Texas State Board of Control:

An Inventory of State Board of Control Board Members Files at the Texas State Archives, 1885-1890, 1917-1953, undated, bulk 1920-1953

Agency History

The Texas State Board of Control was created in 1919 by the Thirty-sixth Texas Legislature (Senate Bill 147, Regular Session), becoming operational on January 1, 1920. The Board was composed of three members, serving six-year overlapping terms, appointed by the Governor with concurrence of the Senate. The Board elected a chair. The legislation which created the Board also abolished several agencies and offices, transferring their duties to the Board of Control. Offices abolished were the State Expert Printer, State Board of Public Printing, State Purchasing Agent, Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds, State Inspector of Masonry, and the Boards of Managers of each of the state eleemosynary institutions.

The Board of Control had numerous responsibilities. The Board served as the purchasing agent for state departments, institutions, and agencies, approving requisition orders, purchasing supplies, contracting for printing, and transferring supplies between agencies, etc. The Board also had control and supervision of the state eleemosynary institutions (state schools, hospitals and sanatoriums, orphanages, juvenile training schools), the Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation, and the State Cemetery. It established rules and regulations for the state eleemosynary institutions and established hospital districts for the state hospitals. Additionally, the Board had joint supervision and maintenance of certain historical state parks (including San Jacinto, Goliad, and Fannin State Parks); and had charge of the custody and maintenance of the Capitol and other State office buildings and their adjoining grounds. In this capacity the Board contracted for all construction, repairs, and improvements made for the eleemosynary institutions and other state agencies; designed and prepared the plans and specifications used in construction projects and machinery and equipment repairs; leased public grounds; rented offices and buildings when needed for state agencies; sold property of the state when no longer needed; and prepared the biennial appropriation budget for the state. These were the primary functions of the Board. Additional duties included administering child welfare activities; supervising the printing and manufacture of cigarette tax stamps; providing photostat (and later microfilm) services and typewriter repair services to state agencies; and maintaining the Bureau of Records as a temporary depository for the permanent records of the state. The Texas Relief Commission was added to the Board in 1934 (House Bill 1, 43rd Legislature, 3rd Called Session) and the Old Age Assistance Commission was added in 1936 (House Bill 8, 44th Legislature, 3rd Called Session). In some instances Board chairmen or members were appointed to or served on other state boards or commissions. In the 1930s the Chairman of the Board, Claude Teer, was appointed to the Locating and Building Board of the State Tuberculosis Sanatorium for Negroes (upon completion, this sanatorium was turned over to the Board of Control). In the 1940s, Hall Logan, Board member and later Board chairman, also served as the Acting Director of the Postwar Economic Planning Commission.

Over the years, many of the duties of the Board were transferred to other agencies. In 1939 the 46th Legislature (Senate Bill 36, Regular Session) created the Texas State Department of Public Welfare, transferring welfare and assistance responsibilities of the Board to that Department. In 1949 control of all eleemosynary institutions was transferred to the Texas Board for State Hospitals and Special Schools and the Texas Youth Development Council (House Bill 1, 51st Legislature, Regular Session). Additional legislation in 1949 (House Bill 120, 51st Legislature, Regular Session) transferred control and custody of all state historical parks, except the San Jacinto State Park and Memorial Tower, Fannin State Park, and the Battleship Texas, to the control and custody of the Texas State Parks Board. Legislation in 1951 transferred preparation of the biennial appropriation budget and all related budget functions to the Governor's Office (Senate Bill 413, 52nd Legislature, Regular Session).

The Board initially established several divisions to handle its responsibilities--Division of Purchasing; Division of Public Printing; Division of Auditing; Division of Eleemosynary Institutions; Division of Design, Construction and Maintenance; and Division of Estimates and Appropriations. The Division of Child Welfare and the Centennial Division were later added and others were created (and consolidated or abolished) as needed. As the Board lost many of its responsibilities in the 1940s and 1950s, many of these divisions were abolished. By the mid-1950s the Board's divisions reflected its restructured roles of purchasing-related activities; construction, maintenance, and repairs; oversight; and other duties. In 1956 the Board was organized into the Main Division, Purchasing Division, Division of Printing, Claims Division, Design and Construction Division, Division of Buildings and Grounds, and Cigarette Stamp Tax Purchaser (not actually a division). By 1970 additional divisions reflected the Board's role of providing security and centralized services to state agencies. These included providing telephone and mail services, operating a centralized supply store, and performing property inventories. Divisions in 1972 were the Purchasing Division, Centralized Services Division, Automatic Data Processing Division, Building and Property Services Division, and the Security Division.

