Editor’s Note: As we face huge deficits and proposals to restructure government, understanding how Rhode Island arrived at its current government organization, financing and services is important. This is the third part of a five-part series by Kenneth Payne on how we got to where we are.

The initial results of the 1934 elections were disappointing to the Democrats, who had made a concerted effort to wrest control of the General Assembly. Theodore Francis Green was reelected governor, and Robert Quinn, of West Warwick, was returned as lieutenant governor. The Democrats gained the majority in the House. However, the Republican-controlled Returning Board gave election results that provided the Republicans a majority, 23-19, in the Senate. Democratic leaders suspected fraud. A recount of ballots in Coventry gave the Senate seat in that town to the Democrats, making the Republican majority 22 to 20 Democrats.

If this result had held, reform of Rhode Island government would remain difficult because the Republicans had retained their Senate citadel. This was a powerful position: all legislation had to be approved by the Senate, as well as the House, and all but a very few gubernatorial appointments had to be approved by the Senate, and if not approved by the Senate, appointments could be filled, under the Brayton Act, by a person elected by the Senate. Secretly, the Democrats plotted.

The General Assembly convened on Jan. 1, 1935. Lt. Gov. Quinn presided in the Senate. Upon his call to order, the Secretary of State swore in the members. Quinn announced that protests had been received regarding the elections in Portsmouth and South Kingstown. This resulted in the body being evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, at 20-20, and in the event of a tie, Quinn could cast the deciding vote.

By voice vote, a resolution was quickly passed in the Senate providing for a new count by the Senate of the ballots in the contested elections — on the recount Democrats were determined to have won.

Next, the General Assembly approved an act terminating the sheriff of Providence County and providing for the election of a new sheriff by grand committee. Then General Assembly approved a joint resolution “declaring vacant the places of the chief justice and the associate justices of the supreme court.” The joint resolution granted each justice so terminated a pension.

In Grand Committee, the General Assembly elected a new sheriff for Providence County and a new chief justice of the Supreme Court and four new associate justices of the court. Three of the new justices were Democrats, the first to be elected to the court in more than 60 years (Walter S. Burges, a Democrat, was elected to the court in 1868 and served until 1881), and two were Republicans.

Three acts were then approved to reorganize state government. S-4 eliminated the General Assembly-controlled Board of Public Safety for the City of Providence and provided a temporary appointment by the governor of a director of public safety for the city. S-5 established the office of the state budget director and comptroller, who would serve at the pleasure of the governor, and repealed the act that had created the office of the state commissioner of finance. Finally, the General Assembly approved S-6, which provided that “all of the powers and duties now vested in the several state boards, bureaus, commissions, and other administrative agencies shall be vested in” 11 departments: 1) the Executive Department (headed by the governor), 2) the Department of State (headed by the secretary of state), 3) Department of Attorney General (headed by the Attorney General), 4) the Office of General Treasurer (headed by the general treasurer), 5) the Department of Public Welfare, 6) the Department of Public Works, 7) the Department of Taxation and Regulation, 8) the Department of Education, 9) the Department of Labor, 10) the Department of Agriculture and Conservation, and 11) the Department of Public Health.

The last seven of these departments were to be headed by directors, who would be appointed by the governor and subject to the advice and consent of the Senate, with the explicit provisos that in “no case shall the senate have power to elect or substitute for any appointment of the governor” and that when the Senate was not in session the governor would have full power appointment of interim directors. The notorious Brayton Act was gone. Powers and duties were taken from boards and commissions and placed in state departments. In a single day, the old system of state government controlled by the General Assembly, particularly the Senate, had been swept away.

The transition to an administrative state would take a decade and a half to complete. The process had three phases: first, that of establishing a basic structure of state government — this would be accomplished in 1935; second, that of assigning functions within that structure, which would be accomplished in 1939; and third, that of making the structure, with functions, operationally efficient.

Establishing a New Structure: The Act of Jan. 1, which authorized departmental government and provided for the transfer of functions from boards and commissions into the departments, was primarily an outline. It provided only the name of the department, a list of statutory divisions within each department, and specified that department directors were to be appointed by the governor. The real work of fleshing a coherent executive branch was accomplished in two parts on May 31 and June 1; the first was the state budget for fiscal 1936; the second was the “Administrative Code Act” (Public Laws of 1935 Chapter 2250), which set forth how state government would work.

In the seven departments headed by appointed directors, the department directors could appoint the chiefs of the divisions, and division chiefs could “appoint all necessary subordinate employees in his division, who shall serve at his pleasure.” Any board, bureau or commission not consolidated by the act into one of the departments of state government would be “placed under such department as the general assembly may designate.”

The executive department, headed by the governor, included a budget director and controller, who under “the supervision of the governor” would prepare the annual state budget. Departments would submit their budget request to the budget director by Oct. 15, and the governor would submit the budget to the General Assembly on or before Jan. 15; except when first elected, the governor would have until Feb. 1 to submit the budget. The budget would contain “a complete plan of estimated revenues and proposed expenditures for the next fiscal year.”

