The Board of Public Works was first created by the General Assembly
in 1825 in order to find potential internal improvement projects.
It only lasted for
three years and was dissolved in 1828. As the number of internal
improvement projects such as the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, the Baltimore
& Ohio railroad and the Susquehanna railroad grew, many of Maryland's
political elite began to advocate reestablishing the board to manage them
according to the interests of the state. Governors Thomas G. Pratt
(1845-1848) and Philip Francis Thomas (1848-1851), both urged the legislature
to create a board to manage the public works of Maryland.1
Governor Pratt recommended a creating a full-time board composed of one
or more members. Governor Thomas also envisioned a full-time Board
of Public Works that would be composed of two commissioners, one from the
Eastern Shore and one from the Western Shore, who would each serve a three-year
term. Thomas wanted the new Board of Public Works to replace the
existing state agents appointed under chapter 318 of the act of 1832.
That act had required the governor to appoint three state agents who would
attend stockholders' meetings for all of the joint stock companies involved
in building roads and canals in Maryland. The agents were to represent
the state's interests and to vote accordingly in the meetings, and were
paid the same as members of the legislature. In 1840 (chapter 155)
their number was changed to five, and the requirement was added that they
keep a journal of proceedings of stockholders' meetings and submit the
journal as a report to the legislature. Later, their salary was reduced
to $100 a year. Governor Thomas, in his address to the legislature
of December 1849, argued that the fact that the duties of the state appointees
had expanded while their salaries were limited to an amount too low to
pay the ordinary expenses needed to do their jobs was evidence enough that
the existing system was "inherently defective." A bill to create
a Board of Public Works was introduced in the General Assembly 1849,
but it failed to become law.
A new Board of Public Works was finally created by the Constitution of 1851. It was charged not with finding projects to fund, but with managing the state's investments in the projects that had already been undertaken and with helping to make them profitable. The Constitution of 1851 provided for the election of four commissioners of public works, each coming from one of four districts in the state.2 The commissioners were to supervise all public works in which the state was stockholder or moneylender, and were required to attend stockholders' meetings and to vote in the interest of the state. The constitution also required the board to report their proceedings at each regular session of the legislature.
The Board of Public Works as we know it today, with the comptroller, treasurer, and governor being ex officio members (the governor serving as president of the board), was established by the Constitution of 1864. Delegates to the 1864 constitutional convention were largely in agreement that the state needed to divest itself of improvement companies and avoid lending state money for new projects. Along with the duty to manage state property, the board as established in 1864 was charged with disposing, liquidating, or "divesting" the state of its investments as quickly as possible.3 The board established in 1864 differed from that of 1851 in four ways. First, it was limited to three people, who became members of the board by virtue of holding the state offices listing above. Second, board members were no longer required to attend stockholders' meetings themselves but could appoint directors to attend in their place. Third, the board was to hold quarterly meetings in Annapolis. The fourth change required board members to "hear and determine such matters as affect the public works of the State and the Legislature may confer upon them the power to decide."4 In other words, the public was now free to lobby the board directly in matters relating to public works in Maryland. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Board of Public Works worked to divest the state of virtually all of its investments in canal and railroad companies. As a result, the board no longer had to concern itself with electing directors to attend stockholders' meetings.
Modern boards have focused on their responsibility to hear concerns
raised by the public and to determine when and how the public works of
the State will be managed and funded.
1. Thomas G. Pratt, "Annual Message of the Executive to the General Assembly of Maryland," Maryland Public Documents (Annapolis, 1846), doc. A (December Session, 1846) pp. 6-14, and Philip F. Thomas, "Annual Message of the Executive to the General Assembly of Maryland," Maryland Public Documents (Annapolis, 1849), doc. A (December Session, 1849) p. 9.
2. The First District was made up of Allegany, Washington, Frederick, Carroll, Baltimore, and Harford counties. The second District included Montgomery, Howard, Anne Arundel, Calvert, St. Mary's, Charles, and Prince George's counties. Baltimore City was the Third District. The counties of the Eastern Shore comprised the Fourth District.
3. Alan M. Wilner, The Maryland Board of Public Works: A History (Annapolis: The Hall of Records Commission, 1984), x, 52.
4. The Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Maryland, 1864 (Annapolis, 1864), I: 163.