August 16, 1966
Page 19480
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS MOVES INTO NEW HEARING PHASE
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, which I chair, was established in 1962, and specifically authorized "to examine, investigate, and make a complete study of intergovernmental relationships" between the Federal Government and the States and municipalities. It was also instructed to evaluate studies and recommendations of the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, a bipartisan group of representatives from all three levels of government and from the public. A very large share of the work produced by both the subcommittee and the Advisory Commission has been directed to identifying problems, and recommending solutions, with respect to the administration of public programs at the city level, at the metropolitan level, at the State level, and at the Federal level.
Today the subcommittee began the first of a series of comprehensive hearings directed to the three basic problems in contemporary Federal-State-local relations: manpower, management, and money. Our initial hearings deal with the manpower crisis -- the shortage of good technical and professional personnel, the inadequacy of personnel administration and training, unreasonably low salaries of State and local administrators, and the lack of effective merit systems among many State and local governments.
The focal point of these hearings is the proposed Intergovernmental Personnel Act (S. 3408), which I recently introduced and which has 12 cosponsors. We have started with the manpower crisis because we feel that public development programs -- however dynamic and funded -- are only as effective as the people who administer them. While many are experiencing growing concern over inadequate program administration in our cities and in our rural areas, few have recognized that the need for competent manpower is undercutting the promise of Great Society programs.
This issue will be explored in depth during the remainder of this year, and in the coming session.
Further, it is expected that these proceedings will assist the administration in its effort to develop legislation on this vital subject.
Shortly, the subcommittee will begin hearings on the management problem in coordinating Federal, State, and local programs for maximum benefit to the people who need them most.
Preparations for these hearings, which will include the States, the cities, and our rural areas, have been going on for some time. The subcommittee has completed an extensive survey of the views and attitudes of hundreds of Federal, State, and local officials on dozens of questions which directly involve the success or failure of public development and services. In this area, the Advisory Commission has provided a basic library of reports and studies to augment the subcommittee effort, and has prepared proposed legislation and administrative recommendations for cities, counties, and States to adopt in improving their planning and management capability.
On the basis of these efforts, I recently introduced a bill (S. 3509) to establish a special unit in the Executive Office of the President to coordinate Federal programs, and develop a closer liaison between the President and State and local leaders in the planning and implementing of their public development programs. Called the National Intergovernmental Affairs Council, it would have a "working secretariat," it would act as a policy arm of the President to straighten out Federal conflicts, and it would develop a better understanding of State and local economic and social problems at the executive level. Hearings on the management issue will be centered around this legislation, but will explore many other suggestions for putting the Federal house in order, and improving intergovernmental relations.
On the matter of money, at the subcommittee's request, the Advisory Commission has already begun an exhaustive study of taxes, charges, and intergovernmental aid, and of methods which can provide more effective financing of public programs by our cities, our States, and at the Federal level. The recommendations of the commission, together with recommendations of a number of experts and organizations involved in analyzing intergovernmental fiscal problems, will also receive a full hearing by the subcommittee next year. The subcommittee recently issued a report entitled "Federal Expenditures to States and Regions," which analyzed the economic impact of total Federal spending on the States and their localities. We found, as we long suspected, that the richer States enjoy a proportionately higher advantage under Federal expenditures in general, and defense-related expenditures in particular. The issues highlighted in this report will also be included in the consideration of the State and local money problem.
The goal of the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations is to ferret out the obstructions to a "creative federalism" and to provide the methods and machinery for modernizing public administration at all levels, and for combining resources to meet priorities.
Mr. President, in the course of our consideration of S. 3408 this morning, the Honorable John W. Macy, Jr., Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, provided us with a sober assessment of the manpower problems facing State and local governments. We welcome his cooperation on behalf of the administration in the days ahead. I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Macy's remarks and my opening statement be printed in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the statements were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
STATEMENT OF JOHN W. MACY, JR., CHAIRMAN OF THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION, BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERGOVERNMENTAL
RELATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS OF THE U.S. SENATE, ON S. 3408, "INTERGOVERNMENTAL PERSONNEL ACT OF 1966," AUGUST 16, 1966
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am pleased to be here this morning in connection with your consideration of S. 3408. 1 am particularly pleased because this gives me an opportunity to thank you personally, Mr. Chairman, the members of the Committee, and the staff for the fine public service you have performed in defining and highlighting a critical need of our times, and in charting a course of action to meet it.
