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Indiana University Studies 



rather than on any careful comparative study as to actual re- 

 sults accomplished by existing boards. That finances can be 

 successfully divorced from the general administration of insti- 

 tutions is a proposition that needs to be further established. 

 Certain experiences in the past have not been favorable to that 

 theory. In Minnesota in 1901 the State Board of Control was 

 given financial control over the affairs of the State educational 

 institutions, with the result that the educational institutions 

 protested and refused to permit such action. The case was 

 taken to the courts and the statute upheld, but at the next 

 session the legislature decided to limit the powers of the board 

 in that regard. The experience of Rhode Island has certainly 

 not been favorable. Finances are so vitally interwoven in all 

 the action of administration that the result has been protest 

 and conflict thruout. 



Two States which have recently experimented with a cen- 

 tral purchasing agency have abandoned it and adopted a 

 administrative board, which exercises all administrative pow- 

 ers and does not attempt to control institutions purely thru 

 finances. These State are Oregon and New Hampshire. 

 In 1911 Oregon created a State Purchasing Board. In 1913 

 this was abolished and the Oregon State Board of Control 

 was established in its stead. As the personnel of the two 

 boards was the same, the change was entirely one 

 of system, the experience of Oregon in two years 

 evidently being that a board with fiscal power only was 

 inferior to a general administrative board. In New Hamp- 

 shire the change was primarily one of personnel — to take 

 the administrative side of State institutions out of politics. 

 In 1913 a Board of Control was created, consisting of ''two 

 capable persons" together with the governor, secretary of 

 State, and the State purchasing agent. The latter officer 

 was created by the act. The change in 1915 was from this 

 politically composed board to a central nonpaid ''board of trus- 

 tees". The idea of a central purchasing agent was continued 

 but he was made the employee of the board rather than an inde- 

 pendent member, and another official styled Business Mana- 

 ger was also established under the control of the board. Thus 

 what little experience there is available indicates that a central 

 purchasing agency with purely fiscal powers is not as satisfac- 



See Providence (R. I.) Sunday Tribune, May 9, 1915. 



