January 26, 1967
Page 1648
THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PERSONNEL ACT OF 1967
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and Senators BREWSTER, CLARK, GRUENING, HART, JACKSON, KENNEDY of New York, MCGEE, METCALF, NELSON, and RANDOLPH, I would like to introduce, for appropriate reference, the Intergovernmental Personnel Act of 1967, to strengthen intergovernmental cooperation and the administration of grant-in-aid programs, to extend State and local merit systems to additional programs financed by Federal funds, to provide grants for improvement of State and local personnel administration, to authorize Federal assistance in training State and local employees, to provide grants to State and local governments for training of their employees, to authorize interstate compacts for personnel and training activities, to facilitate the interchange of Federal, State, and local personnel, and for other purposes.
I ask unanimous consent that the bill remain at the desk for 10 days to permit other Senators to add their names as cosponsors.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, for over 3 years the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, which I chair, has been studying the problems of American federalism in its effort to meet the public demands of our rapidly increasing population. One serious crisis area that we have found involves government manpower at State and local levels. There are not enough competent and professional people employed at these levels to coordinate and implement effective planning and public development programs. A tight professional and technical labor market and an extraordinary lack of personnel, training, and recruitment systems, which discourage good people from choosing a career in State and local governments, all compound the problem.
I am more than ever convinced that the success of our Great Society programs -- and indeed perhaps the future of American federalism -- largely depends upon whether we recognize and overcome the crisis in governmental manpower. Thus far, we have acted as though this crisis does not exist.
During the past five sessions of Congress we have developed the most impressive package of Federal legislation since the New Deal to attack poverty, ignorance, uneven economic development, discrimination, and urban blight and sprawl. We have appropriated more money for aid to State and local governments than in all the previous Congresses in our history.
But the success of these programs is only as good as the people who carry them out -- in the fastest, most effective way possible. The ultimate burden is on the State and local administrators. They are on the firing line of the Great Society. They must be given every encouragement and assistance to do their work well.
The proposed Intergovernmental Personnel Act of 1967 is designed to provide the first comprehensive Federal aid program for improving and strengthening State and local administration. With some additions, the bill is the same as S. 3408. which I introduced in the last session and on which hearings were held last August. It focuses on four prime problems in the manpower area: merit system requirements; personnel management; in-service training programs; and interchange of Federal, State, and local employees.
TITLE I -- MERIT SYSTEMS IN FEDERALLY AIDED PROGRAMS
Title I authorizes the President, as he deems practicable, to require as a condition for receiving funds under Federal grant-in-aid programs that State and local administrative personnel be employed under a merit system meeting Federal standards.
This title also authorizes the President to appoint an "advisory council" composed of representatives of the various levels of government to study and recommend the appropriate personnel standards and to identify those programs to which merit systems should be extended.
The title further requires that the President take such recommendations of the council into consideration in establishing the merit system requirements.
This injection of the role of an advisory council to help the President work out merit system standards came from the hearings, where many knowledgeable witnesses expressed the view that there should be the greatest possible representation of views from the State and local levels in determining merit conditions which must be met.
There is really 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 others. In recent years, the requirement has been included in the Older Americans Act of 1965, health insurance for the aged, and medicare. Presently, some 24 programs out of a total of approximately 220 now carry the merit system requirement. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare administers most of these programs, but grants under the civil defense program are also covered by it. In 1964, the Labor Department's Appropriation Act applied the requirement to the Federal Employment Service.
The Federal Government, nearly all the experts in the field, and 26 States recognize a relationship between attracting and retaining competent public personnel, and the presence of a viable, functioning merit system. Title I is rooted in this relationship, as the following comment of a secretary of internal affairs of a Middle Atlantic State indicates:
... I believe it is generally conceded that in programs where this principle is already applied ... it has had a salutary effect on State and local administration. I can see no objection to this provision, especially since it is provided that the Federal Government shall exercise no authority over the selection, tenure, or compensation of individuals employed in accordance with such an arrangement....
Existing Federal efforts to encourage merit systems, however, have not been sufficiently adequate, since they are geared largely to the needs of certain grant programs and certain categories of specialized personnel administering them. State and local efforts have been equally piecemeal and shortsighted. The professional needs of the public service at these levels are simply not being met. The record shows that, of a total of 2 million State employees in 1965, less than a million were under a merit system. In 26 States, only 50 percent of full-time employees were covered, and in 12 States, coverage was minimal. This is only a quantitative picture; the qualitative side is much less known.
Estimates for local personnel are even more unimpressive. A reading of various surveys suggests, however, that the majority of municipalities and nearly all of our counties are dominated by old style patronage politics or an equally old-style civil service system that emphasizes rigid requirements, job security, and the policing function.
