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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 534 
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MADE BY BAKER-VAWTER CO.
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[[underlined]] Methods of payment. Elasticity in expenditure. [[/underlined]]

Expenditures from Congressional appropriations may only be made by the observation of a number of detailed rules established by the accounting officers of the Treasury, limiting amount of daily expenditure, etc. Expenditures from the Smithsonian funds, on the other hand, while surrounded by necessary safeguards by the administration officers, are not subject to these regulations, nor are they limited to an inadequate amount for daily expenditure by an individual. For example, subsistence for an individual traveling for the Government is limited by law to $5 per diem, so that when the members of the Commission on the National Gallery of Art are invited to come to Washington for necessary meetings their daily expenses up to $5 are paid from the appropriation for the maintenance of the Gallery, but as the Institution cannot properly request them to travel more cheaply than they would if on personal business, the excess over $5 is paid from the Smithsonian funds.

[[underlined]] Appointments. [[/underlined]]

By law, all appointments to positions paid from Government appropriations can only be made through the Civil Service Commission. Positions paid from the Smithsonian funds are not subject to Civil Service regulations, leaving to the Secretary the very desirable freedom of selection in filling positions in the Institution, which often require peculiar qualifications on the part of the appointee not easily obtained through regular Civil Service channels.

[[underlined]] Uncertainty. [[/underlined]]

The annual bringing up of the payment of the Smithsonian interest along with the estimates in the regular supply bills for the Government branches under the Institution, makes for instability and uncertainty, and is likely to give rise to many suggestions on the part of individual members of the Committee as to change in the rate of interest or anything else that might occur to them.

[[underlined]] Necessity of explanation. [[/underlined]]

The bringing up of the subject of the annual appropriation in connection with the estimates, furthermore, would require a detailed explanation of the whole history of the endowment of the Institution each year or whenever there was a new, or changes in the, committee on appropriations, which would involve an element of uncertainty in the Institution's finances and make them somewhat dependent upon the mind of each succeeding Appropriation Committee, which may be, more or less, influenced by the views of an individual member.

[[initialed]] CDW [[/initialed]]