VII.

LACK OF COORDINATION AND OVERLAPPING OF

FUNCTIONS.

In this chapter attention is called to several of the more important cases in which there is lack of co-ordination; largely because with respect to the same matter, powers have by statute been conferred upon statutory officers and also upon executive officers created by the constitution. The matter here dealt with becomes of importance to the constitutional convention, because a better coordination of functions may require not merely a change in statutory powers but also a change in the status of constitutional officers now exercising such statutory powers. The discussion of overlapping functions does not seek to be complete, and does not cover at all instances of overlapping which relate to purely statutory officers, such as those with respect to public health administration, and with respect to agriculture (the latter due in large part to the peculiar status of the Farmers' Institute).

Finance Administration. State finance administration is distributed between a number of elective officers and appointive boards without concentrated responsibility. Various state departments have duties of some importance in this field, including the Governor, the auditor of public accounts, the treasurer, the tax commission, the finance department, the secretary of state (as receiver of corporation fees and automobile licenses), the attorney general (in supervising the inheritance tax), the department of trade and commerce (as receiver of insurance fees and taxes), the tax levy board, the court of claims, and the state depository board. Some auditing powers are vested in the civil service commission through its control of state employes, and in the department of public works and buildings, through its power over state contracts, and supervision of purchasing.

The procedure necessary in the payment of salaries of state employes under the Civil Administrative Code will illustrate the working of some of the components of this financial system. A monthly payroll is sent by the department issuing it to the civil service commission for its certification that none of the employes are employed in violation of the provisions of the civil service act. It is then sent to the department of finance, where it must be audited and approved. The department of finance sends it to the auditor, who again ascertains that the payments therein specified are authorized by the appropriation act, a repetition of the work of the department of finance. The auditor then issues warrants on the treasurer for the payment of the employes. In case a contract, or purchase of supplies, is involved, instead of personal services, the voucher issued by the department incurring the

liability must also be approved by the department of public works and buildings. Every payment of money from the state treasury by a department under the Civil Administrative Code involves this cumbersome financial procedure.

The constitution seems to designate the auditor as the chief financial officer of the state, but in fact he exercises no further power than to see that no money is paid out of the state treasury without authority of law. Statutes have directly conferred powers of financial control on other state officials. The Governor for instance, under the charter granted the Illinois Central Railroad, is given the power to pass upon the correctness of the accounts of the railroad in order to determine the amount of the 7% gross receipts tax due to the state.1

Most of the statutes creating the departments outside of the Civil Administrative Code provide that vouchers for expenditures must be approved by the Governor, and the approval of these vouchers has been delegated by the Governor to an administrative auditor in the department of finance.

The function of the department of finance is to provide a centralized control of the expenditures of all departments subject to the Governor and to prepare a state budget. The court of claims is given the power to adjudicate claims against the state, but their adjudication is in effect merely a recommendation to the General Assembly, which must make the necessary appropriations before claims are paid. The treasurer must open the bids for the deposit of state moneys in the presence of the auditor and the director of finance, but the power to pass on such bids is in the treasurer alone.

The administration of the revenues of the state (as distinguished from its expenditures), is vested in the following departments and officials: the tax commission, the tax levy board, the department of trade and commerce (insurance fees), the attorney general (inheritance tax), the secretary of state (corporation and automobile fees). The last two officers mentioned are not responsible to the Governor, and his supervision over revenue collection is incomplete.

The reorganization plan of the New York State Reconstruction Commission makes an effort to keep the auditing functions separate from other financial agencies. It proposes the organization of a department of audit and control, whose head is to be a comptroller elected for the same term as the Governor, and a department of taxation and finance under the proposed organization. The latter department is to be divided into five bureaus :

Bureau of taxation and revenue;

Bureau of the treasury (whose head should be an appointed state. treasurer);

Bureau of motor vehicles;

Bureau of purchasing;

Bureau of administration.2

1 For a discussion of the extent of this power, see State v. I. C. Railroad Co., 246 Ill. 188 (1910).

2 New York state reconstruction commission. Draft of summary of report on retrenchment and reorganization in the state government, 1919, pp. 15-17,

Educational agencies. The public elementary and secondary schools of Illinois are primarily directed by local authorities, under the provisions of state laws, with a limited supervision by the state superintendent of public instruction. The normal schools and the University of Illinois are under state control. The government and management of the normal schools is vested in a normal school board in the department of registration and education. This board consists of nine officers appointed by the Governor, together with the director of registration and education, who is ex-officio chairman, and the superintendent of public instruction, who is ex-officio secretary of the board. This board acts independently of the department of registration and education and the superintendent of public instruction has no control over it. The director of the department of registration and education, the chairman of this board, is the chief executive of a department of which this board is a part, and the heterogeneous activities of this department include the licensing of some twelve different professions, trades and occupations, and the management of the state museum, and various scientific surveys. We have the anomalous situation of the normal schools being managed by a board directly responsible to the Governor, and in actual operation, quite independent of the superintendent of public instruction, the nominal head of the school system. of the state.

