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THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENT

THE CIVIL ADMINISTRATIVE CODE

     The constitution of 1875 provided for eight executive officers and the board of university regents. Section 26 of Article V of that constitution expressly forbade the creation of any other executive offices. In process of time new functions of government were assumed and the prohibition of the constitution was evaded by the creation of various boards and commissions having for their nominal head one or more of the constitutional state officers while the real work was done by deputies. In 1915 a bill was passed for an efficiency survey of state offices, appropriating $4,000 for such survey. The bill was vetoed by Governor John H. Morehead on the ground that the state board of control, the legislative reference bureau and the state accountant could do the work without an appropriation. In 1918 a plank in the republican state platform pledged the party to the enactment of a civil administrative code. The party was successful at the election and the legislature of 1919, after a very fierce and prolonged contest in which party lines were considerably broken, enacted the existing administrative code. A referendum petition against this act was circulated but owing to failure to comply with certain legal requirements the referendum failed to secure a place upon the official ballot and the code went into effect in July, 1919. The code law was also one of the issues in the election of 1920.

     Again in 1922 the code was a political issue, but a divided legislature failed to make any material amendment to the law. As the law now stands, the code eliminated eleven boards and commissions and ten other subdivisions of departments. It created the following six administrative departments: Finance, Agriculture, Trade and Commerce, Labor, Public Works and Public Welfare. These departments are administered by secretaries appointed by the Governor with the consent of the House and Senate. Each of these secretaries receives an annual salary of $5,000. The six departments are subdivided, the heads of each having various designations.

     The following pages give an account of the code departments as they now exist in the law, together with a history of each activity as it existed prior to the enactment of the administrative code.

DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE

DIVISIONS

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DUTIES AND POWERS

       1. To prescribe and require the installation of a uniform system of bookkeeping, accounting and reporting for the several departments;
       2. To prescribe forms for accounts and financial reports and statements for the several departments;
       3. To supervise and examine the accounts and financial reports and statements for the several departments;
       4. To examine, at any and all times, into accuracy and legality of the accounts, receipts and expenditures of the public moneys and the disposition and use of the public property by the several departments;
       5. To keep such summary and control of accounts as may be necessary to determine the accuracy of the detail accounts and reports from the several departments, and to prescribe the manner and method of certifying that funds are available and adequate to meet all contracts and obligations;
       6. To prescribe uniform rules governing specifications for purchases of supplies, the advertisement for proposals, the opening of bids and the making of awards, to keep a catalogue of prices current and to analyze and tabulate prices paid and quantities purchased;
       7. To examine, at any and all times the accounts of every private corporation, institution, association or board receiving appropriations from the legislature;
       8. To report to the attorney general for such action, civil or criminal, as the attorney general may deem necessary, all facts showing illegal expenditures of the public money or misappropriation of public property;
       9. To examine and approve or disapprove, vouchers, bills and claims of the several departments and such as are by law made subject to the approval of the governor and referred to it by the governor, and no voucher, bill or claim of any department shall be allowed without its approval;
     10. To prescribe the form of receipt, voucher, bill or claim to be filed by the several departments with it;
     11. In settling accounts of the several departments, to inquire into and make an inspection of articles and materials furnished or work and labor performed, for the purpose of ascertaining that the prices, quality and amount of such articles or labor are fair, just and reasonable, and that all the requirements, expressed and implied, pertaining thereto have been complied with, and to reject and disallow any excess;
     12. To prepare and report to the governor, when requested, estimates of the income and revenues of the state;
     13. To publish, from time to time, for the information of the several departments and for the general public, bulletins -of the work of the state government;
     14. To investigate duplication 'of work of departments, and the efficiency of the organization and administration of departments, and to formulate plans for the better co-ordination of departments;

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      The duties of the following boards and bureaus of the old administrative system have been taken over by the department of finance.