The Municipal Manpower Commission, and more recently the Committee for Economic Development, attempted to come to grips with this problem. The Commission recommended, among other things, that:
The chief executive should be given clear-cut responsibility for personnel administration.
The independent civil service commission, where it exists, should be abolished or limited to an advisory function.
The appointment and advancement of public personnel should be based exclusively on merit principles.
Unfortunately, most local jurisdictions have made little progress in blending these merit and modern management themes into a functioning, politically feasible, and effective personnel system.
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 on competitive examinations, tenure contingent upon successful performance, and promotion on evaluated capacity and service -- should be extended to more grant-in-aid programs, such as this title provides. There are, admittedly, problems inherent in attempting to apply merit system requirements across the board, but I feel that the language now worked out in title I will give the President sufficient flexibility and an opportunity to be advised by the States and localities as to the best ways of resolving these problems before they are encountered.
TITLE II -- GRANTS FOR STATE AND LOCAL PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION
Title II authorizes matching grants to State and local governments to help strengthen their personnel management systems. In order to upgrade the core management personnel function at State and local levels, we must first strengthen the professional capabilities of those who recruit, examine, and develop position classification systems and pay scales on an agency-wide basis.
Project grants are authorized to cover a wide variety of activities -- including the improvement of one or more of the traditional personnel functions, the upgrading of personnel agencies, manpower planning, or the initiation of pilot projects geared to meeting special urban needs.
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 for 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. At such time as the preponderance of aid programs requiring merit system shifts from HEW, it may be desirable to transfer this unit to the Civil Service Commission.
Title II has been changed in some respects from that title in S. 3408. The authorization for grants for State personnel administration has been increased to meet the objections of a number of witnesses that the original amounts were inadequate. The minimum State allotment has been increased. The requirement of a State plan providing for a merit system has been made more flexible. And provisions have been inserted to assure that State and local matching funds required to qualify for Federal grants not be obtained by reducing State and local support for existing programs, or that State funds used for matching on other federally assisted merit programs not be used for matching.
TITLE III -- AUTHORIZATION FOR TRAINING
Title III of the proposed Act authorizes Federal departments and agencies conducting training programs for their administrative, professional, and technical personnel to open these programs to counterpart State and local personnel. It also authorizes Federal agencies and departments administering Federal aid programs to conduct training programs for such State and local personnel. Federal agencies are 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 programs.
A new section to title III authorizes the Civil Service Commission to review existing training programs, to identify training needs, and to advise the President with respect to its findings. It further authorizes the President to assign the Civil Service Commission the role of "coordinator" under the title.
In general the title 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 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.
A new section has been added to title III which would establish an advisory council on training, composed of representatives of State and local officials and other interested groups to advise the Civil Service Commission in establishing policy and programs under this title. Again, as in the case of merit systems, State and local governments are brought into Federal decision making and encouraged to develop a closer partnership.
Changes in public policy, advancing technology, and the application of new Federal programs require State and local governments to train or retrain employees to meet the needs of the job and the times, and to compete in the manpower market. But the voters do not really understand the difficulties confronting these central personnel offices. Ponder this assessment by a New England educational foundation of the problem as it affects this six-State area:
The central personnel agencies in New England are preoccupied with immediate operating problems and are hemmed in by limited financial resources. For these reasons they have been unable to undertake research and planning projects necessary to anticipate manpower development. The central personnel agencies are, moreover, experiencing difficulty in the
performance of daily operations.
Several State line agencies consider their central personnel agency to be seriously understaffed and say that this has hampered departmental recruitment, classification, examination, and training. As a result, recruitment and training functions are increasingly being performed by line agencies themselves . . Central personnel agencies need both additional manpower and financial resources ...
Speaking for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Assistant Secretary Taylor supported this New England statement:
There is a great need for programs of in-service training to upgrade the skills of present State and local public employees. Many of these men and women have been serving well as public employees for many years, but the demands of today's urban development techniques are often outside the scope of their training and experience. These public servants have great contributions to make to the realization of the goals of the Great Society if only we will recognize their desperate need for short courses, extension courses, workshops, and on-the-job training in current urban development practices.
. . Public enterprise is a going concern on the local and State level and it must not only attract new talent, but also retrain its present employees.
These findings clearly indicate that most of us have yet to accept, and act on the proposition that a professional public service is as critical to improved intergovernmental relations, and to the meaningful concept of creative federalism as any 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 of broad national concern.
