130 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Jan. 28

This limitation is fundamental in our judgment for a sound
budget system. It has its counterpart in the budget systems
of governments most advanced in their fiscal management.
It also has its counterpart in the budget systems of a number
of American municipalities. As has been pointed out by the
Mayor of Baltimore city, one-half the population of the State
of Maryland has become accustomed to this system in its mu-
nicipal affairs and would not think for a moment of going
back to the old system.

Such a change, however, as is pledged in the Democratic
platform, requires a constitutional amendment in this State.

A mere statutory provision that the Governor Or other State
officer should submit to the Legislature at the opening of its
session, estimates of the revenues and expenditures of the
State cannot, in our judgment, produce the reform in State
finance which is demanded by the people and voiced in the
Democratic platform.

A provision of this character has been, indeed, for a long
time in the Maryland Constitution. This is Article VI, Sec-
tion 2, which imposes upon the Comptroller the duty of pre-
paring and reporting "estimates of the revenue and expendi-
tures of the State. " This provision of our State Constitution
has not been interpreted as vesting the Comptroller with the
power to revise the estimates submitted to him. He has, as
a rule, sent to the Legislature estimates of expenditures which
have not, at any rate in recent years, controlled the action of
the Legislature in making the appropriations.

The attempt has also been made in this State, through the
establishment of the Board of State Aid and Charities, to
assist the Legislature in its appropriation of the State moneys
to the many State-aided private institutions. The Board has
done a great deal of painstaking and valuable work. But for
one reason or another, the Legislature has not paid sufficient
attention to the Board's recommendations to justify us in
reaching the conclusion that the purpose of the establishment
of the Board has been completely realized. It is still true
that the estimates of State money needed by the State-aided
institutions have not been subjected to an effective adminis-
trative supervision—effective at any rate in the sense that the
recommendations of the Board of State Aid and Charities have
been persuasive in controlling legislative action.

It may, therefore, be said that the methods already resorted
to in this State to place before the Legislature a complete
picture of the State's financial resources and needs have not
been successful. The present excess of expenditures over re-
ceipts, which has resulted in the large accumulated deficit,