DIVISION OF PURCHASES AND SUPPLIES

HISTORY

     A territorial act approved March 15, 1855, provided that the secretary of the territory should print and distribute the laws and joint resolutions. On January 29, 1857, Robert W. Furnas was elected public printer, and an act approved February 13, 1857, authorized the printer to print the session laws and the journals of each house. The earliest state law in reference to state printing is one approved June 18, 1867. This act provided that the auditor, treasurer and secretary of state should advertise for bids for state printing. An act approved February 25, 1875, required state officers to deliver their reports to the state printer and have them ready for distribution at the beginning of the legislature. The earlier act was repealed by an act approved February 24, 1883, and a state printing board, consisting of the auditor, treasurer and secretary of state, with duties almost identical with those required by the early law, created. An act passed by the legislature of 1897 substituted a new act which required the printing board to let contracts for printing, stationery and supplies for all state departments, and allowed $1,000 a year as salary for an expert printer to attend to the actual duties of the board. An act approved April 3, 1909, provided that the printing board should consist of the governor, auditor and secretary of state and gave the governor power to appoint a secretary. The legislature of 1911 repealed the existing law and created a bureau of printing, and made the governor the commissioner of the bureau with power to appoint a deputy at a salary of $1,500 a year. The legislature of 1917 enacted a new public printing law similar to that of 1911. The functions of the bureau of printing are now discharged by the division of purchases and supplies.

DUTIES AND POWERS

     To secure bids and award contracts for printing, stationery and office supplies required by the various state offices and institutions except the university and the state normal schools. Reports of various offices required by law to be printed are to be edited, and if need be, unnecessary matter eliminated, before printing. This provision was made in an act of 1923.

DUTIES AND POWERS

     1. To encourage and promote agriculture, horticulture, live stock, dairying, cheese making, poultry, bee keeping, forestry, fishing, and all other allied industries;
     2. To promote methods of conducting these industries with a view to increasing production and to facilitate distributon (sic) thereof at the least cost;
     3. To collect and publish statistics relating to crop production, marketing and farm economics, the production and marketing of all agricultural products so far as such statistical information may be of value to agricultural and allied interests of the state; to co-operate with the federal government in the matter of collecting such statistical information;

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ACTIVITIES OF 1925

      For the year 1925, the department reports activities, in part, as follows: Collections, $2,351,024.25, of -which $1,991,884.13 a gasoline tax; $167,464.69 hunting and fishing licenses: Licenses or permits issued, hotels and restaurants, 4,854; hunting, fishing, and trapping, 183,903: Inspections: food and sanitary, 10,200; weights and measures, 11,827; gallons of kerosene and gasoline, 168,693,830; seeds, 120; animals, 234,607, Tests: herds or groups for bovine tuberculosis, 30,330; herds for scabies, 934. A study of the printed report would reveal many other activities.

FOODS, DRUGS, AND OILS

HISTORY

     The legislature of 1899 created the food, drug and dairy commission. The governor was food commissioner, with power to appoint a deputy. This law was replaced by a more inclusive act in 1907.

     The office of oil inspector was created by the legislature of 1887. The inspector and deputies were appointed by the governor. he legislature of 1909 repealed the existing law and designated the governor as oil inspector with power to appoint a deputy. This office was supported by fees collected. The legislature of 1913 consolidated the pure food and oil inspection business of the state in one office, of which the governor was commissioner, with power to appoint a deputy, a state chemist, food inspectors and other employees.

     The legislature of 1911 created a hotel commission with the governor as commissioner. The legislature of 1917 abolished this commission

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ACTIVITIES

     Inspects food distributing establishments, drugs, oils, hotels, dairies, dairy manufacturing establishments, enforces the laws concerning all the subjects under its supervision, and makes chemical and physical analysis of food, drugs, oils, paints, feeds, fertilizers, liquors, live stock remedies.

ANIMAL INDUSTRY

HISTORY

     A live stock sanitary board was created by an act approved March 5, 1885, which act provided for alive stock sanitary commission of three members, and a state veterinary surgeon, all appointed by the governor. The legislature of 1887 made slight amendments to this. original act. The legislature of 1901 repealed existing legislation and made the governor the state veterinarian, with power to appoint a deputy for the actual work of the office. The legislature of 1913 repealed this law and created a live. stock sanitary board of five members appointed by the governor, who continued to be state, veterinarian, and appointed a deputy upon nomination of the live stock sanitary board.