Through your careful studies over the past three and one-half years and your incisive analyses, you have clearly established the need for more effective cooperation -- massive cooperation if you will -- among all three levels of Government. You have clearly demonstrated that it will take more than the usual kind of grant-in-aid programs and more than a piecemeal approach to overcome the problems of today and meet the challenges of the future. You have clearly shown that an immediate need is to assist our hard-pressed colleagues at the State and the local level in a positive and comprehensive way. Perhaps most important, you have been the prime movers in stimulating others to do something about meeting these needs.
S. 3408 is a logical extension of your efforts. It is based on the recognition that a program is only as good as the people who administer it at whatever governmental levels it is carried out.
Unfortunately, as you have pointed out so well, intergovernmental cooperation in the field of personnel administration has lagged behind all other types of intergovernmental relations.
Through greater cooperation the Federal Government could assist State and local governments in their efforts to improve their own personnel administration. But barriers, both psychological and statutory, have obstructed such cooperation.
There has been a long history of rivalry between jurisdictions and a deep-seated fear of encroachment by the Federal Government. The statutory barriers have blocked joint use of training facilities, personnel exchanges, and other services necessary for top quality administration.
We heartily endorse the broad-scale approach recommended in S. 3408. It is generally in line with the objectives set by the President in his speech delivered May 11, 1966, at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. We support appropriate measures for extending and improving personnel administration on the basis of merit at the State and local level. We cannot ignore the great need for both in-service and out-service training of State and local personnel, as well as for preservice training of people who intend to make careers in the public service.
The President has expressed his intent to make recommendations next year for training for State and local public service through support for individuals, universities, and State and local governments. We are now analyzing your proposal as part of developing the Presidential program for introduction in the next session of Congress. Consequently, a full-fledged, formal Administration position of each provision of S. 3408 would be premature at this time. It suffices to say that your proposals will certainly carry great weight in our current planning. The work you have already done is of tremendous help to us. Many of your ideas may be embodied in the program the President will endorse.
The dimensions of this subject are staggering. State and local governments employ well over four million persons, not counting the public schools and universities, in a vast array of occupations.
Under a myriad of statutes and grant programs the Federal Government is already spending sums roughly estimated at $150,000,000, again not counting the even greater amounts going to the education of public school teachers. Many of these existing programs deal with narrow, specialized purposes that have been implemented with little or no central coordination. It is clear that much study and consultation will be necessary to bring some order into and fill in the gaps in the development of quality manpower for the pressing needs of our public services.
We are well along in our initial staff study of the various possibilities for the Presidential program. We hope soon to be consulting with your committee and with other knowledgeable and concerned people in government, the academic world, and elsewhere to obtain the advice and assistance we need to develop a sound and effective program.
Further, the President has already announced that he will submit legislation that would provide a broad uniform authority for Federal agencies to arrange temporary interchanges of personnel with State and local public jurisdictions when such exchanges would be of mutual benefit to the agencies concerned. We have made substantial progress in developing such a proposal.
The interchange idea is not new, and its value has already been demonstrated in previously established programs in industry, institutions of higher learning, and the Government. There are many areas of parallel functions which require the application of similar skills. The temporary assignment of high quality personnel to related organizations brings to bear needed skills on mutual problems and also broadens the perspective of professional and technical personnel.
Thank you for affording me the privilege of discussing this important matter with you.
THE MANPOWER CRISIS: A THREAT TO THE GREAT SOCIETY
(Opening statement of Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE, chairman, Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, for the hearings on S. 3408, the proposed Intergovernmental Personnel Act of 1966, August 16-18, 1966)
This bill, S. 3408 -- the Intergovernmental Personnel Act of 1966 -- is concerned with the crisis in recruiting and retaining qualified personnel that is now confronting State and local governments. Manpower is one of the most critical dimensions of contemporary intergovernmental relations, but it has yet to become a focal point of creative federalism. The President briefly touched on it in his May 11th address at Princeton University, when he endorsed a national program to assist "State and local governments seeking to develop more effective career services for their employees". A Presidential task force is now considering ways of implementing this goal. By focusing on one approach to achieving this objective, these proceedings will complement the efforts of this task force.
