gram, is now engaged in a detailed survey of all the buildings at state institutions. Reports to be submitted will show date of erection, size, number of stories, kind of material, present condition, and a detailed statement of repair needs. In no other way can building appropriation requests be intelligently determined upon. Heretofore, the initiative in appropriations has been largely with the legislature. Without the necessary knowledge as to existing conditions and the needs of the various expending agencies, no well ordered method of procedure has been possible. Large lumpsum appropriations have been made in some instances, while the most minute detail has been followed in others. Appropriation bills have frequently been held up until the closing days of the legislature, and then rushed through with little or no opportunity for careful consideration. The present budget law in Illinois provides for the submission of the executive budget to the legislature soon after it convenes. No reference is made as to procedure. The budget can be referred to regular committees or considered by the legislative bodies sitting as a committee of the whole. The general assembly has the power to revise, amend, decrease, increase or disregard the governor's recommendations entirely, subject, however, to the governor's veto. While the possibility exists for adverse action by the legislature, it is doubtful if it would care to assume the full necessary responsibility under all the circumstances. It is the intention to develop the Illinois budget into a comprehensive financial program, including the maintaining of accounts, analyzing of expenditures, all leading up to a well founded statement of appropriation needs, together with a study of the sources of revenue necessary to meet such requirements. Under the Civil Administrative Code, a distinct advance has been made in the centralization of authority and responsibility, and to this extent, the practical working out of budget procedure is made possible. THE NEW JERSEY BUDGET LAW' ARTHUR N. PIERSON Chairman, Commission for the Survey of Municipal Financing of New Jersey A FTER seventy years' experience with the Legislative New Jersey has adopted the Executive Budget. The Act creating this budget was passed in the legislative session of 1916. It superseded the Legislative Budget for the appropriations made last year, which became operative November 1 last. Under the new plan, the controller submits his estimate of the available state revenues, and the departments and institutions submit their requirements in detail to the governor prior to November 15. A full explanation is required for all increases and the needs for extensions or improvements. The requests are tabulated and investigated by the governor's own assistants, who can be well designated as his Budget Committee, although their work is confined to the months of November and December. During December, the governor conducts budget hearings, after which the budget is fixed. In the opening week of the legislature, he submits the budget with his budget message to the legislature. The budget is then referred to the Joint Appropriation Committee, which sits during the legislative session for further hearings and revisions. The Appropriation Committee submits its final report to the legislature during the week prior to adjournment. The budget thus prepared is passed in February or March and becomes operative on the first of November following. New Jersey has had but two years' experience under the new plan of budget making, but it has already proved its value as a means for a more equitable distribution of state funds and a better control of expenditures; as such it has many features of marked improvement over our old plan, and will, I am confident, prove an unqualified success, and well worth the work involved in establishing the new system. 1Read at the National Conference on War Economy, June 6, 1918. I appreciate it is too early to predict the full measure of success which will accompany our new plan for budget making, but my three years' experience as a member of the Appropriation Committee under the old Legislative Budget plan gives me something of an insight into its shortcomings and possibly I may be pardoned for pre-judging in a measure the benefits which may be expected from our Executive Budget. In my first year's service on the Appropriation Committee, this committee was composed of three lawyers, one physician, one farmer, two insurance agents and two business men, only one member having ever had any previous experience in Appropriation Committee work. From my study of the Legislative Budgets in other states, it would appear that New Jersey's experience in this matter is fairly typical of other states. It must be evident that the best results cannot be obtained under such a scheme. If sectionalism, politics, and "favor me and I'll favor you" could be eliminated from the work of the Appropriation Committee, which is, of course, practically the maker of the Legislative Budget, there would still be enough to condemn this manner of budget-making as a practical means for appropriating state revenues. I have in mind the ever-changing personnel of the Appropriation Committee, which brings to this work men who lack the training and sometimes the ability. These factors constitute an obstacle that must be ever present to greater or less degree in such a scheme for budget-making. It is impossible for such a commission to discern between the good and the bad, the necessary and the unnecessary in any request for funds. Under our plan for the compilation of our Executive Budget, the