line by
line examination and a real examination
of the budget.
Now, this is submitted to the General
Assembly and as the constitution stands at
the present time, it almost grinds every-
thing else to a halt in the General As-
sembly.
The two larg-est committees are taking
up the budget. Sometimes they meet to-
gether, the Ways and Means and the Fi-
nance Committee. Sometimes they do not
meet together. Sometimes the director of a
department rushes over in the morning to
the Senate Finance Committee for a hear-
ing on his department, and that very after-
noon he has to rush over to the Ways and
Means Committee to discuss the identical
ground that he had covered that morning.
We hope that all of this will be worked
out in such a way that perhaps with joint
hearings we can conserve the time of these
workers in the vineyard who are trying to
explain to the legislature what the real
effect of the budget is.
Now, the governor delivers his budget, it
is classified, it is determined in detail by
law, and then the presiding officers intro-
duce the budget and the governor may cor-
rect an oversight, he may appropriate
funds that are contingent on passage of
pending legislation, he may provide for an
emergency.
As the legislature is meeting, sometimes
a new program is developed. The governor
may provide for that program, but having
no authority of law, he will be waiting for
the General Assembly to pass a statute
covering it.
This is put in by him in what we call
a supplementary budget, which is delivered
in the same way but as a practical matter,
it is incorporated in the governor's whole
budget and you will find that his supple-
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mentary appropriation is ultimately a part
of the one great big budget.
Each amendment must be accompanied
by a statement from the governor explain-
ing the reasons for these additional items.
The General Assembly may amend the
budget by increasing any item that relates
to the legislative or the judicial branches.
This is the only authority that they have
for increase, but they may reduce or strike
out any item except the money that is re-
quired for the payment of interest and
principal on our bonds, and for the appro-
priations that are required by law for the
public school system.
It cannot juggle, play with, or change
the estimated income or revenues. This is
certified to by the governor who has a
special board of revenue estimates, pro-
vided by law. This will be changed, as I
understand, as a result of some of the
things that we have done to provide for
different officers, but they will be under the
executive department, determining what the
estimates of revenue will be.
Now, the compensation of a public officer
may not be decreased during his term of
office. This is a provision which I am sure
you will understand, because it is so plainly
a requirement. It is one which prevents the
executive from destroying or making pow-
erless either of the other two branches of
government.
Now, this brought IKS face to face with
one of the problems that we hear men-
tioned from time to time: why should the
legislature not have the right to increase
the budget, change the items upward?
If this were to happen, then you have
destroyed tho executive budget, because if
the legislature has the right to take the
governor's budget, chop it down as it de-
cides and then provide for increases as the
legislature may decide, you have ended the
executive budget as we understand it.
But the legislature is not powerless, it is
not helpless; it has the power to make
supplementary appropriations, except that
when it does so it must provide the taxes
to cover them.
I want to get back to the fact that we
say that there can be no decrease in sal-
aries. There has been raised the question
about what right you have to increase
salaries of public officials during their
term of office.
We asked Dr. Carl Everstine, the Di-
rector of the Department of Legislative Ref-
erence, who has had a lifetime of experience
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