The bill that is before us grew out of an increasing awareness on the part of the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations
That good management practices alone will not solve the administrative problems of the Great Society programs;
That additional Federal financial assistance alone will not surmount the challenge to State and local governments of improving the quality of life in the ghettos, in blighted rural communities, and in ugly urban areas;
That greater flexibility and uniformity in the administration of grant programs alone will not lessen the tension between and among Federal officials, governors, mayors, civic groups, and citizens who expect effective and humane governmental action; and
That a greater decentralization of decisionmaking alone will not reduce the pressures on Washington.
In its survey "The Federal System as Seen By Federal Aid Officials," the subcommittee found that manpower was one of the weakest links in the chain of cooperative federalism. The 109 middle-management administrators of Federal grants participating in this study indicated a basic awareness that the success of their programs depended in large measure on the talents of their State and local administrative counterparts. With the increase in the number and scope of the Federal aids, they recognized that implementation of joint-action programs has become a major responsibility of State and local governments, and they conceded that the rapid expansion of this administrative partnership necessitates a reexamination of intergovernmental personnel relationships.
In general, these Federal aid administrators were skeptical of, indeed largely hostile to, existing State and local personnel practices. A substantial majority expressed concern over low salaries, the inadequacy of in-service training programs, and the lack of across-the-board merit systems. More than three-quarters considered the inability to transfer retirement benefits and the loss of seniority rights as significant deterrents to job mobility. And, in a rare display of innovative enthusiasm, a majority agreed that the operation of their programs would benefit with the establishment of a federally supported in-service training program.
The responses of these Federal executives were largely conditioned by their desire to extend their own standards of specialized competence to their administrative counterparts at the other levels, and to thwart any injection of partisan politics into their functional relationships. These concerns underscore the accuracy of Professor Charles Adrian's assessment that, in our cooperative Federal system, conflict does not stem from the relations between the levels of government as such, but in two other ways. First, "friction results whenever the administrative personnel of a particular level for a particular function is not fully professionalized." Second, there is friction between the bureaucracy and the legislature, and this rises out of the "differences in values, interest, constituencies of the two decision-making groups." In effect, the Federal middle-management aid officials participating in the Subcommittee's survey were seeking in their own way to reduce tension in both areas.
As a follow-up to these survey findings, I instructed the Subcommittee staff to determine the dimensions of this manpower crisis and what steps might be taken to alleviate it. Our research revealed that the roots of the crisis stemmed from the paramount fact that States and localities -- not Washington -- have shouldered most of the burden of meeting the mounting public demand for more and better governmental services during the past two decades. This dramatic performance can be chronicled in terms of money and in terms of manpower.
First, the facts of fiscal federalism reveal that there has been a shift in the balance of governmental finances over the past two decades:
Of total revenues raised by all levels of government in 1946, State and local governments accounted for only 23 percent; by 1965, their share was 43 percent.
Of total governmental expenditures in 1946, State and local governments accounted for only 15 percent; in 1964, this had increased to 42 percent.
State and local governments accounted for only 5 percent of the total public debt in 1946; today their share has increased to 23 percent.
State and local governments, then, have been and are under great pressure to increase outlays for public services, and this will continue for the foreseeable future. They have made extraordinary efforts in the past two decades to meet their rising needs to the extent that last year, their expenditures constituted 68 percent of all spending for civil government. And five years from now, their expenditures are expected to reach the $120 billion mark -- or $10 billion more than the projected Federal budget for all purposes, including defense and foreign policy commitments.