In 1953 the Board of Control was reorganized (Senate Bill 77, 53rd Legislature, Regular Session). The Board still maintained three members, appointed by the Governor to six year overlapping terms, but the chair was now appointed by the Governor. Also, an Executive Director was hired to handle administrative and other duties. The duties and responsibilities of the Board remained the same. The Board of Control was abolished in 1979 (House Bill 1673, 66th Legislature, Regular Session); its duties and responsibilities were transferred to the newly created Texas State Purchasing and General Services Commission. In 1991, the agency was renamed the General Services Commission. In 2001, the agency wasabolished and replaced by the Building and Procurement Commission, with some functions transferring to other agencies (Senate Bill 311, 77th Legislature, Regular Session). In 2007 the agency was renamed the Texas Facilities Commission and its functions not related to state facilities were transferred to the Texas Comptroller's Office (House Bill, 3560, 80th Legislature, Regular Session). The Texas Facilities Commission retained the functions of building construction and maintenance and purchasing for state facilities/agencies.

(Sources: Guide to Texas State Agencies, various editions; General and Special Laws, various years; and the records themselves.)

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Scope and Contents of the Records

The primary functions of the Texas State Board of Control were controling and supervising the state eleemosynary institutions (state schools, hospitals and sanitoriums, orphanages, juvenile training schools), the Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation, the Confederate Homes, and the State Cemetery; serving as the purchasing agent for state institutions and agencies; having joint supervision and maintenance of certain historical parks; and having charge of the custody and maintenance of the Capitol and other state office buildings and grounds. Additional short-term duties have included the administration of child welfare, operation of the Texas Relief Commission, preparation of the state's budget, and operation of the Bureau of Records. This series consists of several groups of records of the members of the Texas State Board of Control. Types of materials present include incoming and outgoing correspondence of the Board chair, Board members, or the secretary of the Board; memoranda; monthly or other reports from divisions of the Board; audit and status reports from eleemosynary institutions and state agencies; statistical compilations; parole statements from the state juvenile schools; copies of Board minutes and orders; copies of minutes from other agencies; copies of legislation; press releases; questionnaires and survey results; invoices; brochures and other printed material; photographs; building specifications; plats; and stenographer's shorthand notebooks. Dates covered are 1885-1890, 1917-1953 and undated, with the bulk dating 1920-1953.

The records reflect the routine activities of the Board, with letters concerning administration, appointments, patient admittance, transfers, paroles, and discharges at the state juvenile schools and state eleemosynary institutions; construction and maintenance of state facilities; and purchasing, budget, and appropriation concerns of state institutions and agencies. Other topics include the establishment of the State Department of Public Welfare and the activities of the Board divisions which were later transferred to this Department--the Division of Child Welfare, the Relief Commission Division, and the Old Age Assistance Commission; investigations at eleemosynary institutions; the establishment and early operations of agencies taking over operations of the juvenile schools and other eleemosynary institutions--Board for State Hospitals and Special Schools and the Youth Development Council; the establishment of several eleemosynary institutions, including the Brady State School and several tuberculosis sanatoriums; the establishment and early operations of several state historical parks; projects for the Texas Centennial; and Board actions related to World War II, including transfer of surplus military property after the war.

Two groups of Board member records, those of Senator Tom DeBerry and T. B. Warden, are largely concerned with the purchasing activities of the Board. The various groups of chairmen's files cover a broad spectrum of Board activities. Correspondents include Board members and employees, eleemosynary institutions, state agencies, businesses, federal agencies, and private individuals. Reports of institutions and agencies submitted to the board or prepared by the board for other entities can also be found in the series Reports and the series Contracts and related records,. The latter series also contains correspondence about the contracts, often directed to the chair of the board. Additional instititutional audit reports by the Board are in the series Institutional Accounting Division. Additional orders issued by the board (1946-1949) are in the series Actions of the Board; the series Eleemosynary Division, Administrative files has some Board orders (1942-1943) concerning eleemosynary institutions.

These records are maintained as they were received, as the files of specific chairmen or Board members, although some contain the files of several members. Existing arrangement schemes within each group, when present, were kept. Most chairmen or members tended to segregate the eleemosynary files from those of other state institutions and agencies. Materials were usually foldered by state agency or institution, alphabetically for general correspondence, and by topic or individual correspondents--usually Board members and staff--for general/administrative files.

