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The Modern Board: 1920-1960 97
one program to another, (8) approve the sale of real estate or personalty or the transfer
of property from one state agency to another, (9) approve repairs to state property,
(10) approve the write-off of bad debts owed to state agencies, (11) approve local school
construction projects for purposes of state financial assistance, (12) approve overtime
pay, or extension of sick leave, or travel reimbursement for state employees, and (13)
approve investments made by the state treasurer.77
Such a meeting—the type and variety of items coming before the board—illus-
trates graphically both the increased overall role of the state government itself in the
general political, economic, and social fabric of the state and the increased role of the
Board of Public Works in controlling the manner in which the state government's role
would be exercised. Both phenomena arose, quite simply, from the gradual, but in the
end dramatic, rethinking of what constituted the "Public Works of the State."
77. See, for example, BPW Minutes, 10 March 1952, vol. 9 (1951-52), pp. 368-402. Among the items considered
were payment of $16.42 for emergency repairs to a state police barracks, $52.20 for the repair of lawn
mowers for the School for the Deaf, approval to write off $12.00 in uncollectible debts due the Register of
Wills of Frederick County and $4.75 due the State Barber board, and approval to transfer a dump truck
from the Reformatory for Women to the House of Correction. Also approved was the issuance of $19 million
in bonds and some major construction contracts and projects.
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