gotten that the establishment of a budget system does not mean that the arrangement is entirely satisfactory. Budgets must vary with different needs and circumstances, and yet the essentials are everywhere the same. These essentials Professor Frederick A. Cleveland, one of the leaders of budget reform in this country, describes as follows: essentials of a budget. Whatever else a budget is or is not, it must have these essentials: The two (1) It must be a definite plan or proposal for financing the present and future needs of the state; and (2) it must be submitted to a legislative body by an officer who may be held responsible for the wisdom or unwisdom of its proposals, i.e. it must serve as an instrument through which both executive and legislative responsibilities to the electorate may be located and enforced.. should As it is of much importance that there be no question, in this dis- A budget cussion, with respect to what is meant by a budget, I shall be still contain more concrete and attempt to state what the bundle or bag full of papers referred to should be and contain. 1. A budget should contain a summary statement, in the simplest possible terms, setting forth a proposed plan for financing next year's requirements; and this statement should balance prospective resources against estimates and requests for expenditures. 2. A budget should be an instrument of accountability - a statement prepared by a responsible executive or administrative officer showing present financial conditions and past results. 3. As an instrument of accountability and financial planning, a budget should contain (a) statements showing actual and estimated revenues and expenditures; (b) statements showing actual and estimated financial condition, surplus or deficit. a proposed plan of financing next year's requirements, information 4. Budget statements showing actual estimated revenues and adequate expenditures should provide all the information needed for considering concerning and determining executive recommendations, as well as legislative revenues and action, relative to money-raising policy; and executive recommenda- expenditures, tions, as well as legislative action, relative to money-spending policy. 5. The budget information pertaining to estimated expenditures should be such as to support and explain items in the appropriation bill, if one is presented with the budget, or, if not, to enable the proper authorities to draw such a bill. and a Development of city government after 1900. 6. Since the amount of money to be voted for payrolls, supplies, etc., must be governed by work to be done, the budget should contain a well-defined "work program”. setting forth what it is that the administration proposes to do with the supplies requested. 7. The "work program "set forth in a budget should be in two parts one which shows the necessary or proposed costs of rendering public service, and one which shows the proposed costs of making public improvements or betterments - i.e. current expenses and charges should be clearly distinguished from capital outlays. 8. A budget should be transmitted as a part of a speech or message or letter from the responsible officer who prepared the plan or program interpreting the significance of the statement and estimates to the legislative body which is asked to pass on it. . . . ... 217. Results of the commission plan of government 1 Turning now to the problem of honesty and efficiency in municiof new types pal government, it should be noted that there are three chief types of municipal government in this country: (a) the mayor-council plan, formerly universal and even now prevailing in most American cities; (b) the commission plan, first applied in 1900, by the city of Galveston, Texas; and (c) the city-manager plan, which is a modification of the commission plan. One of the clearest and most judicial summaries of the commission plan is that by Professor Munro, in which he discusses the results of commission government during the decade 1900-1910. He concludes as follows: Has commission government made good? When the agitation for the adoption of the commission plan took definite and forceful shape a half-dozen years ago, the sponsors of the scheme promised that it would bring about great improvement both in the personnel and in the work of city administration. How far have these promises been fulfilled? The experience that we have now put behind us is not extensive and varied enough to give an absolutely sure basis for broad generalization; yet the lapse of a decade has put some things to proof, and of these one may speak with reasonable assurance. 1 From the National Municipal Review, Vol. 1, No. 4, October, 1912. William Bennett Munro. "Ten Years of Commission Government"; pp. 563-568. which service has been In the first place, we were told at the outset that the commission Extent to plan would serve to install better men in municipal office. [As a matter of fact, about the same sort of men are connected with the public city administration as under the old mayor-council plan.] It can fairly be said, however, that while the change to commission govern- secured. ment has not revolutionized the type of official secured by the city, it has permitted men of the same calibre to achieve vastly better results. This it has done by the simplification of official machinery and by the concentration of responsibility in fewer hands. In a dozen or more cities the experience has been that a man who made a very ineffective alderman or councillor or administrative official under the old system of divided powers has succeeded in doing excellent work as a commissioner under the new frame of government. has not In the second place the sponsors of the commission plan assured Commission us some years ago that their scheme of urban administration would government secure a reduction in municipal expenditures. On the whole the reduced the commission form of government has failed to do anything of the cost of city kind. . . . government. It is likewise to be feared that a good many commission governed A fallacy. cities have allowed themselves, to be