Municipal research to promote the application of scientific principles to government Volume 84-88

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 Excerpt: ...taxpayers reduced by some $3,000,000. A constitutional amendment should be presented to the people provided the opinion prevails that this result cannot be accomplished by legislation 3--The development of a work program is necessary. This should contain more than a list of construction items or of personnel. It should tell the citizens in plain language what the state plans to do with the money requested during the next year in every department and institution. As aids to intelligent judgment it should include the per capita costs of institutional care and unit costs of work done and proposed 4--The extremely itemized form of appropriation should be abandoned. Appropriation requests should be itemized and the expenditures authorized should be subject to controlling itemized schedules, but some discretion should be allowed to administrative officers in spending in order to encourage economical management instead of preventing it 5--The "blind spot" in appropriations for construction should be eliminated by showing how much has already been authorized, appropriated and expended on every project 6--The threefold collection by the governor, comptroller and legislative committees of requests for appropriations should be discontinued and the three bulky and expensive volumes of "Requests for Appropriations" should be consolidated into one 7--The law which requires the comptroller to collect, compile and publish the requests for appropriations should be repealed 8--A system of uniform accounting for all departments and institutions should be established. Without it, appropriations cannot be intelligently compared. It is understood that such a system is planned by the comptroller 9--The standardization of the civil service of the state should b...