      The legislature of 1919 repealed the laws of 1913 as pertaining to the establishment of the live stock sanitary board, and by an act approved April 19, 1919, created the civil administrative code. Under this plan of government a department of agriculture was provided and vested with the. duties and power of protecting the health of live stock in Nebraska, of determining and employing the most practical means of prevention and eradication of contagious and infectious diseases, of quarantining when necessary, and of regulating the arrival into, and departure from, and movement within the state of animals infected or exposed to infection or contagion. The department for the purpose of fulfilling these duties has provided the bureau of animal industry as a division of the department and placed in charge of said bureau a chief veterinarian.

ACTIVITIES

     The bureau of animal industry is in charge of the regulations governing the admission of live stock into Nebraska and the proper handling of live stock within the state where infectious and contagious diseases occur. Cooperation with the United States bureau of animal industry is carried forward on special projects for the purpose of eradicating certain diseases among domestic animals, which during the year 1926 is restricted almost entirely to the eradication of tuberculosis

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DIVISION OF GAME AND FISH

HISTORY

      An act approved February 24, 1879, created a board of fish commissioners "for the propagation and distribution of fish in the public waters of Nebraska." The legislature of 1901 provided for a game and fish commission, of which the governor was the commissioner, with two deputies, one of whom should reside in Lincoln and manage the office-, while the other managed the fish hatcheries at South Bend and Valentine. The legislature of 1919 did away with the commission and placed the administration of game and fish laws under the department of agriculture where it became known as "Bureau of Game and Fish."

DUTIES AND POWERS

     The Bureau of Game and Fish has charge of
     1. The protection, propagation and breeding of such fish, game song, insectivorous and other birds as may be deemed valuable to the people of the state.
     2. Enforcement of laws for the protection of fish and game.
     3. The control of all fish hatcheries, nurseries, game farms and public fishing and hunting grounds.
     4. The acquisition and control of public hunting and fishing grounds.
     5. The collection and distribution of statistics and information concerning the propagation and protection of fish and game.

DIVISION OF AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS

HISTORY

     Crop reporting was one of the early activities of the Nebraska state board of agriculture after its organization in 1859. The publication of county crop records in the annual reports began in 1870. In 1897 the legislature passed a law requiring the assessors to collect agricultural statistics, the work to be performed by the bureau of labor. The work was transferred to the Nebraska state board of agriculture in 1913, and to the Nebraska department of agriculture in 1919. Cooperation with the Federal department of agriculture began in 1918.

ACTIVITIES

     Duties of the division of agricultural statistics are as follows: Monthly report of crop production and special reports from time to time; monthly reports on condition of ranges' and cattle; annual report of all agricultural statistics by counties; annual report of live stock; reports of cattle and sheep in feed lots; compilation of the annual census of agriculture secured through the assessors; collecting and maintaining all records of agricultural statistics, not only for

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PUBLICATIONS

      Biennial report.
      Game laws.
     "Outdoor Nebraska."

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

BUREAUS AND DIVISIONS

     Division of compensation and investigation.
     Division of free employment.

DUTIES AND POWERS

     1. To foster, promote and develop the welfare of wage earners;
     2. To improve working conditions;
     3. To advance opportunities for profitable employment;
     4. To collect, collate, assort, systematize, and report statistical details relating to all departments of labor, especially in relation to commercial, industrial, social, economic and educational conditions, and to the permanent prosperity of the manufacturing and productive industries;
     5. To acquire and diffuse useful information on subjects connected with labor in the most general and comprehensive sense of the word;
     6. To acquire and diffuse among the people useful information concerning the means of promoting the material, social, intellectual and moral prosperity of laboring men and women;
     7. To acquire and diffuse information as to the conditions of employment and such other facts as may be deemed of value to the industrial interests of the state;
     8. To acquire and diffuse information in relation to the prevention of accidents, occupational disease and other related subjects;
     9. To administer and enforce the workmen's compensation laws or employers' liability acts of the state, and for that purpose the secretary of the department of labor shall be the deputy commissioner of labor and the compensation commissioner, and the duty is imposed upon him, as such, of executing all* of the provisions of Article VIII, Chapter 35, Revised Statutes of Nebraska for the year 1913, and all acts amendatory thereof.

     The legislature of 1887 created this bureau. The governor was made the commissioner, to comply with the requirements of the Nebraska constitution forbidding the creation of more executive offices. The duties of the office were performed by a deputy commissioner and other employes. The legislature of 1917 created the office of deputy compensation commissioner, and the civil administrative code of 1919 imposed the duties of the compensation commissioner on the secretary of labor.