Second, developments in the manpower area have paralleled those relating to money. State and local employment has now reached the 8-million mark, an increase of 130 percent over the 1946 figure. Analysis of the evolving employment pattern for State and local governments reveals some striking shifts from that of a generation ago. From 1954 to 1964, special districts, school districts, townships, and States -- and in that order -- enjoyed higher employment rates than the 4.3 average annual increase that characterized overall State and local hiring during this decade. In terms of functional categories, State and local employment in police protection increased by 30 percent from 1967 to 1964, and in public health and hospitals by 41 percent. The number of full-time public employees in education soared by 60 percent, and those in public welfare by 62 percent. Finally, of the total manpower involved with civil governmental functions, the State and local sector now accounts for over 80 percent. In short, State and local public service has experienced a remarkable transformation during the past two decades, in terms of size, hiring units, occupational composition, and added responsibilities.
The reasons for this massive growth are known to most of us. The population boom, the demand for expanded services generated by it, the physical and social problems stemming from urbanization and suburbanization, and the unwillingness of an increasing number of American citizens to settle for the level and quality of services provided a generation ago -- these are the most obvious causes of this employment explosion. But others should be noted. The rejuvenation of the States and of the smaller, non-metropolitan local governments figures in this development.
The disproportionate growth in the size of those age groups requiring extensive public services -- the young and the old -- is another factor that must be considered. And the stimulating effect of expanded Federal grant-in-aid program and activity cannot be ignored.
Most of this largely unheralded revolution in State and local employment, then, is explained in terms of dynamic demographic and social developments that have affected all levels. But, as I have noted, Federal action, directly or indirectly, has also been a contributing factor. So we have reached the point now where States employ more than 2 million workers with a monthly payroll of $850 million, and where local governments employ nearly 6 million workers with a monthly payroll of $2.5 billion. We have also reached the point where we can take little comfort in these figures.
The foregoing clearly demolishes the myth that the States and localities are withering under the glare of a Federal sun. But it does not clearly indicate that manpower is one of the most critical intergovernmental issues confronting us. The galloping growth rates, after all, tend to conceal the many troublesome topics that combine to create a crisis situation.
Recent reports, however, indicate that there already exists a shortage of well-trained and highly-qualified personnel, especially in the administrative, professional, and technical categories -- at all levels. Many well-trained and well-qualified employees of State and local government were hired during the Depression years and are now approaching retirement. More than one-third of all municipal executives, for example, fall in this category and are slated for retirement in this decade.
When the long-range implications of prospective State and local manpower needs are considered, this gap yawns even wider. As the President pointed out in his Princeton University speech: "By 1970, our State governments must grow by more than 600,000 to keep pace with the times. Employment for State and local government will exceed 10 million persons. Each year over the next decade, our Nation will need 200,000 new public school teachers to keep up with the growing population."
Other chilling statistics can also be cited. Witness these facts:
Approximately half the Nation's municipal health directors will be eligible for retirement within the next ten years;
Two hundred vacancies for traffic engineers will occur annually in the years ahead, but only approximately 50 new graduates will be available each year in this specialized field;
Two vacancies will exist for every graduate of a university course in city or regional planning; and
By 1980, local governments alone will have to recruit approximately 300,000 additional administrative and professional employees to maintain their current program objectives.
These forecasts of manpower shortages have implications extending far beyond the individual programs, communities, and States that are affected. They indicate that we cannot be sanguine about that 8 million employment figure. They reveal that State and local governments generally -- and not just a few of these jurisdictions -- are having serious difficulty in attracting and holding professional, managerial, and technical personnel. Finally, they promise that these jurisdictions will face even greater difficulties in the years ahead.
These estimates of State and local personnel shortages, then, clearly indicate that manpower is as critical to improved intergovernmental relations and to "creative federalism" as any other single issue. At the Federal level, the personnel problem has received almost continuous attention since President Kennedy's appointment of the Randall Commission in 1961. At the State and local levels, however, it is only beginning to be recognized as a topic worthy of national concern.
The findings of the Subcommittee on IntergovernmentaI Relations indicate that we must mount a broad-gauged attack on the many forces that face us on the manpower front. Piecemeal resistance no longer will suffice. The threat is just that critical.
I believe the measure before us constitutes a realistic response to many of the critical challenges that confront us in this vital area. I also believe that it constitutes a national program that will implement the President's goal, enunciated in his Princeton address.
