pointed as a special committee to "study and prepare a plan for
a Department of Finance." This we did, and our report, with one
amendment, was accepted by the sub-committee on State Re-
oranization, and later approved by the Executive Committee,
and finally ratified by the Reorganization Commission of
Maryland.

In this way the recommendations, which I had originally in-
tended to make to this General Assembly in detail in the preface
of this report, havae become incorporated in the State Reorganiza-
tion Bill, which represents the recommendations of the Reorgan-
ization Commission of Maryland, and is endorsed by the Demo-
cratic State Platform of 1921.

The main, reasons for the creation of a Department of Finance
are stated in the report of the Reorganization Commission of
Maryland, pages 37 through 43, and I will not enlarge this re-
port with a restatement. The sections of the Reorganization Bill
creating the proposed Department of Finance are based upon the
recommendations of the Reorganization Commission of Maryland
above referred to.

The following necessary completion of the State's financial
system is not, however, sufficiently provided for by the Reorgani-
zation Bill.

A State statute now requires the State Auditor to audit the
accounts of every State Department, Board or officer at least once
a year. Past Legislatures have, however, failed to provide the
State Auditor with a sufficient force of deputies to enable the
State Auditor's office to actually make the required annual audit
of all the offices handling State monies. This appears to me to
be a most dangerous weakness now existing in the State's financial
system, and I most earnestly recommend to the General Assem-
bly that an estimate be secured from the State Auditor as to the
number of deputies and the amount of the appropriation re-
quired by his office to enable him to make the required annual
audit of all offices handling State funds, and that you then pro-
vide the necessary appropriation, and that the Governor be re-
quested to provile the necessary amount in his Supplemental
Budget.

This estimate should also include the appropriation necessary
to allow the State Auditor's office to work out a practical scheme
of uniform books and accounting for all governmental agencies
handling State monies and further provide the funds necessary
for the initial installation of such State-wide system of uniform
books and accounting.
VI