August 19, 1966
Page 20019
CONGRESS AND THE COUNTIES: A VIEW FROM CAPITOL HILL
Mr. ERVIN. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Maine [Mr. MUSKIE], who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations and a member of the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, has rendered signal services to government at all levels. He was one of the outstanding speakers at the Federal Aid Coordinators' Washington Conference in June 1966. At that time he made a most penetrating speech in which he outlined how Congress can assist the counties in the more efficient performance of their governmental tasks.
The speech has been published in the July 1, 1966, issue of American County Government, which is the official publication of the National Association of Counties, and merits the widest possible dissemination. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed at this point in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the speech was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
CONGRESS AND THE COUNTIES: A VIEW FROM CAPITOL HILL
(By Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE)
I have been asked to present today a Congressional view of the role of county government in our Great Society: What the counties can do to strengthen the bond of cooperative federalism, and what we in Congress can do to help the counties achieve this goal. This is a broad and important topic, and one which is receiving greater attention on Capitol Hill.
During the past five sessions of Congress we have appropriated almost twice as much federal aid to state and local governments as the total appropriated by all previous Congress going back to 1789. There are now approximately 170 federal programs being administered by some twenty-one federal departments and agencies. The total expenditure is expected to reach $14.6 billion this year. Projected to 1975, it could reach $50 billion.
This aid comes from Washington, to be sure, but it was inspired by the financial problems and pressures of state and local governments. And it recognizes the basic fact that these jurisdictions have the ultimate responsibility for making it work.
Too often this has been forgotten by federal lawmakers as they concentrate on the substance of new domestic programs and the limitations of the federal budget. But the issue is there, and it is fast becoming one of the most important concerns in both Congress and the Administration -- that the success or failure of the Great Society programs will depend in large part on the administrative effectiveness and the readiness for action at the state and local levels.
When you ask the question, "What does the average Congressman think about the future role of county government?", you can be certain of the answer. He thinks a great deal about that role and he wants it to be much more effective than it has been in the past.
A DYNAMIC ROLE
This observation must, of course, be qualified in New England where the county is not, by tradition and concept, accepted as a general-purpose unit of government as it is elsewhere in the country. Hence, much of what I say today will be applicable to other units of local government in New England.
Congress, time and time and again, has specifically recognized county governments in its legislation -- economic development, antipoverty, conservation, health, pollution control, and so forth -- and it has always been sensitive to the efforts of your fine organization, whose views are so well presented in Washington.
I see a dynamic role for the county, both in urban and rural areas, wherever it is an accepted and viable unit of local government. It can be a coordinating mechanism for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public services. It can provide an opportunity for consolidating and reforming local tax and financing efforts. It can be a method of bringing together, and perhaps eliminating, fragmented special-purpose districts and authorities. It can become an areawide planning authority for orderly long-range public development. And with your new, farsighted program for establishing a County Federal Aid Coordinator, it can serve as a major force in coordinating county-federal relations, in developing local grant programs, and in establishing effective interlevel contacts.
But let me make this clear. Where we see an emerging and future role for the county in our cooperative federal system, we also are apprehensive about some of its achievements to date, because in many instances the political and administrative structures of existing county governments reveal an incapacity to meet the economic and social responsibilities of modern public administration and of achieving substantial reform.
DANGER OF JUNIOR PARTNERSHIP
Three weeks ago, in a speech at Arden House, I told a conference of state legislators that if the states continued to ignore pressing public problems and failed to reach all of their citizens on an equitable basis, we can only expect the federal government to move in to help the communities adversely affected. The incredible riots in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia; the school and poverty problems in Boston; the subversion of the Head Start program in some southern states; and the neglect of the rural poor throughout the country, are illustrative of accumulating problems requiring effective action. I warned that if the states do not step into the breach with respect to these and other public problems, they can claim only a junior partnership in our federal system.
The same warnings holds true for the counties -- perhaps even more so. They can become the regional coordinators and administrators for the joint-action programs of the states. They can stimulate orderly planning, effective program implementation, and the application of cost-effectiveness techniques. They can help straighten out the inequities and inadequacies that exist in local taxing and financing procedures. And they can follow the example of the more than two hundred counties which, as of the first of this year, had established federal aid coordinators.