PUBLICATIONS

     Biennial report.
     Occasional bulletins.

DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND COMMERCE

BUREAUS AND DIVISIONS

     Bureau of Banking--E. F. Kimmerly.
     Bureau of Insurance--John R. Dumont.
     Bureau of Securities--Jesse V. Craig.
     Division of Fire Prevention--John C. Trouton.
     Bureau of Hail Insurance.

DUTIES AND POWERS

     1. The governor, through the agency of the secretary of trade and commerce is vested with the power to regulate, supervise, and have general control over trade and commerce of the state.

     The department of trade and commerce shall collect, collate, assort, systematize and report statistical details of the manufacturing industries and commerce of the state and shall acquire information and report upon the general conditions, so far as production is concerned, of the leading industries of the state.

     The duties of the following boards and commissions of the old administrative system have been taken over by the- department of trade, and commerce.

BUREAU OF BANKING

HISTORY

     Early banking in the state was carried- on under the general incorporation laws of the state. The instability of these early institutions finally led to the general banking act which was approved March 29 1889. This act provided for the filing of bank reports with the auditor, and the examination of banks under the direction of the

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DUTIES AND POWERS

     This bureau has general control of banks and banking under the laws of this state.

     The bureau is required to

     1. Inspect and secure reports from all banks organized under state laws, and to enforce all the banking laws.
     2. Have control of building and loan associations.
     3. Have control of trust companies.

PUBLICATIONS

     Biennial report.
     Annual building and loan report.

BUREAU OF INSURANCE

HISTORY

     An act approved February 15, 1864, required insurance companies to be certified I by the territorial auditor, and to report to him. The act approved February 25, 1873, extended the duties of the auditor with reference to inspection and investigation of insurance companies, and required him to have the assent of the attorney general before issuing the original certificate to a company. An act approved March 31, 1899, repealed the existing law, and created a bureau of insurance with the governor as insurance commissioner and, a deputy commissioner for the actual work. This law was declared unconstitutional (59 Neb. 417-435) on the ground that it violated sections 1 and 4, article IX, of the constitution relative to taxation. It was held that the invalid sections. constituted an inducement to the legislature to enact the other sections of the law, and so rendered the whole invalid. In 1903 the auditor was empowered to appoint an insurance deputy. The legislature of 1913 repealed the existing law and enacted a complete insurance code. It provided that the governor, auditor and attorney general should. constitute the state insurance board, and appoint a secretary to be known as insurance commissioner. The legislature of 1917 created the state hail insurance department. The civil administrative code conferred the duties of the insurance board on the bureau of insurance.

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DUTIES AND POWERS

     1. The bureau shall see that all laws respecting insurance companies. are faithfully executed.
     2. Upon necessary evidence, certificates to insurance companies may be issued or revoked.
     3. Shall examine each domestic company at least once in three years.
     4. May examine foreign companies.
     5. Must secure annual reports from insurance companies.
     6. Shall keep deposited securities.
     7. Maintain the state hail insurance department.

MEMBERSHIP ON VARIOUS BOARDS

     Secretary is the chairman of the bank guarantee fund commission.

PUBLICATIONS

     Biennial report.

DIVISION OF FIRE PREVENTION

HISTORY

     The fire commission was created by the legislature of 1909. The governor was the fire commissioner, and appointed two deputies, one of whom was required to live in Lincoln and manage the office. The functions of the office are now carried on by the division of fire prevention. Insurance companies pay sufficient inspection fees to maintain the division.

DUTIES AND POWERS

     The division of fire prevention
     1. Shall have general charge of the inspection of buildings, and premises, and the investigation of fires occurring in the state. 2. May cause origin of fires to be investigated. 3. May order dilapidated buildings to be destroyed. 4. Must prepare a book of instruction in fire dangers.

PUBLICATIONS

     Annual report. Monthly bulletins. Book of instruction for schools.

BUREAU OF SECURITIES

     The earliest legislative 'provision for the supervision of the sale of stocks, bonds and securities was made in 1913. The enforcement of the law was entrusted to the railway commission. The administrative code law of 1919 transferred this function to the department of trade and commerce. The administration of the "blue sky law" is now the duty of the bureau of securities.

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