An Evaluation of the System of Central Financial Control of Research in State Governments Bulletin of the National Research Council (1924) / Chapter Skim
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II. Central Financial Control in Illinois
II. Central Financial Control in Illinois
Pages 15-41
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From page 15... ...
The enactment of the Civil Code in 1917 provided for the enlargement of the work of the institution audit clerk who became henceforth a member of the newly organized department of finance, with the title of administrative auditor. The Civil Code likewise established a new procedure for making up the biennial budgets, and vested in the finance department power to inquire into the reasonableness of expenditures, and to enforce its views by refusal to approve vouchers presented by the spending departments.
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From page 16... ...
the power to supervise and examine accounts and expenditures of the several departments and of every private institution receiving money from the state; and (4) to investigate duplication of work and the efficiency of the administration of departments.
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From page 17... ...
The broad decisions therefore are those of the chief executive; the control of the spending departments is control by the governor; the practical limits drawn either against the spending departments or the finance department are the limits set by the governor; the enforcement and execution of these limits is the duty of the financial department. By other sections of the Civil Code the freedom of departments and institutions in making purchases and in securing printing is curtailed.
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From page 18... ...
A detailed statement of the legal provisions defining the various types of control, and so far as ascertainable, the practical operation thereof, follows. ACCOUNTING CONTROL The Illinois Civil Code authorizes the Department of Finance (1)
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From page 19... ...
The director of finance uses them to prevent deficits in any institution or division, as a basis for approving transfers and for allotments from contingency funds, as a basis for approving amendments in the annual estimates, and, in general, as the means by which the facts of financial operations are revealed and arranged in an orderly manner. The monthly reports become the source from which are made up the controlling accounts kept in the finance office for each division and institution of the state.
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From page 20... ...
Thus the appropriation to the Health Laboratories in 1923 was $64,960, to the Institute for Juvenile Research $139,560, and to the Geological Survey $211,270. It should be added that the uniform accounting system is a prerequisite to any effective financial control, and in Illinois as elsewhere underlies the- process of budget-making, audit, and review of expenditures.
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From page 21... ...
The governor also transmits the estimates of receipts and expenditures, as received by the director of finance, of the elective officers in the executive and judicial departments and of the University of Illinois.7 The estimates are submitted by the departments under the accounting heads already explained. The Civil Code contains no further provisions concerning the budget process, but several significant practices have developed which need to be presented in order to secure a complete picture.
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From page 22... ...
Each department and division continued to appeal directly to the appropriations committee. The Civil Code of 1917 produced the first executive budget in the 1919 session.
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From page 23... ...
So far as could be ascertained, the attitude of the director has been uniformly sympathetic toward the plans and estimates of scientific divisions. It should be noted that in case of the Geological Survey, Water Survey, and Natural History Survey, the proposals for expenditure and the general plans for scientific undertakings are submitted to the Board of Conservation and Natural Resources, a body of scientists drawn from related fields and qualified by at least ten years' experience in the practice or profession of their subject.8 This arrangement seems to have given complete satisfaction to the three surveys and to have added weight to their requests for .
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From page 24... ...
Ibe following table sbo~s the Approved estimates on Me one bard, in comparison aid appropriations on Me other band, Me increases and decreases, and Me govembr~ veto for the Osca1 years 1915-1925. Issue I
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From page 25... ...
Water Survey ~ Juvenile Research Inst.
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From page 26... ...
In order to get as significant a basis for comparison as possible, capital expenditures were omitted and the following items alone were taken into consideration: salaries and wages; office expenses; printing and stationery; travel; operation; repairs and equipment; contingencies and unclassified. The latter item included among the scientific agencies only one entry, for topographic surveys by the Geological Survey.
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From page 27... ...
Juvenile Research Institute.... Psychopathic Institute........
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From page 28... ...
The appropriation to the State Geological Survey is a lump sum, leaving considerable discretion to the chief of the survey, the act appropriating merely for scientific and technical staff in one item, and for clerks, stenographers, rodmen, messengers and extra help in another. The appropriation to the Natural History Survey is equally broad, one item dealing with entomologists and zoologists, one item with foresters and botanists and one item with clerks and stenographers.