responsible head of the government determines the policy for extensions and improvements, and in a general way fixes the funds which are to be allotted to the several institutions. The total of the appropriation of the budget as fixed by the governor must be within the funds estimated as available for state purposes for the year. It is, however, within the province of the Appropriation Committee to revise any items which in its discretion should be amended. At all events, I feel certain that as our governor cannot succeed himself, the danger of political bias has been overcome as far as can be reasonably expected. New Jersey's Executive Budget, has, however, a wider purpose vital part of Governor Edge's plan for reorganizing New Jersey's administrative and fiscal affairs upon a business basis. In this particular it serves an important purpose in bringing the governor into vital contact with the needs and activities of the various state institutions. Such a connecting link between the responsible head of the government and the activities of the state is essential to a successful administration of public affairs. While Governor Edge was in the senate, he inaugurated his plan to put the activities of the state on a business basis, making the governor the responsible executive head of the business concern. As the first step in this program, he effected the reorganization and consolidation of some forty or fifty more or less overlapping commissions and boards into six single-headed commissions, thus coordinating kindred activities in the several new commissions. At the same time he organized and established the state purchasing system, which was an important feature of the plan for efficient and economical business government. The program of reorganization has covered a period of four years, and was only completed at last winter's session of the legislature, when all charitable, correctional and penal institutions were brought under the control of a single-headed Charities and Correction Commission. Having served on the Economy and Efficiency Commission with Governor Edge, when he was in the senate, I feel in a measure familiar with the needs which existed for a thorough reorganization of state affairs and the important part our Executive Budget has played in this program. As yet neither the budget nor the reorganization of our state activities has produced all the good results of which it is capable. It will take time and patience to work out the problems which must necessarily arise in the transition from the old to the new system. As capable of good results as the Executive Budget is under ordinary circumstances, the double purpose which it serves in New Jersey increases many times its possibility for good. At this point, however, I am led to make a suggestion which is applicable to New Jersey's budget as well as to every form of budget, and to my mind, indispensable to the best budget results. I refer to a permanent budget commission to be appointed by the governor and directly responsible to him, composed of experts or specialists in the several branches of institutional work. The members of such a commission should be employed the year around; the greater part of their time to be spent in field work, making unannounced visits to the institutions and even living there for such periods as will give them a definite knowledge of the work and the needs of the institution. My experience with state and municipal budgets has brought me to the conclusion that the successful outcome of a budget system depends to a far greater degree upon the ability and earnest purpose present in the making than upon its form or plan. In other words, it is the man behind the gun who brings the results. To my mind, we have placed far too much emphasis upon the form or plan of budget, and paid too little attention to the care and intelligence used in its making, and the integrity with which its provisions are carried out. The budget in itself appeals to me much as the plan and specifications of a building; they are good or bad, according to the measure of intelligence and honest purpose with which they are made, and I think we shall agree that they will produce results, all things being equal, in the proportion that these factors are present. Such a budget commission would be of great assistance to the Appropriation Committee in making the Legislative Budget, and on the other hand, would prove of great value to the governor and the Appropriation Committee in making and perfecting the Executive Budget. The assistance of such a commission would find an added purpose in New Jersey alone in keeping the governor in constant touch with the activities and needs of the institutions. A commission of this kind, with their knowledge of the state's needs, would be of great value to the purchasing department in the standardization of supplies. There are one or two features in New Jersey's budget scheme which have been in the process of evolution and adjustment for the past few years. Up to a year ago, New Jersey followed the policy of detailed appropriations with scarcely a deviation. In 1915, however, we overcame some of the unyielding provisions of the detailed budget by giving the State House Commission authority to transfer items within department appropriations. This flexibility proved a timely expedient in adjusting conditions created by the war and saved our institutions from much embarrassment. It has been a time-honored practice to pass a supplemental bill at each session of the legislature. This practice brings about the same unsatisfactory conditions as exist in other quarters, and I |