He investigates all items,
ascertains the reasons for any increases that are asked, and
fixes the sums he deems proper. Also, he estimates what the
State revenues during the next biennium will be and prunes the
budget to come within the total of expected revenues. The budget
as prepared by the commissioner is submitted to the Governor,
who frequently makes changes of his own after advising with
department heads.
The Governor then presents the budget to the Legislature, which
refers it to the finance committees of the two houses. The
committees, and, in turn, the Legislature, have full authority
to make any alterations, increases or decreases, desired, but
the spellbinding by department representatives and wire-pulling
by lobbyists are reduced to a minimum because the Budget
Commissioner sits as the agent of the Governor at all sessions
of the finance committees and at all times is prepared to defend
the allowance he thinks a department should have.
The first budgetary appropriation bill repealed an existing
appropriation law. It reduced appropriations aggregating
$9,709,288 to $8,762,664, a saving of $946,624. Since that time
the Ohio budget system has effected savings of millions, not, of
course, in the sense that expenditures of the State government
now are less than in 1913--for they have increased as
governmental activities have enlarged--but in the sense that
expenditures each year have been vastly less than they would
have been without the budget plan of pruning and scaling down
demands of existing State departments with a view both to
general economy and avoidance of deficits.
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