This series is part of the Texas State Board of Control records finding aid. It was removed from that finding aid due to the electronic file size limitations imposed by the online finding aid web site (TARO). If you are reading this in paper, the overall Board of Control finding aid is found at a separate divider within the binder.

To prepare this preliminary inventory, the described materials were cursorily reviewed to delineate series, to confirm the accuracy of contents lists, to provide an estimate of dates covered, and determine record types.

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Restrictions

Restrictions on Access

Because of the possibility that portions of these records fall under Public Information Act exceptions including, but not limited to, names, home addresses and other identifying information of juvenile offenders in the agency's juvenile delinquent system and of dependent and neglected children in any facilities operated by the Texas Youth Commission (V.T.C.A., Texas Family Code, Section 58.005); photographs where individual children in Youth Commission facilities can be identified are also confidential unless the child granted permission to allow the photograph to be taken (V.T.C.A., Texas Family Code, Section 58.005); psychological or psychiatric reports and evalutations (V.T.C.A., Health and Safety Code, Mental Health records, 611.002); medical records (V.T.C.A., Occupations Code, 159.002 (Medical Practice Act)); names of patients, students, or residents in the eleemosynary facilities (V.T.C.A., Health and Safety Code, 576.005 and 595.001 or the Human Services Code, 12.003); social security numbers (V.T.C.A., Government Code, Section 552.147 and United States Code, Title 42, Section 405(c)(2)(C)); or addresses and telephone numbers of state employees (V.T.C.A., Government Code, Section 552.117); an archivist must review these records before they can be accessed for research. Any correspondence with the family concerning payments for a patient's care in a state mental hospital is confidential under V.T.C.A, Health and Safety Code, Mental Health and Mental Retardation, 611.004. The records may be requested for research under the provisions of the Public Information Act (V.T.C.A., Government Code, Chapter 552). The researcher may request an interview with an archivist or submit a request by mail, fax, or email including enough description and detail about the information requested to enable the archivist to accurately identify and locate the information requested. If our review reveals information that may be excepted by the Public Information Act, we are obligated to seek an open records decision from the Attorney General on whether the records can be released. The Public Information Act allows the Archives ten working days after receiving a request to make this determination. The Attorney General has 45 working days to render a decision. Alternately, the Archives can inform you of the nature of the potentially excepted information and if you agree, that information can be redacted or removed and you can access the remainder of the records.

Materials do not circulate, but may be used in the State Archives search room. Materials will be retrieved from and returned to storage areas by staff members.

Restrictions on Use

Most records created by Texas state agencies are not copyrighted and may be freely used in any way. State records also include materials received by, not created by, state agencies. Copyright remains with the creator. The researcher is responsible for complying with U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17 U.S.C.).

Technical Requirements

None.

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Related Material

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

(Identify the item and cite the series), Texas State Board of Control Board members files. Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Accession Information

Accession numbers: 1962/218, 1962/235, 1963/058, 1980/175, 1989/169, 1991/016, 1993/098, 1994/019, 1995/108, 1999/156, 2002/031, 2002/035, unknown

The majority of these records were transferred to the Archives and Information Services Division of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission by the Texas Secretary of State on July 19, August 25, and December 2, 1963; by the Texas State Purchasing and General Services Commission on March 11, 1980, July 14, 1989, October 10, 1990 and May 13, 1999; by the Texas Historical Commission on December 8, 1992; by the Texas Department of Mental Health/Mental Retardation on October 19, 1993; and by the Texas Legislative Reference Library on April 18, 1995. A group of unprocessed audit reports and audit working papers without any accession information was given an accession number for control on October 3, 2001. Some unprocessed Board members files and other administrative files without any accession information were given an accession number for control on October 8, 2001. Accession data for the records in the series Relief Commission Division is unknown.

Processing Information

Additional series processed by Laura K. Saegert, August 1991

Additional series processed by Laura K. Saegert, September 1996

Several series of previously unprocessed Board records were processed and incorporated into this finding aid; corrections and further encoding to TARO project standards by Laura K. Saegert, January 2002.

Finding aid converted from EAD 1.0 to 2002 by TARO using the style sheet v1to02.xsl, July 22, 2003.

The related materials section was revised, the finding aid made DACS compliant and the overall finding aid was split due to online file size limitations by Laura K. Saegert, June 2008

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Detailed Description of the Records