Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1930 [PAGE 424]

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U N I V E R S I T Y O F ILLINOIS

421

proper duty to concern itself with all specific items of purchase, or with all the details of administration. O n September 13, 1892, the Board seemingly approved a compilation of by-laws which appears on pages 41-44 of the Report for 1894. All prior by-laws were repealed and two hundred copies of the compilation ordered printed. Article X deals with the "business agent," whose powers and duties later devolved on the Comptroller and the Purchasing Agent. Section 1 of this article ends with this proviso: "Provided, also that all purchases mustfirstbe authorized by the trustees." Thus, what the policy was in September, 1892, when the enrollment was about 714 and the annual appropriation for "taxes, salaries, repairs, and improvements" was about $64,100, is not open to question. All purchases, except in cases of "necessity" and then only up to $50 in amount, were required to have the advance approval of the Board. O n December 12, 1907, Report of 1908, p. 414, a committee on revision of the by-laws and the statutes was named. It reported on December 8, 1908, pp. 21 and 53, Report of 1910. Its report was "accepted and adopted." The Comptroller, Chief Clerk and Purchasing Agent displace the old business manager, and the powers and duties of the former are defined in new and materially different terms. The institution was growing and requirements which sufficed early in its history were fast becoming clumsy, impracticable, or obsolescent. There also appears, for the first time apparently, the official declaration by the Board concerning its true function, which I have set forth supra. While such a declaration might not be conclusive in all circumstances, it is important in connection with an attempt to interpret the language of the statutes and by-laws so as to give effect to the intent and purpose thereof. In the revision of 1908 the specific prohibition of the proviso, supra, is dropped and there is introduced the method which has been substantially followed since concerning the purchase of equipment, etc. N o expenditures were permissible "except on the authority of the Board"; in an emergency the President and the business manager might concurrently expend not to exceed $350 without prior authorization by the Board; all purchases must be made by the Purchasing Agent, except when "other persons or committees" were given authority by the Board; and the Comptroller was given general charge of the business operations of the University. W e now come to section 34 (d), p. 63, Report of 1910, which, unless it has since been repealed, and of this no affirmative evidence has been found, seems to contain the answer to both questions propounded in your letter. Broadly, it provides that the Purchasing Agent shall make no purchase "unless the records of the Board show that the purchase has been authorized and that the money for payment thereof has been appropriated"; but an order for the purchase of "furniture, apparatus, or equipment" m a y be made by the Purchasing Agent without specific authorization in advance in all cases where an appropriation has been made by the Board and when such purchase has the approval of the President. Sections 34, p. 63, and 37, p. 66, Report of 1910. Section 37 on page 66, Report of 1910, provides that the duties of the business manager shall thereafter be performed by the Comptroller, the Chief Clerk, and the Purchasing Agent. It is true that not all of the foregoing appears clearly in the pamphlet to which I a m referred and which is labeled, "Extracts from the Laws of the Board of Trustees," dated December, 1926. In the first place, the pamphlet purports to be merely extracts, and not a complete compilation of the by-laws and statutes; and, in the second place, I do not deem myself bound to accept these "Extracts" as the complete and exclusive evidence of all the laws and statutes. The authorization for the publication of the "Extracts" appears on page 299, Report of 1924, and calls for a compilation. There has been no new or reenactment of these "Extracts" so as to make them the sole evidence of the governing rules. There is not complete clarity in the statutes, nor does it appear that they have in all things been enacted as a unit. T o illustrate, subsection (c) of section 34, page 63, of the do 1910, thehas not 37,reversethe thefar as make purchases of specific articles cluding ofnotand supra, says,beenpage 66, of the same report. what subject.inAthe conComptroller deem ofPurchasing torepealed power to I can ascertain,is said upon the ReportBoard whichit section in Agent order, consideration of this confers by-law I paragraph necessary prolong as almost exactly