Moses exceeded the legal cap on Long Island park spending almost immediately

Evidence

Hutchinson and Hewitt were amazed and angry over Moses’ progress in 1926. Counting the DPW and Conservation Department funds he had used, he had already spent on Long Island parks far more than the million dollars that was supposed to pay for the whole Long Island park and parkway system, and now he submitted park-improvement requests that totaled a million dollars more. And who knew what innocent-appearing items in 1927 DPW and Conservation Department budget requests concealed additional funds Smith was planning to make available to Moses? A wholly disproportionate share of the state budget was being spent on Long Island. In a private confrontation with Smith and Moses, they said that Moses’ plans were too grandiose. Their cost was beyond the ability of the state to pay, they said, and parks were simply not needed on the scale he proposed. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 974

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s infrastructure and institutional-appropriation reading; echoes Milgrom’s point that institutions arise where information is costly.