CHAPTER 441
STATE OF DELAWARE
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS, the State of Delaware's expenditures authorized by the General Assemblies have depleted the General Fund cash balance and now are far exceeding revenue receipts; and
WHEREAS, the State of Delaware has had to borrow through the sale of Deficiency notes to pay current operating expenses including salaries, wages and other monthly costs in the sums of:
(1) for October 1957--three million dollars at one and a half per cent due April 30, 1958.
(2) for November 1957--four million dollars at one and a half per cent due January 29, 1958; and
WHEREAS, the current expenses for December 1957, January 1958 and succeeding months thereafter authorized by the General Assembly to June 30, 1959, in relation to present revenue estimates projected to June 30, 1959, show that an estimated twenty million dollar deficit will then exist; and
WHEREAS, it is neither prudent nor even possible to continue deficit note borrowing indefinitely and the amount already borrowed, and to be borrowed in December 1957 and January 1958, will necessarily have to be repaid when due to prevent the State of Delaware from being in default; and
WHEREAS, the principal and interest on our $130,000,000 bonded debt must be paid from current revenues or further borrowing when due or the State of Delaware will be in default; and
WHEREAS, the credit of the State of Delaware would be seriously damaged for many years to come by reason of any default, and proper growth functions involving capital improvements would be seriously disrupted if not halted; and
WHEREAS, each passing day compounds the State's critical financial situation, makes solutions more costly and more difficult to accomplish, and creates additional problems for our entire economy; and
WHEREAS, I have called this serious situation to the attention of the legislative leaders, the Joint Legislative Finance Committee, the House Committee on Revenue and Taxation and to the public; and
WHEREAS, I have urgently recommended that the Legislature reconvene itself under Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 31 dated August 14, 1957, which procedure the Legislature provided itself for reconvening, and such urgent recommendation has been rejected; and
WHEREAS, my budget recommendations, and fiscal recommendations to both the 118th and 119th General Assemblies have been widely disregarded; and
WHEREAS, in this fiscal emergency I have called upon the various agencies of the State of Delaware to reduce expenditures in all but essential areas; and
WHEREAS, only the General Assembly can remedy this serious situation; and
WHEREAS, a provision of Section 16 of Article 3 of the Constitution of the State of Delaware authorizes and empowers the Governor of the State of Delaware to convene the General Assembly on extraordinary occasions by proclamation;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, J. CALEB BOGGS, Governor of the State of Delaware, by virtue of the authority vested in me do hereby proclaim the following:
That the 119th General Assembly of the State of Delaware shall convene at Legislative Hall, City of Dover, the Capital of the State of Delaware, on Tuesday, the third day of December A.D. 1957, at 11:00 A. M. Eastern Standard Time, to consider and act upon matters hereinafter set forth, which are of great concern to the people of the State of Delaware:
1. To consider and act upon whatever legislation it deems necessary and appropriate to balance the budget of the State of Delaware, to maintain its necessary and essential public services and to preserve the credit of the State of Delaware.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I, J. Caleb Boggs, Governor of the State of Delaware, have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of Delaware to be hereunto affixed at Dover this twenty-fifth day of November, in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven and of the Independence of the United States of America, the one hundred and eighty-second.
(GREAT SEAL)
J. CALEB BOGGS, Governor
JOHN N. McDOWELL, Secretary of State