The Overburdened Board: 1960-1983 119

normally considered first, was more or less a miscellaneous one. It included proposals
for bond sales, public school construction projects, sanitary facilities sewerage loans,
Mass Transit Administration real estate purchases and leases, wetlands licenses, and
commitments to subdivisions under the Open Space Program. The General Services
agenda consisted of construction and capital equipment contract awards and change
orders, contracts for professional services, property acquisitions and leases, and a mis-
cellany of other construction, contract, or property-related items. The Budget and
Fiscal Planning agenda dealt primarily with items affecting the state's operating
budget—requests for allocations from the board's general emergency fund, personnel
matters, contracts funded through the operating budget (usually for services or sup-
plies), disposition of state personal property, and all contracts for goods and services,
except those pertaining to roads, bridges, and highways, for the Department of Trans-
portation.

This last item—transportation contracts—was often the largest part of the Budget
and Fiscal Planning agenda, at least in dollar volume. Inclusion of those items on the
Budget and Fiscal Planning agenda came about because of a 1971 executive order,⁶⁷
and as DOT moved into the massive subway project it desired to have more direct
access to the board. In 1980, at the behest of Governor Hughes, the format of the board
agendas was restructured so that DOT now has its own agenda for board action and
there is no longer a separate Budget and Fiscal Planning agenda. The nontranspor-
tation items formerly included on that agenda now appear on a special supplement to
the board secretary's agenda.

These agendas are lengthy. The major items often contain hundreds of pages of
support material—appraisals, reports, synopses of procedures used—and not infre-
quently they are supplemented by letters and statements from interested persons not
associated with an agency. Several people work full time in the three agenda-pro-
ducing agencies just preparing their bimonthly submissions.

To deal with this mass of material, the board has resorted to the practice of holding
"preboard meetings," usually a day or two before the public meeting. Normally the
governor does not attend the preboard meeting but may send a representative. The
comptroller and the treasurer (at least the current ones) attend in person, along with
one or more staff persons. The purpose of the preboard meeting is not to make final
decisions but rather to familiarize the members with what is on the three agendas.
It gives them an opportunity to review the items, ask questions, and seek additional
information.

These preboard meetings usually last several hours. In addition, prior to the actual
commencement of the scheduled board meeting the members normally confer for a
few minutes in the governor's office, again to take a quick run-through of the major
items. The public meetings are where the decisions are actually made. They are nor-
mally held in the governor's reception room in the State House and often last most
of the day. The three members of the board sit at the head of a long table, accompanied
by the board secretary and his or her assistant, and the secretaries of general services,
budget and fiscal planning, and state planning and/or their assistants. At the foot of
the table is a lectern for anyone wishing to address the board, and seated around the
room are representatives of the news media and other interested persons.