The overriding question is: Will more counties -- not just a minority -- do these things in sufficient degree to make their usefulness in the federal structure manifest and permanent, or will they have to be by-passed by some other type of federal-local relationship?
A meaningful answer to this querulous question can be provided only by raising two others: First, what can Congress do to help the counties strengthen and improve their function in meeting public needs; and second, what can the counties do to cooperate with the federal government in better fulfilling the goals of the Great Society as established by Congress?
WHAT CAN CONGRESS DO?
Actually, Congress can do very little directly to stimulate the vesting of increased legal responsibility and authority in the countries. This must come from the state legislatures and, in some instances, from amendments to state constitutions. But for many counties, substantial administrative and planning authority already exists; here, Congress can be helpful.
First, we must continue to make every possible use of our federal grant-in-aid system to zero in on key domestic problems: poverty, education, health, urban development. We must modernize the application of federal funds, permitting a greater flexibility and less red tape in their use and providing recipients with more freedom to plan their own approaches toward community development and to choose the programs that best suit them. Positive incentives must be given here to county governments to become regional planners and administrators of federal aid where they can demonstrate that they have the capability. The county federal aid coordinators can play a leading role in this effort.
Second, we can take action to insure better coordination of programs and planning assistance at the federal level. After all, we can hardly expect state and local governments to modernize their methods of public administration if the federal house is not in order. A good start in this direction can be made with the final passage of S. 561, the proposed Intergovernmental Cooperation Act which I introduced last year and which unanimously passed the Senate. Among other things, this legislation authorizes the President to establish "governmentwide guides" in the formulation, evaluation, and review of federal urban development programs; and it establishes as a matter of Congressional policy that federal agencies must take into account all viewpoints -- federal, state, county, and municipal -- in administering their programs. In particular, the bill requires that federal aid programs shall be consistent with and further the objectives of state and local urban development planning. It contains a requirement that federal departments and agencies, to the extent possible, make aid available to general, rather than special- purpose districts. In the event a loan or grant-in-aid is to be made to a special-purpose district, the governing authority of the general-purpose district affected must be notified and given the opportunity to have its comments made a part of the loan or grant application.
AN EAR FOR LOCAL COMMENTS
S. 561 seeks to strengthen the basis of regional and local planning. It establishes local planning certification procedures for all applications made to the federal government for the construction of hospitals, airports, water supply and distribution facilities, sewerage facilities and waste treatment works, water development, and land conservation. This procedure merely extends the principle Congress already has sanctioned in such federally-aided urban projects as highways, urban renewal, public housing, mass transit, and a number of water resources programs. The measure also provides -- and this is highly significant -- that all applications for federal loans or grants in eight basic urban project areas be accompanied by the comments and recommendations of an areawide agency performing metropolitan or regional planning and a statement by the applicant that it has considered such comments and recommendations prior to presenting the formal application.
The National Association of Counties has vigorously supported this legislation, but your support
is still needed!
NEW NATIONAL COUNCIL
Third, to improve program coordination and planning and to strengthen the administrative relationships between the federal government, the states, counties, and local communities, I feel that a new and permanent operating unit should be established in the Executive Office of the President. It should have a "working secretariat" not connected with any department or agency, headed by a top-level executive secretary and available -- and I emphasize -- available to state, county, and local leaders for a discussion of their major problems and of the best methods of developing their areas through joint-action programs. This National Council for Intergovernmental Affairs would be chaired by the President and be composed of the Vice President and department and agency heads whose programs have a major impact on state and local government.
I want to emphasize that this mechanism would not be just another interagency committee or council. Instead, it would be the President's right hand for pulling the federal establishment together and obtaining better cooperation in the field of state and local development. I intend to introduce legislation embracing this idea within the next two weeks. In the ensuing hearings we will explore all suggestions for providing a better relationship between the Executive branch in Washington and the people on the firing line -- the federal field services and the state and local administrators.
