without being in the form of a budget
bill or a supplementary appropriation
bill. The opinion indicates that were it
not for Article XV, Section 1 of the
Constitution, which required the surplus
fees to be paid into the state treasury,
it would have been permissible for the
legislature to provide that surplus fees
in the hands of certain officials be "di-
verted," before they reached the treasury,
to pay deficiencies of other officials.
Dorsey v. Petrott, 178 Md. 230 (1940),
involved an act of the General Assembly
creating an agency to be supported by
revenues held in a special fund, and pro-
viding for a source of such revenues and
the manner in which certain disburse-
ments were to be made. The narrow ques-
tion before the court was whether the
act which established the Commission of
Fisheries and empowered the Commission
to regulate and administer the laws re-
lating to the seafood resources of Tide-
water Maryland constituted a "law
making an appropriation." If so, the act
could not properly be submitted to refer-
endum under Article XVI, Section 2, for
laws making an appropriation for main-
tenance of such State agencies are not
subject to referendum.
The court held that the act did not
make an appropriation. Revenues accru-
ing to the treasury from fines and inspec-
tion fees were not disbursed by any pro-
vision of the act. The act contemplated
that for any disbursement from the treas-
ury to be made, an appropriation or
supplementary appropriation was neces-
sary. The provision for salaries of the
members and employees of the Commis-
sion of Fisheries merely fixed the maxi-
mum allowable salaries, and an appro-
priation bill was required to authorize
payment of such salaries.5 Finally, even
if the act provided for a disbursement of
certain funds which had been paid into
the treasury, nevertheless, it would not be
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a law making an appropriation. A bill
proposing an act of general legislation is
not converted into an appropriation bill
simply because it has had engrafted upon
it a section making an appropriation.
To be an appropriation bill the primary
purpose of the bill must be to make an
appropriation from the treasury.6
Bickel v. Nice, 173 Md. 1 (1937),
stands for the proposition that a supple-
mentary appropriation bill may be "con-
sidered," but may not be put to a vote
before final action is taken on the budget
bill. A bill authorizing a bond issue was
challenged on the grounds that it was
read and referred to the Committee on
Finance of the Senate two days before
final action was taken on the budget bill.
Paragraph (8) of the Budget Amend-
ment provides that:
"Neither House shall consider other
appropriations until the Budget Bill
has been finally acted upon by both
Houses."
The court found the bill to be valid. The
purpose of the above provision was
merely to prevent submission of another
appropriation bill to a vote before final
action on the budget bill.
5 There is some inconsistency between the
principles enunciated in McKeldin v. Steed-
man and Dorsey v. Petrott. The court held
in McKeldin that the Budget Amendment pre-
vents the General Assembly from making an
appropriation without shouldering the re-
sponsibility of imposing the necessary tax.
Under the court's decision in Dorsey a general
law may provide that certain sums are to be
expended for a particular purpose. It then be-
comes incumbent upon the governor to pro-
vide in his budget the appropriation to pay
the cost of the general law.
6 Although in relation to the Referendum
Amendment this proposition may be sound,
the clear language of the Budget Amendment
indicates that no funds may be authorized to
be withdrawn from the treasury unless that
authorization is embodied in the executive
budget or a supplementary bill accompanied
by a revenue measure.
235
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