TITLE IV -- GRANTS FOR TRAINING STATE AND LOCAL OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES
Title IV gives the States the basic responsibility for developing plans for training their own employees, and the initial responsibility for joining with local governments to develop such programs for local personnel. Plans would include the continuing assessment of training needs, equitable standards relating to the selection and assignment of personnel for training, and better utilization of personnel receiving such training. 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. However, if after 1 year a State has not presented a plan, the local governments can submit their own plans, designating a single local agency for administration under requirements established by the Civil Service Commission with the concurrence of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Such an assertion of local control can be challenged by the State at an administrative hearing.
TITLE V -- COOPERATION IN RECRUITMENT AND EXAMINATION
Title V authorizes the Civil Service Commission to join on a shared-cost basis with States and units of general local government 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 appointments, 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.
Title V implements this recommendation.
TITLE VI -- INTERSTATE COMPACTS
Title VI gives prior congressional consent to interstate compacts or other agreements for cooperative efforts and mutual assistance relating to the administration of personnel and training programs for State and local employees. The New England States have already launched a survey of the possibilities of regional collaboration with respect to personnel training programs. It is hoped that this title will stimulate comparable efforts in other regions. 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.
TITLE VII -- REPORTS, RECORDS, AND AUDITS
The reports, records, and audits provisions which were under individual titles in S. 3408 have now been consolidated under one title, in accordance with the recommendation of the General Accounting Office.
TITLE VIII -- INTERCHANGE OF FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL EMPLOYEES
Title VIII provides for the opportunity for Federal employees to be interchanged in their positions with State and local employees for a period of assignment not to exceed 2 years. Federal employees would be considered on detail to a regular work assignment, with full salary and benefits or in a status of leave-of absence-without-salary, but with a continuation of benefits.
Employees of State or local governments assigned to a Federal agency would be given appointments in the agency, or be considered on detail to the agency. Supervision of the duties of State and local employees during such assignment would be governed by agreement between the Federal agency and the governments involved.
This is a new title, framed out of the recommendations of many witnesses at the hearings on S. 3408. It follows language suggested by the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, and may well become one of the most dynamic features of the bill.
The Council of State Governments' Committee on Suggested State Legislation has developed a model State employee interchange act to equip States to participate in exchange programs. A 1962 Public Personnel Association study showed that three States had specific legislation authorizing employee interchange, while 34 additional States could provide for such interchange either by detailing individuals or by leave of absence and appointment elsewhere. Of particular significance is the fact that by 1965, 2 years after the appearance of the model act, 10 States had provided specific statutory authorization. Recently, the Midwestern Conference of the Council of State Governments took action urging favorable consideration of the model legislation by those States which had not adopted it.
In connection with promulgating the model act, the Committee on Suggested Legislation recommended that Congress enact broad legislation permitting all Federal agencies to participate in employee interchange programs with State and local governments.
Civil Service Commission Chairman John Macy strongly supported this idea of personnel interchange. He testified:
There are interchange programs taking place now in areas such as public health, but I believe there would be profit for all concerned if it were possible for State officials to serve a period of time on loan in the Federal Government, and I think the Federal Government could assist States and localities materially if they would loan out some of their experienced people, not as Feds who have entered the local fold, but as members of the local staff for a period of time. This kind of service should be encouraged.
THE PROBLEMS OF GROWING GOVERNMENT
Mr. President, State and local governments are big government today. Their growth has been enormous during the past 20 years. This growth has been a necessary response to the burgeoning public demands of our citizens, especially in the urban areas.
Between 1946 and 1965, State revenues rose 467 percent, and local revenues were up 460 percent. Twenty years ago, the States and localities spent a total of $11 billion to meet public needs; this year they will spend nearly $90 billion, and an annual expenditure of over $180 billion is anticipated by 1975. This is more than is expected for the entire Federal budget, including defense, space, and foreign aid commitments.
Big expenditure is not the only measure of size at State and local levels. In 1946, State and local employees numbered 3.3 million; today this has increased 130 percent to 8 million persons, including 2 million in State governments. By 1975, the figure is expected to reach 12 million. This rise in public employment in State and local government is in sharp contrast to 2.6 million Federal civilian employment workers, which figure has remained stable during the past 20 years.
Analysis of the evolving employment pattern for State and local government reveals some striking shifts from that of a generation ago. From 1954 to 1964, special districts, school districts, townships, and States -- in that order -- enjoyed higher employment rates than the 4.3-percent average annual increase that characterized overall State and local hiring during that decade. In terms of functional categories, State and local employment in police protection increased by 30 percent from 1957 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 2 decades in terms of size, hiring units, occupational composition, and added responsibilities.
Most of us know the reasons for this massive growth: the population boom, the demand for expanded services generated by it, the physical and social problems stemming from urbanization and suburbanization, and the desire of American citizens for a higher level and quality of public services than provided a generation ago; the disproportionate growth in the size of those age groups requiring extensive public services -- the young and the old -- and the stimulating effect of expanded Federal grant-in-aid programs.
