Independent authority income freed Moses from all external spending approval.

Evidence

One new reality was the wealth of Moses’ public authorities and the Board of Estimate’s lack of control over that wealth. … The Board’s authority over conventional city agencies rested ultimately on the fact that these agencies had no money except what the Board chose to give them, that the Board could dole it out to them item by item, scrutinizing every line in an agency’s budget request, and the agency therefore had to obtain Board approval for every expenditure, no matter how small. But Moses’ authorities had an independent income. They didn’t need the city’s money—and therefore they didn’t need the city’s approval in spending money. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 3171

Categorization

• XREF: Underpins the discretionary-corruption logic Costikyan names; connects to the powers-without-accountability theme recurring after ch10. — connects to: Public-authority wealth let Moses operate as a uniquely powerful political boss. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 91
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source