The General Assembly could amend the governor’s budget, “provided, however, that no action on its part shall be taken which will cause an excess of appropriations for revenue expenditures over expected revenue receipts. If additional appropriations are deemed necessary by the General Assembly it shall not make such appropriations unless it shall provide the additional revenue therefore.”

The administrative provides a sweeping panorama of state government design and is elegant in its clarity. To give a feel for it, here are several provisions describing the position of the budget director and comptroller.

“Clause H. All revenues of the state, with the exceptions of funds either exempted in the constitution or held in trust, shall be credited to the general fund, subject to appropriations for all operating expenditures of the state.

“Clause I. All unexpended or unencumbered balances of said revenues appropriations, whether regular or special appropriations, at the end of any fiscal year shall revert to the surplus account of the general fund, and may on the recommendation of the governor be reappropriated in the ensuing fiscal year and made immediately available for the same purposes as the former appropriations.

“Clause J. At any time during the fiscal year upon notification by the state budget director and comptroller that it is indicated that actual revenue receipts will not equal the original estimates upon which appropriations were based, the governor for the purposes of maintaining a balanced budget shall have the power to reduce or suspend appropriations for any or all departments or subdivisions thereof.”

The new Federalism: Before the New Deal, federal and state government shared few functions. In Rhode Island there were the land grant college and agriculture experiment station in Kingston, support of veterans, and federal highway aid. Federalism until the New Deal functioned on the premise that federal and state government had distinct and largely discreet spheres of activity. This system has become known as dual federalism.

Roosevelt’s New Deal had a different premise. Instead of considering the areas of interest of federal and state government as distinct, it proceeded on the idea that the interests of government were shared and federal and state government should cooperate. The rise and decline shaped of cooperative federalism shaped Rhode Island government for the balance of the 20th century.

The New Deal ushered in the practice of enacting state statutes and creating state programs both to take advantage of federal programs and to comply with federal requirements. During Governor Green’s first term, the one before the “Bloodless Revolution,” New Deal responsive legislation bills included “emergency public works act,” an act enabling financial institutions to participate in the federal “Home Owners Loan Act of 1933, an act conferring additional powers on banks, and an act refining the state’s “Emergency Unemployment Act of 1933.”

The “National Industrial Recovery” program had provided three billion, three hundred million dollars “for public works projects of various sorts.” Green noted that the “the main purpose of this bill is not to save but to spend money…. The secondary purpose is to encourage the building of worthwhile public works.”

The Great Depression and New Deal transformed how relief was provided to the poor.

Before November 1931, relief of the poor of the community was a local responsibility.

November 1931, relief remains a local responsibility but state aid in the form of loans is supplied with state oversight.

February 1933, relief is state supported and locally administered, subject to state regulations.

June 1933, relief is aided by the federal government, subject to state control, with local implementation.

In 1935, the governor produced and the General Assembly approved a broad array of New Deal responsive legislation, including: old age security, state planning, housing authorities, park improvements, public building construction, and forest land preservation, and public employment offices.

In 1936, the state accepted the provisions of Title X of the Social Security Act, aid to the blind, and enacted unemployment compensation. In December, Governor Green, addressing the General Assembly for the last time, urged revisions to the state’s law pertaining to Aid to Dependent Children, which needed to be brought into conformity with federal requirements. He sought additional appropriations for roads and bridges and building a hangar at the state airport, where within the previous year, “concrete runways, a modern system of lighting, a radio beam for the guidance of aviators in inclement weather, radio air traffic control for the same purpose, and a modern and efficient drainage system and other improvements,” had all been installed.

Recognizing Labor: Organized labor was a key New Deal constituency. While a modicum of legislation had been enacted during the Progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century to protect workers, the two-decade period, 1936 to 1956, gave labor a seat at the table. In 1935, the state accepted the federal Wagner-Peyser Act and established employment offices. In 1936, the General Assembly enacted the employment security-unemployment compensation system and placed restrictions on the use of injunctions in labor disputes, and regulated industrial home work. Temporary disability insurance was enacted in 1940; the labor relations act, which provides for fair labor practices, was adopted in 1941. After World War II came the fair employment practices act (1949) to check discrimination and a minimum wage law (1956).

Assigning Functions: With bitter conflict in the Democratic Party, William Vanderbilt, the Republican state senator from Portsmouth and proponent of reform, was elected governor in the 1938. His administration produced a basic change.

Two major acts were passed in the 1939 General Assembly session. First, the Administrative Act, and second, the State Civil Service Act; with these two acts, Rhode Island State had its basic modern form.