Fourth, the federal government must focus its attention on training and improving administrative personnel at the state and local levels. This has never been done on a comprehensive basis. It seems incredible that, as we have spent over $69 billion in federal monies on state and local programs during the past five years, we have done little to nothing to help these levels upgrade their personnel systems.
UPGRADING LOCAL PERSONNEL
Last week I introduced in the Senate a proposed Intergovernmental Personnel Act which focuses on these basic problems in the personnel area:
To stimulate expanded state and local merit systems, the bill authorizes the President to extend merit requirements to more grant-in-aid programs.
To encourage better personnel management the bill authorizes a program of grants to enable states to strengthen their own personnel administration, to provide state personnel services to smaller jurisdictions of local government, and to stimulate projects for the improvement of personnel administration in larger cities. It also permits the Civil Service Commission to join on a shared cost basis with states and local governments in cooperative recruitment and examination programs.
To promote more and better training opportunities, the proposed legislation mounts an attack on four fronts. First, it would authorize federal departments and agencies conducting training programs for their own employees to open them up to state and local personnel in counterpart agencies. Second, it would authorize federal departments and agencies administering grant-in-aid programs to initiate training programs for counterpart state and local personnel in short supply categories. Third, it would establish a grant-in-aid program for in-service training of state and local employees. Fourth, it would give congressional consent to interstate compacts or other agreements for cooperative efforts relating to the administration of state and local personnel training programs.
This legislation does not solve the personnel problem. But, it does constitute the first across-the-board attempt, at the national level, to assist those states, counties, and localities that want to upgrade the professional caliber of their public services.
Finally, we in Washington should carefully examine the various new proposals calling for additional federal financial assistance to state and local governments. In the near future, I intend to introduce a joint resolution supporting the present effort of the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations to survey in depth intergovernmental finances -- and all feasible ways of strengthening the financial position of state and local governments.
The population explosion, urbanization, and rising living standards are generating steadily mounting demands on state and local governments for greater services. These jurisdictions are having difficulty providing these services with existing revenues. In addition, the intensive use of consumer and property taxes has created inequitable distributions of tax burdens among some income groups and businesses. The work of the Advisory Commission and its staff has been exemplary, particularly with respect to taxation, financing and other fiscal matters. They are more than equipped to do a good job in this critical area.
WHAT THE COUNTIES CAN DO
The counties can do a great deal to help the states implement their broad planning, and to help the local communities improve the quality and scope of their services. They can provide a critical axis between the communities and the states, not only for the effective administration of programs, but for the generation of new ideas about planning and management. But two, important conditions must be present if they are to achieve the major status and responsibility they seek.
The first prerequisite is political strength. Such strength comes from adequate jurisdictional authority. It also comes from an effective political system -- one in which the elected leadership is responsible to all residents of the county and is chosen on a fair and equal basis. When the political role of the county is identified and strengthened, and when its people are assured of a meaningful role in county affairs, a new public interest and support for the county will develop -- both in the local communities, in the state capitals, and in Congress.
The second essential condition is administrative capability. This condition is improving, but improvement is not keeping pace with the tremendous burgeoning of public problems and the demand for more efficient and effective administrative leadership. Your association, and other groups and individuals, are making a splendid effort to provide informational and technical assistance to county administrators.
More and more, the counties are employing professional managers and financial experts. Some states are setting up training programs and informational services to upgrade personnel ability. More county budget and planning agencies are being established. Some counties have joined together in areawide planning and the furnishing of basic public services.
THE NAGGING QUESTION
These are all encouraging signs. The nagging question in the minds of many Members of Congress is: Will the emergence of countywide government provide the most effective and most responsible vehicle for urban and rural public development?
This conference provides a partial answer. The establishment of a post of county urban adviser (or federal aid coordinator) in each of the 300-odd urban counties in the Nation would be a dramatic sign that counties can serve the 130 million citizens residing in their jurisdictions. A similar step in the rural counties would advance your cause with our non-metropolitan citizenry.
How successful the counties will be in playing the role of the program and planning coordinator in coming years depends on their ability to convince both the states and local communities that they can best do the job. The National Association of Counties is paving the way. But the rest is up to you.