deluded into the idea that the mere establishment of the new framework of government sufficiently guarantees thorough improvements in the method of conducting public business. Some commission charters seem to have taken it for granted that any able-bodied citizen can be transformed into a municipal expert by the alchemy of a popular vote. Yet nothing can be plainer than the fact that a change from wasteful and slovenly to efficient business methods cannot be secured by the simple expedient of placing all responsibility in the hands of [a commission.] Commission charters have been too commonly deficient in the matter of definite provisions or expert advice. Their framers seem to forget that the chief responsibility for success or failure in the proper conduct of the city's affairs must rest not upon the commissioners themselves but upon the municipal officials whom they employ. . . . These are some of the shortcomings which the experience of a decade discloses in the actual operation of the commission plan. They are not of great importance and all are easily capable of remedy. On the other hand, the system of government by commission has, On the other hand, many benefits have resulted from commission government. Summary and conclusion. as its sponsors promised it would do, put an end to that intolerable scattering of powers and duties and responsibilities which the old type of administration promoted to the point of absurdity. It has not freed city administration from all good ground for criticism. No system. could do that, but it has brought things to such a pass that when administration is faulty there are definite shoulders upon which to lay the blame. . . . The plan has made possible the introduction of business methods in city administration, as the experience of at least a score of cities during the past half-dozen years amply proves. As is too frequently the practice of those who stand sponsors for reform, the advocates of commission government have been disposed to promise more than their plan can expect permanently to achieve. To hope that this or any other system will prove a self-executing instrument of civic righteousness is to avow an optimism which shows scant knowledge of man as a political being. But under the commission plan many cities have secured a frame of government which the average voter can understand; and a government that is to be responsible to the people must first of all be intelligible to them. Not least among the accomplishments of the commission movement has been the fact that it linked itself with and drew into operation a dozen features that have helped to secure improvement in various branches of municipal administration, such as nomination by open primaries, the short ballot, the abolition of the ward system, direct legislation, the recall, the merit system of appointment and promotion, publicity in all municipal business, modern methods of city accounting, and the concentration of responsibility for the improper expenditure of public money. As a protest against the old municipal régime it has been very effective; as a policy it has, despite its incidental shortcomings, fulfilled much of what its supporters claimed for it. 218. Training the city manager After 1914 the city manager form of municipal government was developed as a modification of the commission plan. Where the city 1 From the National Municipal Review, Vol. IX, No. 3, March, 1920. Chester C. Maxey, "The Training of City Managers"; pp. 144-145. obstacle to the success of the city manager form is applied, there is provision for a small elective com- A great mission, which chooses an experienced executive to manage the city in accordance with business principles. One great difficulty, however, has been the difficulty of finding properly qualified managers. Almost manager three-fourths of the city managers in the United States a few years ago were novices, yet the position demands a high degree of skill and preparation. In the following passage Mr. Chester C. Maxey discusses the need for training city managers: The fact is that the problems of public administration are unique and call for a unique training. plan is the scarcity of expert executives. What the city manager must know. The city manager in order to superintend the complex affairs of a large city must not only possess unusual executive ability, but must be acquainted with public finance and accounting, and must have a working knowledge, from the administrative standpoint, of all of the functional activities of a city government. Most city managers have had to acquire this full-rounded training and experience after taking office, and the consequences have not always been happy. But if a manager is not to secure his training after taking office Necessity of and at the expense of the taxpayers, he must have the advantage of preliminary training. education for his special task. Such education has been very difficult to secure, because most of the educational institutions which have offered courses preparing for city manager work have been unable to supplement their formal courses with practical experience. of Municipal In this particular, the training school for public service of the The New New York Bureau of Municipal Research is different. [This] is primarily a research organization and the members of its staff devote Research. themselves principally to scientific studies and investigations in the field of public administration. Having surveyed over 100 cities in all parts of the country, a half-dozen counties in various states, and two states, the bureau has accumulated a vast store of information about the methods and technique of public instruction in the United States and has evolved standards for their betterment. The training school for public servants is conducted as a supple- How it trains indimentary activity of the bureau in order that persons desiring to prepare themselves for public work may profit by the experience of public work. the bureau and come into contact with specialists. The method of instruction in the training school is unusual. While formal lectures viduals for |