The Administrative Act of 1939 assigned functions in the departmental structure of state government, which in their essentials would remain in place for the rest of the 20th century. The act moved budget preparation, management and control functions from the governor’s office and placed them in a new Department of Coordination and Finance, and brought in taxation functions, which had been part of the 1935 Department of Taxation and Regulation. The Department of Coordination and Finance was the precursor to the current Department of Administration. The Act established position of the personnel budget examiner in the department of coordination and finance, whose duty was “to recommend to the budget officer the approval or disapproval of all requests for personnel … to investigate the need for every existing position in the state service.… The personnel budget examiner shall prepare an annual report concerning state personnel with regard to the necessity for existing positions. … [including] recommendations as to the most effective means of discontinuing unnecessary positions….” The report was to go through the director and was to be public. The act provided that “no new position shall be created and no vacancies filled in the state service until the budget officer has certified to the appointing authority concerned that such position is necessary for carrying out the work of the state in an efficient and businesslike manner” and until the necessary funds have been appropriated.

Regarding relations with the federal government, the 1939 Act provided, “no department or agency of the state shall enter into an agreement with a federal agency involving state funds without the approval of the director of coordination and finance or his duly authorized agents.”

For each of the departments of state government, other than those headed by a general officer, the 1939 Act provided such a description of the department’s basic functions. In this regard it was substantially different from the 1935 Act. The 1935 Act provided structural change; the 1939 Act assigned functions to appropriate places in the departmental structure.

The State Civil Service Act was the second major accomplishment of the Vanderbilt administration. The hiring system of the Administrative Code Act of 1935 was open to political control. Battles over appointments and patronage had been bitter.

The State Civil Service Act had as its explicit purposes “to guarantee to all citizens a fair and equal opportunity for public service; to establish conditions for service which will attract officers and employees of character and capacity and to increase the efficiency of the governmental departments and agencies by the improvement of methods of personnel administration.”

Employment in the classified service was to be based on performance on competitive tests, which were to be “designed to determine fairly the capacity of the persons examined to perform the duties of the positions in the class” and to take “into consideration elements of character, education, aptitude, experience, knowledge, skill, personality, physical fitness, and other pertinent matters, and may be written, oral, or physical, or in the form of demonstration of skill or any combination of such types…”

Political activity by members of the classified service was restricted.

Pursuing Efficiency: The Democrats returned to power in the 1940 elections. J. Howard McGrath was elected governor. In Providence, a new charter had been approved that centralized administrative authority in the office of the mayor, organized city government into departments, and replaced the 1830s board of aldermen and a common council with a single city council; Dennis J. Roberts was elected mayor.

In 1941, the General Assembly authorized the governor to appoint a Special Commission to Study the Financial Problems of the State Government and the Municipalities of the State. Reporting in January 1942, the commission found among other things that “many municipalities have incurred deficits during the past 10 years largely because of unemployment relief” and that the “the problem is of such magnitude” that they could not cope with it without overburdening property tax payers. The commission recommended greater assistance from the state and proposed incremental adjustments in a broad array of state revenue measures. The result was a comprehensive piece of tax legislation to support further assumption of relief costs by the state.

The report in 1945 proposed a state sales tax, noting that West Virginia in 1921 was the first state to adopt one and that 23 states had enacted the tax.

The effort to sort through what services should be supported by state and local government was pushed further under Governor Pastore, who secured creation of a commission to “Reexamine the Field of Government Operations, the Cost of Government Services, and the Tax Structure of the State.” The governor had stated in his budget address that the “expansion of the functions and cost of government at local, state, and federal levels, particularly during the past fifteen (15) years, and the proposals for even greater expansion in the immediate future” justify “a complete reexamination of the whole field of government operations in our state.”

The commission did substantial work, making important findings in the areas of budgeting, federal relations, personnel administration, public assistance and most significantly education. About personnel the commission observed that “one of the most important problems facing government today is the problem of personnel. Since government agencies function as service agencies, the quality and efficiency of the personnel employed has a direct bearing on the type and value of services rendered.”

Regarding education, the commission recommended a new system of school aid, noting that the current appropriation for school aid was “approximately $650,000 for 11 different programs. The amount received by the communities varies from $2.56 in Providence to $143 in Exeter per pupil. We do not believe that this disparity should continue to exist.” The commission recommended that each community get a flat grant of $10,000 plus $30 per pupil.

In May 1947, the General Assembly enacted another extensive revision to the state’s tax laws — this time a sales tax of one percent was included, and described as a “necessity” to “assure the maintenance of proper educational standards in the public schools” and to provide “for additional state aid to the several cities and towns, now confronted with financial crisis.”

At the conclusion of Governor Pastore’s second term in 1950, government was different from what it had been 20 years before. In 1930, state government was an assemblage of boards and commissions, the governor had almost no power, the General Assembly controlled appointments, local governments were dominant in terms of size, and the federal government was barely a presence. In 1950, state government was made up of departments responsible to the governor, a civil service system was in place, the state’s role in service delivery had expanded, state assistance to localities had increased, and the federal government was the dominant partner. There had been a paradigm shift.

Kenneth F. Payne is principal of Systems Aesthetics LLC and adjunct professor of marine affairs and senior policy adviser to the College of Environment and Life Sciences at the University of Rhode Island. He has held policy positions in state, federal and local government.