The main purpose of this legislation is to encourage State and local governments to improve the quality of their own public service. It does this by focusing on three prime problems in the manpower area: merit requirements, personnel management, and in-service training programs.
How does the proposed legislation attack these problems, and what are some of the questions raised by its strategy?
Title I authorizes the President to extend to additional programs the requirement that State and local people administering such programs be employed under a merit system which would meet certain basic Federal standards. There is nothing new or revolutionary in this title. Such requirements have been in effect since 1939, when they were added to such programs as Old Age Assistance, Medical Assistance for the Aged, Unemployment Compensation, Aid and Services to Needy Families with Children, and the like. In recent years, the requirement s has been included in the Older Americans Act of 1965, Health Insurance for the Aged, and Medicare. All told, some 24 programs out of a total of 169 now carry the merit t system requirement. Most are administered by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, but grants under DOD's Civil Defense program are covered by it, and in 1964, the Department of Labor's Appropriation Act applied the requirement to the Federal Employment Service. The specifics of this requirement will be inserted in the record at the end of this statement.
Accurate figures on the extent and coverage of State and local employees under State and grant-in-aid merit systems are not available. But from reports we do know that, of the total full-time State employees, something less than half are covered. Of a total of 2 million State government employees reported for 1965, nearly a million or 47.8 percentwere under a merit system. In 26 States, more than 50 percent of the full-time employees are covered. In Connecticut and New York, about 85 percent of State employees are so classified. In 12 States, however, coverage is minimal, and includes only personnel administering those Federal programs requiring such a system. In these States, the proportion of total State employees covered ranges from 4 to 35 percent. It should be noted here that this is only a quantitative picture of merit system coverage; the qualitative side is less well known, and I hope these hearings will shed some light on this elusive feature.
Meaningful figures on local coverage are unavailable. What evidence there is indicates that merit systems are virtually nonexistent in most non-metropolitan units of local government, and in a majority of counties. The general impression overall is that merit is truly a principle and rarely a practice at the local level. Yet it is precisely this level that has experienced the most intense pressure from new programs and increasing numbers and concentrations of people. One of the recommendations advanced by the Committee for Economic Development, in its recent and widely-publicized report "Modernizing Local Government," is a case in point. The report reads:
"Personnel practices based on merit and professional competence should replace the personal or partisan 'spoils' system found in most counties and many other local units.
"Specialized skills are increasingly essential to solution of most governmental problems, whether in highway engineering, public health and sanitation, police and fire protection, education, pollution control, slum clearance, public finance, or in management of such. Skills require training and experience, as well as innate ability. Persons with high skills must be recruited, developed, and utilized effectively. This is unlikely to occur in a climate of petty partisanship, low salaries, and confused authority."
The record shows that the impact of the Federal legislation requiring merit standards has been the primary factor in sustaining the career principle in nearly half the States and in many localities. Moreover, the administration of these requirements has been carried out with a minimum of discomfort and political controversy.
For these reasons, I believe that requirements establishing "a system of public employment, operating under public rules, and based, among other factors, on competitive examinations, equal pay for equal work, tenure contingent on successful performance, promotion on evaluated capacity and service" should be extended to more grant-in-aid programs, as this title provides.
To those who doubt the wisdom of this provision -- and they are many -- I pose these questions:
What would have sustained the career service in those 24 States that lack a viable merit system, had certain Federal grants not contained such a requirement?
What, realistically, can be done to upgrade the administration of various grants-in-aid and the image of the public service at these evels, if patronage continues to be the first order of personnel business?
What is so dangerous about permitting the President to extend to more programs the simple and sensible standards set forth in the Federal Register, which I will insert at the end of this statement?
And finally, why all the fuss when, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject (August 7, 1966), 70 percent of those surveyed endorsed the proposal that "all jobs except those at the highest policy-making level, [should) be filled by Civil Service"?
