90 Board of Public Works

As is evident from the foregoing discussion, the board, over the years, was being
inundated by the legislature with piecemeal additions to its duties. Its meetings grew
longer, its agenda more varied and complex, as it delved ever deeper into the inner
workings of state government. Although most of its new authority was statutory, not
all of it was codified. As noted, a good bit of the board's responsibility emanated from
language included in the biennial budget bills.

Despite this broad expansion of jurisdiction, the board continued to limp along
with a minimal staff. Indeed, the state budget for fiscal years 1938 and 1939 shows
only one employee—a stenographer.⁴⁵ The board did have a secretary (although any
appropriation for his compensation was buried elsewhere in the budget), but mostly
it relied on the state purchasing agent and the budget director, a new position in the
governor's office, to assist it with the detail work.

In 1939 the General Assembly attempted to centralize and formalize some of these
"control" functions in a single new executive agency. In the first statutory imple-
mentation of the 1916 "budget amendment" to the Constitution, it created a Depart-
ment of Budget and Procurement and vested in it much of the day-to-day responsi-
bility for budget preparation and control and for purchasing. In the same act the
legislature restated some of the board's general authority over state debt, property,
finance, and general operations, permanently codifying in the process a number of
provisions formerly enacted periodically as part of the budget bills. Some of the new
statutory material was included in new sections added to article 78A of the code (Public
Works); some of it was placed in the new article 15 A (Budget and Procurement) created
by the act.⁴⁶

The new sections added to article 78A confirmed the board's authority with respect
to the sale of state debt, including the broad power to approve "all contracts for ex-
penditure of the proceeds of any loan authorized by the General Assembly . . . before
the same are executed" (section 1), the power to borrow money in anticipation of taxes
or to meet temporary deficits (section 4), and the power to approve all state leases
(section 3), including the somewhat expanded authority to "designate the location of
any State agency."⁴⁷ Section 1 empowered the board to supervise the expenditure of
all sums appropriated for the acquisition or construction of state property, except state
roads, bridges, and highways. New section 5 of article 78A was a broad catchall. Upon
the recommendation of the comptroller, the board was authorized to adopt rules and
regulations "covering matters of business administration in the various departments,
institutions and agencies of the State," which would be binding upon the affected
agencies. Read literally, that one statute gave the board a most pervasive superin-
tending role over state operations and programs.

As noted, much of the board's authority relating to budget administration was
included in the new article ISA. Section 9 of that article, for example, though taking
away the direct power of the board to impound agency funds and placing that authority
in the governor, still required board approval of any such impoundment. Section 10
retained board prerogatives over lump-sum appropriations; it required the recipient
agency to submit a detailed budget schedule to the board and precluded the agency
from spending the appropriation until the board approved that budget.