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From page 29... ...
Such discretion is diminished to the extent that contingent funds are granted to a central executive controlling agency to be applied as it sees fit, or are omitted entirely. The practice in handling contingent funds in Illinois has not been wholly consistent, but on the whole seems to show a trend toward the elimination of contingency funds for divi
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From page 30... ...
Scientific unit Geological Survey.......... Natural History Survey.....
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From page 31... ...
The Code was intended, the opinion held, to embody the idea of supervision of expenditures, review of current business transactions, critical inspection of vouchers and documents, and determination of the legality and justness of claims against public funds. "As a matter of power, therefore, considered in the abstract, it is my judgment that the director of finance can question the expediency or propriety of any expenditure.
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From page 32... ...
Thus the governor may undertake a general policy of retrenchment and issue orders that not more than eighty per cent of the appropriation to each department may be expended. The machinery of the Illinois Code makes such an order easily enforcible.
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From page 33... ...
The executive veto strengthened by the item veto and the power to reduce items, and made practically absolute in many states by the requirement of twothirds of the legislature for repassage, has already made the governor the most important single policy -- ~naking officer. There is little difference so far as the interests of a scientific division are concerned between the veto of an item of appropriation at the outset, or the later reduction in the sum available through the voucher control of the director of finance.
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From page 34... ...
CENTRALIZED PURCHASING Centralized purchasing for the institutions now administered by the Department of Public Welfare has been the rule since 1909. In 1917 the Civil Code provided that the Department of Finance should have power to prescribe uniform rules governing specifications for the purchase of supplies, the advertisement for proposals, the opening of bids and the making of awards; to keep a catalogue of prices current and to analyze and tabulate prices paid and quantities purchased.
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From page 35... ...
The purchasing agent states that all requisitions that do not require an advertisement are handled on an average in four days, while requisitions that require an advertisement take ten days. The following quotation from the director of a scientific division seems to reflect the opinion of the professional stars: While there are some inconveniences and occasional delays resulting, and while our clerical work is greatly increased, these disadvantages are, in great part, counterbalanced by the better prices which a general purchasing agent can get because of the bunching of requisitions in much larger orders than we should make separately.
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From page 36... ...
The Efficiency and Economy Commission reported in 1915 that "the law relating to state contracts for printing, binding, stationery, and fuel prescribes a highly complicated series of arrangements, in which duties and responsibilities are distributed between the governor, secretary of state, state Board of Contracts, and printer expert; while many details are definitely specified in the law, and at the same time no provision is made for some important matters. As a result, no single authority can be held clearly responsible for mistakes or inefficient methods." - Finally in 1915 a comprehensive statute was enactedi3 which, prior to the Civil Code, established ~ considerable degree of central control.
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From page 37... ...
The printing allotments to the scientific divisions in Illinois for recent years are shown in Table V, on the following page.~4 To appropriation is made for the Institute for Juvenile Research, this being taken care of by the appropriation made for the Division of Criminologist. No appropriation is shown for the Division of Criminologist for the years 1919-21 because this division did not 't These figures were furnished by the superintendent of printing.
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From page 38... ...
00 1 ,060.00 1, 060. 00 Inquiry among the heads of scientific divisions revealed some dissatisfaction with the delay involved in sending requisitions through the rather circuitous route which they are required to travel.
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From page 39... ...
It must always be borne in mind that the root of many difficulties in the prosecution of scientific work under public auspices is lack of adequate funds. If the operation of the budget system in Illinois had tended to depress the funds available, the Civil Code would properly be charged with making the conduct of scientific investigation snore hazardous; but such is not the case.
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From page 40... ...
The testimony of the heads of the scientific divisions, however, does not indicate that these difficulties are met with to any substantial degree. In so far as the Illinois Code transfers the power to decide, within an appropriation, what scientific investigations shall be permitted, or what scientific apparatus or supplies are needed, or what scientific results are worthy of publication, the author feels that this central financial control has overshot the mark.
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From page 41... ...
6~68, Woodward, Charles E., The Illinois Civil Administrative Code, in VIII Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science pp. 7-17; Dodd, Walter F
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