Title II of the bill is aimed at helping State and local governments to strengthen their personnel management systems, and provides a system of grants for this purpose. Let me make it clear at the outset -- because there has been much misunderstanding about this title -- that what we are talking about here is a program to upgrade the core management personnel function at State and local levels. This means strengthening the professional capabilities of those who recruit, examine, and develop position classification systems and pay scales on an agencywide basis for the States and for the localities.
To be approved, a State program must include designation of a State agency for its administration, provision for a merit system and for State matching funds, and a description of the plan for improving State personnel management. Such a program might include expansion of a State's present merit system; plans to meet the manpower needs in new or expanding State programs; improvement in recruitment, examination, classification, and pay plans; development of auxiliary types of jobs to supplement professional staff in short supply; research and demonstration projects; and interdepartmental and intergovernmental cooperation in personnel administration.
Other sections of this title would extend grant programs for improvement of personnel administration to local governments, both metropolitan and non-metropolitan. As I said earlier, metropolitan governments are facing new and acute problems with limited resources in personnel administration; and, to a lesser degree, this is true of those local governments experiencing rapid growth as a result of their proximity to already-urbanized areas.
The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare is assigned the responsibility of administering this program. This was done in recognition of the long experience and competence of HEW's Division of State Merit Systems in giving assistance to States for the past 20 years under the various grant-in-aid programs which already require merit system personnel administration. That Division, moreover, has demonstrated the capacity to reach agreement with the Defense and Labor Departments on standards for personnel administration in grant programs requiring merit coverage.
To those who question the role here of HEW's Division of State Merit Systems, I ask:
What other Federal unit has had greater practical and fairly peaceful experience with State personnel administrators?
What other unit has demonstrated greater awareness of problems confronting State and local personnel management?
Title III of the proposed S. 3408 authorizes departments and agencies of the Federal Government conducting training programs for their administrative, professional, and technical personnel to open these programs to counterpart personnel employed by State and local governments. It also authorizes Federal agencies and departments administering Federal aid programs to conduct training programs for State and local personnel. Such Federal agencies axe permitted to make grants to States and localities, from that portion of grant funds earmarked for administrative costs, to cover the expense of such training. In addition, such agencies are permitted to make grants from these funds for educational leave to allow State and local employees in short supply categories to attend training courses related to the grant program.
Here as in the case of title I we are revitalizing a technique that already has been used.
This title merely seeks to expand the cooperative relationships which already exist between many Federal Government agencies and States and localities with respect to training. The FBI Academy for some years has trained police officers for both State and local governments. The Law Enforcement Act of 1965 provides "assistance in training State and local law enforcement officers." The Internal Revenue Service and the Public Health Service are also authorized to train counterpart State and local officials. A number of other agencies have the training authority, but some have made little use of it; others -- and no one has been able to provide us thus far with a reliable listing -- lack this authority.
Title III, then, meets both these problems. It will give new life to the training efforts of those agencies that have failed to exercise their statutory powers. And it will remove any restrictions which others have encountered in conducting such training programs.
Title IV goes to the heart of the training problem at the State and local levels. Under it, the States will be given the whole responsibility for developing plans for the training of their own employees, and the initial responsibility for joining with local governments in developing such programs for local personnel. Plans would include provisions for continuing assessment of training needs, for equitable standards relating to the selection and assignment of personnel for training, and for efficient utilization of personnel receiving training, including continued service for a reasonable period of time. A State plan also would include guidelines covering the selection of universities or other non-governmental facilities when such institutions are to be used for training purposes.
The title authorizes general units of local government in the State, either jointly or separately, to submit training plans if, within a year from the effective date of the Act, a State fails to submit a plan which includes significant provisions covering local training activities. Further, it would be administered by the Civil Service Commission, but the concurrence of the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development again is required for approval of training projects for our Nation's cities.
It is important to note that title IV of S. 3408 is residual. Personnel receiving training under other Federal statutes are specifically excluded from its coverage. But, more importantly, it meets the training needs of the States and localities, as these jurisdictions see them. It replaces the piecemeal method that has characterized the Federal approach to in-service training to date.
Changes in public policy, advancing technology, as well as the application of new Federal programs can and do change the nature of an employee's work. For this reason alone, State and local governments have no more real choice than does industry, or any other sector of our society; they must train or re-train employees to meet the need of the job and the times.
