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Indiana University Studies 



in a reduction of the * 'overhead charges", which would mean 

 a. considerable saving. Ten or fifteen separate State institu- 

 tions could not be run as cheaply when entirely separate in 

 financial management as when consolidated under a single 

 central board/" The existing method was exceedingly waste- 

 ful. Each institution bought for itself what supplies it needed. 

 If one agency could control purchases, buy in large quantities 

 for all State institutions and purchase by contracts after com- 

 petitive bidding, a great saving could be made in the prices 

 paid and thousands of dollars could be saved for the State. 

 The existing boards of charities did not emphasize the finan- 

 cial side at all. A central board of control which should have 

 full powers of administration over all the State institutions 

 could eliminate methods of purchasing which were wasteful if 

 not criminal, and could secure better prices, could keep the 

 superintendents to stricter account by prescribing uniform 

 methods of accounting and by forcing the heads of institutions 

 to secure their supplies thru a central board by means of a 

 strict estimate system over which the board would have full 

 control. The board would also appoint the superintendents 

 and fix salaries. 



Moreover, a board of paid members who devoted their 

 whole time to the work would be able to exercise far more 

 careful supervision over the affairs of the institutions than a 

 board which was not paid, and whose members were concerned 

 primarily in other affairs. Such a board, the advocates of 

 the administrative board held, would possess all the virtues 

 of the supervisory board : it could inspect and investigate the 

 institutions as the other board had done; it would stand for 

 fiscal efficiency in addition to all that the supervisory board 

 had stood for. This is essentially what the administrative 

 board has always held.*^^ It would really be a consolidation of 

 the existing boards of trustees administering the institutions 

 and the supervisory board with all the advantages of each, 

 but in addition would bring about proper financial methods 

 and administration with a resulting financial saving to the 

 State. 



*^ It is at this point that the lack of accurate information on the whole subject of 

 State administration and supervision is felt. The only comparative investigation on the 

 subject, the report of Mr. Wright elsewhere referred to, contradicts this idea. See p. 31. 



See National Conference of Charities and Corrections Proceedings, 1895, pp. 37-43 ; 

 1889. pp. 97, 98. 



