REPORT

OF THE

Comptroller of the Treasury

OF THE

State of Maryland

To the Honorable,

The General Assembly of Maryland:

Since election as Comptroller in 1919 I have had constantly in
mind the requirements of the Maryland Constitution that the
Comptroller "shall digest and prepare plans for the improvement
and management of the revenue, and for the support of the pub-
lic credit" and "to decide on the forms of keeping and stating
accounts," and have devoted a great deal of time to work and
thought upon the vital problem of strengthening the State Treas-
ury Department. My original intention was to recommend to this
regular session of the General Assembly a series of changes in-
tended to centralize, modernize and strengthen the State Treasury
system.

During the past year, however, the Governor of Maryland set
to work to produce a program to completely reorganize and co-
ordinate and strengthen the various departments of the State
Government. This program included, as you well know, a sur-
vey of the many existing departments of the State Government
by a firm of governmental experts of Chicago, and the subsequent
appointment by he Governor of the Reorganization Commission
of Maryland, which Commission used the report of the experts
as a starting point and prepared a plan of reorganization of the
State Government, which is now before the General Assembly for
consideration. It was my privilege to be appointed a member of
this Reorganization Commission of Maryland, and to have later
been selected by the Chairman, Judge Burke, as a member of its
Executive Committee, and also a member of the sub-committee on
State Reorganization. As members of the sub-committee on State
Reorganization, Honorable Emory L. Coblentz and I were ap-