The Governor then presents the budget to the Legislature, which refers it to the finance committees of the two houses.  The committees, and, in turn, the Legislature, have full authority to make any alterations, increases or decreases, desired, but the spellbinding by department representatives and wire-pulling by lobbyists are reduced to a minimum because the Budget Commissioner sits as the agent of the Governor at all sessions of the finance committees and at all times is prepared to defend the allowance he thinks a department should have.

The first budgetary appropriation bill repealed an existing appropriation law.  It reduced appropriations aggregating $9,709,288 to $8,762,664, a saving of $946,624.  Since that time the Ohio budget system has effected savings of millions, not, of course, in the sense that expenditures of the State government now are less than in 1913—­for they have increased as governmental activities have enlarged—­but in the sense that expenditures each year have been vastly less than they would have been without the budget plan of pruning and scaling down demands of existing State departments with a view both to general economy and avoidance of deficits.

The Ohio Budget and consequently its appropriation law classifies expenditures in two divisions:  (1) Operating expenses and (2) Capital outlay (or permanent improvements).

Operating expenses are subdivided into personal service and maintenance.  Personal service in turn is divided into salaries and wages, and maintenance into supplies, materials, equipment, contract or open order service, and fixed charges and contributions.

Elasticity of funds within departments is afforded by periodical meetings of a board of control, composed of the Governor (who may be and usually is represented by the Budget commissioner), the State Auditor, the Attorney-General, and the chairmen of the two legislative finance committees.  If any new need develops within departments, funds for the purpose may be provided by a four-fifths vote of the board of control.  Effort first is made to transfer the needed funds from one classification to another within the department.  If no fund within the department has a surplus, and the need is great enough, relief may be granted by the emergency board, having the same membership as the board of control, which has at its disposal an emergency fund for contingencies arising between legislative sessions.  Perfection never has been claimed for the Ohio system.  Governor Cox himself realizes certain weaknesses in it and is making a fight now for strengthening features, which, however, necessitate a change in the constitution.  One defect is that, regardless of probable income, the Legislature may increase items in the budget (or rather the appropriation bill based on the budget), and it may make other appropriations in separate bills as it sees fit without regard to prospective revenues.