State Control of Charities and Corrections 25 



EXPERIENCES OF MINNESOTA BOARD OF CONTROL 



Minnesota had the advantages of an advisory board of state 

 charities' for nineteen years from 1883, and during most of this 

 period Dr. H. H. Hart served as the efficient secretary. Under 

 his leadership thirty important recommendations were made by 

 the board to the jMinnesota legislature, twenty of which were 

 adopted and became law. The people of that state tested the 

 value of an advisory board under the most favorable circum- 

 stances, having the leadership of a secretary of extraordinary 

 ability. It Avas generally recognized that the board was a great 

 advance over the old system of no state supervision, but another 

 step in advance of this was required. In 1901" popular senti- 

 ment demanded a State Board of Control, which was created 

 bv the legislature of that year. This Board of Control took 

 hold of the business problems connected with the state institutions 

 and found them in very imsatisfactory shape. 



INVENTORIES 



As directed by law, they took inventories of all the state's prop- 

 erty, and found that in the past these inventories had existed only 

 in name. While attempts at inventories had in some instances 

 been made, they were so incomplete and inexact and so little use 

 was made of them that it can truthfully be said they were of no 

 practical value to the state. At the close of their first year's ex- 

 perience, the Board of Control reported : "There were plenty of 

 accounts showing that millions of dollars' worth of goods had 

 been received, but what had become of them was largely left to 

 conjecture. The lack of inventories, the unbusiness-like manner 

 in which the accounts at many of the institutions were kept and 

 the business transacted, opened ways for systematic and extensive 

 frauds which, had they been utilized, would have resulted in 

 great loss to the state. On account of the manner in which the 

 business was transacted and the accounts kept, it is impossible 

 to determine whether this has been the case. It is but fair to 

 say that the superintendents of the several institutions referred 

 to were in no way responsible for the conditions mentioned. 



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