86 Board of Public Works

A third innovation made in the 1933 budget bill in response to the deepening
depression was the creation, in section 11, of two large emergency funds to be controlled
by the Board of Public Works. For each of the two years provided for in the act (fiscal
years 1934 and 1935), the legislature appropriated a reserve fund of $400,000 and an
emergency contingent reserve fund of $250,000. The appropriations were to the board,
and it was authorized to allocate the funds among the various state agencies, schools,
and institutions. The only criterion for this allocation was that the board be convinced
"beyond all reasonable doubt" that the disbursement was necessary to enable the
agency "to perform the most essential functions" for which it was created.

Most of the detail work with respect to these allocations was delegated to Kirkman,
the state purchasing agent who served as the principal staff to the board, but the
review and resolution of the agency requests became a major part of the board's agenda.
The board itself was very conservative in handling these funds, especially in the be-
ginning. For fiscal year 1934, for example, the board allocated only $444,000 of the
$650,000 available to it, reverting $206,000 to the treasury. Regularly throughout the
year it rejected appeals from state agencies and institutions for additional allocations,
and rejected as well their requests to carry over into fiscal year 1935 unexpended fiscal
year 1934 appropriations. For fiscal year 1935 it was somewhat more liberal; in the
first three months of that year it allocated almost $550,000 of the $650,000.²⁵

With some hiatus, this responsibility of supervising a lump appropriation to an
emergency fund has continued with the board ever since 1934. The 1935 budget bill
created a fund of $500,000 for fiscal years 1936 and 1937, although none seems to
have been created for the two years thereafter.²⁶

Finally, as perhaps the most drastic measure included in the 1933 budget bill, by
section 12 the General Assembly cut the salaries of nearly all state employees by 10-
15 percent, depending on the amount of the salary. If the annual salary was less than
$1,200, the cut was to be "not less than 10 per cent"; if more than $3,600, it was to
be "not less than 15 per cent." The Board of Public Works was not immediately and
directly involved in implementing these cuts, that thankless task falling to Governor
Ritchie, but it did become involved in implementing their restoration.

In the 1935 budget bill the General Assembly made some additional salary re-
ductions, but with respect to the reductions made in both the 1933 and 1935 bills it
empowered the board "at any time, when it appears that the revenues of the State
are sufficient over and above the amount required to pay the specific appropriations
as provided in this Act, to restore such salary reductions, or any part thereof, as in
its judgment may be deemed necessary and expedient." To fund any such restorations,
the General Assembly appropriated $500,000 "out of any excess in the State Treasury"
during the ensuing two fiscal years. Similar authority was given to the board by a
separate measure to restore up to one-half of the cuts that had been made in teachers'
salaries.²⁷