What have the States done on their own to solve this problem? The record -- as we read it -- is decidedly uneven. Only California, New York, Michigan, and a few others have training programs for top management. Others provide some training for other key personnel. But, according to a recent survey by the International City Managers Association, most States have no comprehensive program for training administrative, technical, and professional personnel. I understand that other studies of the scope of State training efforts are underway, and hope that at least some of the preliminary findings of these studies will be brought out during the course of these hearings. But ICMA's summary of its findings gives us little comfort: "There is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an overabundance of comprehensive programs. Indeed, the picture presented is almost the reverse."
Title IV of S. 3408 seeks to paint a different picture. It emphasizes training needs as they are seen from the administrative firing line, it is geared to attacking a problem that administrators at all levels, as well as experts in public administration, have described as critical. Finally, it fully recognizes that, as President Johnson stated at Princeton, "The public servant today moves along paths of adventure where he is helpless without the tools of advanced learning."
Title V of the Act authorizes the Civil Service Commission to join on a shared-cost basis with States or units of general local government, or both, in cooperative recruitment or examinations under mutually agreeable regulations. Some authorities believe the Commission already possesses this authority, but the same authorities concede that adequate provision is lacking with respect to financing such joint activity. This title provides a statutory basis for the Commission's authority to enter into such cooperative arrangements, and it settles the financial question by adopting the shared-cost formula.
The Committee for Economic Development's recent study on local governments recommended:
"To assist in recruiting competent individuals the Federal Service Entrance Examination test results should be made available to local governments. Since less than 9 percent of those eligible for Federal GS-5 appointment, for example, ever accept any Federal position, to provide local units with such information should not materially affect the Federal Government's recruitment capability. Instead, it would undoubtedly result in more persons entering government service at levels where their training is critically needed." This title complements this recommendation.
Title VI gives prior Congressional consent to interstate compacts or other agreements, not in conflict with any law of the United States, for cooperative efforts and mutual assistance relating to the administration of personnel and training programs for State and local employees. The New England Governors' Conference already has launched a survey of the possibilities of regional collaboration with respect to personnel training programs. Building on the precedent set in the Housing Act of 1961 (which gave prior Congressional approval to interstate compacts establishing metropolitan agencies in multi-state urban areas), this provision hopefully will encourage expanded efforts to develop training programs on a regional basis.
To some, this bill is merely a "good government" measure. I welcome this somewhat derogatory designation, because "good governments" are just what we need to strengthen our cooperative federal system, and to make the Great Society programs work. The most ambitious programs we have enacted will produce only criticism and chaos if we lack the right men in the right places.
The promises of the Great Society will only be platitudes, if the people on the administrative firing line are unwilling or unable to execute them. The vitality of the grant-in-aid device will be vitiated, if the necessary State and local manpower is incapable of assuming its proper role in this joint endeavor.
We must now recognize that governmental strength and competence must be judged partly in terms of administrative strength and competence. Thus, the classical Federal doctrine of divided power now requires a balancing of bureaucratic authority and influence between and among the levels of government.
S. 3408, the proposed Intergovernmental Personnel Act of 1966, is concerned with all these critical issues. It is my hope that these proceedings will provide the basis for improving and perfecting this measure, since the need for action on the intergovernmental manpower front becomes more pressing with each passing day.
At this point, I want to insert in the RECORD the text of the bill, along with the following materials relating to it:
1. Citations to State Merit Systems Required by Federal Grant-in-Aid Programs, by Johnny H. Killian, Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress.
2. Table of employment and merit system coverage by State and local governments 1964-65, compiled by the Subcommittee staff.
3. Excerpts from title 45, Code of Federal Regulations. Part 70: Standards for a Merit System of Personnel Administration.
4. Rank of the States: Number of State and Local Employees.
5. Lists: States with centrally-directed programs for training of State and local personnel, and States with training programs directed by various State agencies.
6. Table: State Personnel Agencies; Coverage, Organization, and Selected Policies, August 1965.
7. Table: Budgets, Staffs, and Pay Rates of Public Personnel Agencies.