The University of Illinois is under the control of a board of trustees consisting of the Governor, the director of the department of agriculture, the superintendent of public instruction and nine trustees, three elected every two years to serve for a six year term. The trustees are voted for on the same ballots with the state officers at the general election, that is, their election is partisan. Their nomination, however, is not by primary but by convention.

"The popular election of trustees tends to lengthen the state ballot where it should be shortened, and contains a possibility, at least, of injecting political considerations where they should not be allowed to

enter.

"A change in the method of electing the members of the board of trustees for the State University should be considered. Even if continued as a body chosen by popular election, the time and manner of election should be changed. In Michigan the regents of the State University and the trustees of the State Agricultural College are elected at the biennial April election for judges of the Supreme Court. The trustees of the University of Illinois might be elected at the time of the township and city elections in April; and provision made for nonpartisan nominations for those positions.

"In most of the states the board of trustees or managing board for the state university is appointed by the Governor, usually with the consent of the Senate; and the adoption of this method should also be taken into consideration."3

3 Mathews, J. M.. A Report on educational administration. In the Report of the Efficiency and Economy Committee of Illinois, pp. 427-428.

In the department of registration and education there are also the following scientific surveys; the natural history survey, the water survey, the geological survey, and the entomological survey, and the board of natural resources and conservation advisers. This department also has control of the state museum. The board of trustees of the State University has established an agricultural experiment station and an engineering experiment station. These experiment stations are supported out of the regular university funds, and the agricultural experiment station receives some funds from the United States. A cooperative investigation of coal mining problems has been established by agreement between the geological survey division, the University department of mining engineering, and the United States Bureau of Mines. Concerning organization of these surveys before the enactment of the Civil Administrative Code, the report of the efficiency and economp committee contains this statement:

"There seems to be room for improvement in the administrative organization of the state's scientific services, by placing them under the same general supervision. This may be done either by placing them under the university board of trustees, as is now the case with the water survey and the natural history laboratory, or by establishing a commission on natural resources in place of and similar to the present State Geololgical Commission."

No question of reorganization presents more difficulties than that of the libraries. The state of Illinois maintains the following libraries. in Springfield; the state library, the library extension commission library, the law library, state museum library, and the legislative reference bureau library. Outside of Springfield there are libraries maintained in connection with the university, state normal schools, various charitable and penal institutions, the appellate courts. The office of the superintendent of public instruction, and the office of the public utilities commission and other departments and commissions in Springfield also maintain small libraries. In any reorganization or consolidation of these libraries the state law library, because of its close relation to the Supreme Court, is likely to remain an independent agency. The primary function of the legislative reference bureau is that of bill drafting and furnishing information to members of the General Assembly, and the maintenance of a library is merely incidental to these functions. The historical library has a distinct function with reference to its research and publication work. However, it is undoubtedly true that there is duplication in the work of these libraries and a general lack of coordination of their activities.

The Governor is charman of the legislative reference bureau, and the state museum library being under the code, he has direct control of it. The Governor is ex-officio a member of the board of commissioners which nominally controls the state library and the library extension commission. The secretary of state, however, being ex-officio state librarian and chairman of the library extension commission is the actual force in the management of these libraries. The superin

Ibid., p. 477.

tendent of public instruction, to whose work the library management is most germane, like the Governor, is ex-officio a member of the board of commissioners of the state library.

From this outline it may be seen that there are important questions in library administration to be solved in this state, and many difficulties in the way of their solution. In this connection the plan of organization of the state libraries in New York and Indiana as a branch of their educational system is interesting. The law library, however, in New York, and the legislative reference bureau in Indiana are under separate management. Ohio, Texas and California have appointive library boards, and the state libraries under their jurisdiction include all or at least the most important library services. In many of the states there are separate authorities for different phases of library work as in Illinois.5

The vocational education board is a separate board of which the superintendent of public instruction, and the director of the department of registration and education, are ex-officio members. This completes the enumeration of the agencies whose work is educational in character.

The main problem for the consideration of a constitutional convention concerning these agencies is in connection with the framing of provisions concerning the office of superintendent of public instruction. The report of the educational commission (1907) and the report of the Efficiency and Economy Committee (1915), both recommended the creation of a state board of education and the strengthening of the power of the superintendent of public instruction. We have discussed the suggestion of making him an appointive officer in the preceding chapter.

The United States Bureau of Education, in a recent bulletin, contains the following discussion concerning state educational organization:

"Modern educational development is toward the state board of education as the administrative head of the state's educational system. Thirty-seven states leave the entire direction of the public school system to such boards. Several states have no such state boards; in several others, boards have been organized since the passage of the SmithHughes act to administer the funds provided under this act; and in others again the state boards of education administer only the higher educational institutions, as the university, agricultural college and normal schools.

"Of the thirty-seven states with state boards of education, eight have ex-officio boards, which usually comprise the Governor, the superintendent of public instruction and one or more other state officials such as secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, auditor, etc. Of the 28 states, with appointed state boards, 22 leave the appointment to the Governor subject, in most cases, to approval of the state Senate; four states leave the selection of the boards to the state legislature; one state

Mathews, J. M. A report on educational administration. In the Report of the Efficiency and Economy Committee of Illinois. Pp. 456-464 contain a discussion of state library administration.