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MARVIN MANDEL, Governor 3847
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Dear Mr. Speaker:
In accordance with Article II, Section 17 of the
Maryland constitution, I have today vetoed House Bill
148.
This bill authorizes the State public colleges and
universities to maintain special funded "reserve
accounts", for the repair of auxiliary facilities,
dormitories, college centers, and other noninstructional
facilities constructed from or required to be repaired or
replaced from nongeneral funds. These reserve accounts
may also be used for the repair and replacement of
furniture and equipment in these facilities, and for the
operation of activities whose revenues are drawn from
charges for goods and services.
This bill requires each institution to report
annually to the Department of Budget and Fiscal Planning
the amount of these reserve funds and the expenditures
from them. However, the bill places no limit on the
accumulations in the reserve accounts, and does not
require the approval of any one in the normal budgetary
process for the creation of a reserve account, the amount
and type of fee exacted to fund it, or the amount and
type of expenditures made from it. In short, these
reserve accounts would be virtually immune from budgetary
control, both by the Executive and by the Legislature.
If the General Assembly desires to authorize the
institutions to maintain special funded reserve accounts,
I think it prudent to place some controls over the
amounts accumulated in them, and to require that
expenditures from the accounts be included in the State
Budget.
We have seen in the past how unrestrained reserve
accounts can be abused. At three of the public colleges,
fees were established to provide for the redemption of
bends issued to finance student union centers at a time
when the student enrollment was less than 60% of the
current level. These fees were not reduced as enrollment
increased; and, as a result, far more money was collected
from the students than was needed. For several years,
the students were actually being overcharged by mere than
fifty percent. One institution imposed and collected a
special fee in anticipation of the construction of a new
student union center. Yet, the construction bonds
ultimately issued covered the entire construction cost,
and the fees previously collected for that purpose became
surplus, some of which were later attempted to be
diverted to construction of a stadium.
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With the cost of a college education ever
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