The growth in manpower and public programs at State and local levels has not been accompanied by improvement in the quality and professional caliber of administration. The Senate Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations has been studying this problem for the past 3 years.
The subcommittee found that the primary need of State and local government is to attract and retain good people. This is frustrated at the outset by the extraordinary shortage in professional manpower at all levels of government and in the private sector. Compared with an 18-percent increase in the total number of workers of all kinds, the U.S. Department of Labor foresees a rise of 40 percent in the number needed for professional and technical jobs. Many well-trained and well-qualified employees of State and local government who were hired during the depression years 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 last May:
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.
Approximately half the Nation's municipal health directors will be eligible for retirement within the next 10 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.
By 1980, local governments alone will have to recruit approximately 300,000 additional administrative and professional employes to maintain their current program objectives.
But aside from the manpower shortage, the subcommittee found that existing State and local personnel and management systems tended to discourage competent people from entering government service at these levels. In many instances, working conditions were unfavorable.
Budgets for equipment and office space were limited. Career development systems, including the chance for job mobility, in-service training, and promotions, were minimal except in the larger jurisdictions. Strong merit systems were frequently lacking, thereby resulting in the loading of agencies with incompetent, uninspiring, and often indifferent personnel.
Too often, administrative personnel were given assignments without clear objectives, or were frustrated by complicated intergovernmental structures, and responsible administrators were boxed in by inflexible rules and regulations with respect to hiring, firing, and disciplinary action.
It was found that one of the most serious deterrents to improved manpower at State and local levels was the low salary scales. For instance, annual salaries of professional positions, all requiring college degrees, were typical: public health nurse, $5,200; unemployment claims deputy, $6,000; welfare case worker, $6,500; sanitation official, $6,000; vocational counselor, $7,000; hearings examiner, $8,000. Besides discouraging employees of merit, low pay scales create a host of other problems: turnover is high, and efficiency is greatly reduced. Many workers spend too much time and energy "moonlighting" in order to augment total income. The temptation for accepting gratuities for special favors is heightened. And the ability of supervisors to achieve cooperation and work effort is greatly hindered.
This adds up to a crisis in manpower at those levels of government which hold the future of public development in their hands. The Federal Government has moved ahead in upgrading the caliber of personnel at its level, but the States and localities -- largely as a result of misguided economy measures and failure to recognize the existence of a manpower crisis -- are so far behind that it will take a massive effort to stir them into action.
Mr. President, I feel that the Intergovernmental Personnel Act of 1967 which I propose today will be a dramatic start in helping State and local governments solve this critical problem of manpower. Much, of course, will have to be done through their own efforts. Greatly increased salaries should be high on their list of improvements. But where the Federal Government is so concerned with the effective implementation of its grant-in-aid programs, it should be equally concerned with providing incentives for the modernization of personnel systems and training for those who administer these joint-action programs. Through a judicious combination of grant funds, technical assistance, and new devices for intergovernmental cooperation in the personnel area, the proposed legislation provides a variety of ways to strengthen the professional standing and prestige of personnel at the State and local levels.
At hearings last August on the original bill, the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations reported that at its April meeting it had unanimously approved the objectives of the bill. Through its director, Mr. William G. Colman, the Commission made helpful suggestions which were incorporated in the new version.
Civil Service Commission Chairman Macy heartily endorsed "the broad-scale approach" of the bill, and specifically supported each of its titles with the caveat that he would be for "enlargement rather than contraction."
Similar approval came from Undersecretary Wilbur Cohen, of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, who said that the bill goes to "the very essence of what is necessary to develop in this country more effective merit systems and personnel to carry out the programs."
Some others supporting S. 3408 were W. Fletcher Lutz, national president of the Federal Government Accountants Association; Ralph R. Widner, executive director of the Appalachian Regional Commission; and H. Ralph Taylor, Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be reprinted in the RECORD at this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The bill will be received and appropriately referred; and, without objection, the bill will be printed in the RECORD.
The bill (S. 699) to strengthen intergovernmental cooperation and the administration of grant-in-aid programs, to extend State and local merit systems to additional programs financed by Federal funds, to provide grants for improvement of State and local personnel administration, to authorize Federal assistance in training State and local employees, to provide grants to State and local governments for training of their employees, to authorize interstate compacts for personnel and training activities, to facilitate the interchange of Federal, State, and local personnel, and for other purposes, introduced by Mr. MUSKIE (for himself and other Senators), was received, read twice by its title, referred to the Committee on Government Operations, and ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: