OVER-ALL TOTAL EMPLOYMENT

Mr. REID. I have broken down by agencies of the Department the tables which we usually insert, showing the paid employment at the end of December 1950, inside of the Washington, D. C., metropolitan area, that which is outside of the Washington, D. C., area, and then the total employment in the Department.

I would like to have those put in the record.

Mr. WHITTEN. That information will be inserted. (The tables referred to are as follows:)

Monthly report of paid employment as of end of December 1950, inside and outside Washington, D. C., metropolitan area 1

Includes employees outside the continental limits of the United States. Includes 276 FICB and 193 PCC employees (nonsecretarial appointees). Excludes 23 employees of the Central Bank for Cooperatives paid by the bank. Also excludes 1,083 FLB, 209 BC, and 263 FA employees (nonsecretarial appointees) and 298 land bank appraisers (secretarial appointees) paid by the banks. *Includes 4,525 FHA State and county committeemen who performed service during the month.

Monthly report of paid employment as of end of December 1950, inside Washington D. C. metropolitan area

Monthly report of paid employment, as of end of December 1950 outside Washington, D. C., metropolitan area 1

2, 821

1,002

4225

2,825

1,004

322

1 Includes employees outside the continental limits of the United States.

* Includes 4,525 FHA State and county committeemen who performed service during the month.

Report of personnel cooperating or collaborating with, but not paid by the Department of Agriculture, June 30, 1950

1 Excludes land bank appraisers.

'Estimated figures for national farm loan associations and production credit associations include 532 employees who work jointly in these associations.

Includes 87,318 community committeemen who like the county committeemen are employed only a few days throughout the year.

INDIRECT EMPLOYEES

Mr. REID. Mr. Chairman, I have here the statement on the personnel who are cooperating and collaborating but not paid by the Department of Agriculture, which includes the county extension agents, employees of the Farm Credit Administration, and the county committeemen and county employees other than county committeemen of the Production and Marketing Administration, which totals 131,989 people.

Mr. BATES. How are the county committeemen paid?

Mr. REID. They are paid by a fund that is made as a grant. It is an appropriation to the county committeemen.

Mr. BATES. It is in the appropriation bill?

Mr. ANDERSEN. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. REID. I should also like to give each of you a copy-it is not to go in the record-of a statistical summary of our entire employment as of December 1950, which is the summary of employment which we issue monthly, each month of the year.

Mr. Chairman, I think that is about all I have.

BUDGET PREPARATION, 1952

Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Roberts, when did the Department prepare its budget for 1952; what time of the year did you begin?

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, we developed what we called the Budget Outlook in April, in accordance with a policy statement issued at that time.

When the Korean situation developed in June, a completely new look was taken at the budget, and the budget estimates we were then working on were revised. We submitted a budget to the Bureau of the Budget about October 1, which reflected our best judgment at that time in the light of the Korean situation.

Some substantial changes were made before that submission. For example, the appropriation for forest roads and trails was looked at quite differently than it was a few months previously. There were some other items that were revised substantially.

As a matter of fact, some rather substantial changes in budget estimates were made which would otherwise have been submitted under normal conditions. We then worked with the Budget Bureau from October until December 27, when we received the final budget allowances from the Bureau of the Budget, which are reflected in the printed document. Between November 29 and December 27 proposed appropriations were further reduced by $8,843,000 and borrowing authorizations by $74,000,000.

Mr. WHITTEN. What efforts have been made to transfer emphasis within the Department, shift personnel, and shift funds from one area of use to another?

Mr. ROBERTS. On July 21 the President issued a directive, which the Secretary of Agriculture implemented in the Department of Agriculture, directing all agencies to reexamine their programs to redirect them to take care of the changed conditions, to take care of the type of work which seemingly would be more appropriate to carry on under circumstances such as we face at the present time.

In ARA, in the Forest Service, and in the other agencies of the Department reviews were conducted, and these provided in some measure for the reductions totalling $3,300,000, which I mentioned earlier, that went toward the $150,000,000 we contributed to the reduction under section 1214 of the 1951 Appropriation Act.

PROBLEMS REGARDING TRANSFER OF PERSONNEL TO DEFENSE

AGENCIES

Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Reid, I mentioned a while ago the rider that was passed last year. How many people have you had to transfer from the Department to defense work since that time?

Mr. REID. I can't give you the exact number, Mr. Chairman, but we have a rather considerable number.

Mr. WHITTEN. Have you tried to be helpful in that connection in the Department?

Mr. REID. We have been helpful, yes, sir. The Department of Agriculture has made details of stenographers and typists to defense agencies as well as technical personnel. Instructions were sent to all field organizations to aid in staffing and organizing Economic Stabilization Agency field offices. There is much help being given all the time. The Department feels a responsibility to help do a good job throughout government.

Mr. WHITTEN. Have you made any representations to the Civil Service Commission about the requirements of that law, or the modification or repeal of it, or the matter of giving reemployment rights, so folks will feel free to move in and help with the defense work?

Mr. REID. I have through the Federal Personnel Council, where there has been a committee that has been working on personnel problems during the period of defense, which I think has made some recommendations relative to reemployment rights to the Civil Service Commission.

Mr. WHITTEN. Do you have copies of them?

Mr. REID. I do not have copies of them here.

Mr. WHITTEN. Could you make them available to the committee? Mr. REID. I think I can made them available to the committee. I think I can get a copy from the Federal Personnel Council.

Mr. WHITTEN. It is my view, that with the need to staff defense agencies with experienced personnel to get the job done and as quickly

and economically as possible, experienced people from the regular departments must be made available to defense programs. And, since we are of necessity going to have to curtail the normal activities of the Government, it seems to me there should be available within all the departments people who could be spared to help in the national defense agencies.

If that be true, do you not feel that leaves of absence should be given to such personnel as is willing to make the change so they can return to their old jobs when the defense work is over?

Mr. REID. Yes, definitely. The Department has done that. They would be willing to go along with that. The very same thing was done in the last war.

Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Reid, you have done a splendid job down there, but there are too many people going along in the usual way. I think we are faced with a necessity. It is, I think, time that we all get busy on this problem.

Mr. REID. May I go off the record?

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Reid, I am going to ask you to put anything you want in the record. My recollection is that you appeared before the Senate committee and testified against the rider last year. Also, it seems to me that your attitude has not been too cooperative, which is true of the average personnel officer in the Government.

I want to say here that it is my judgment that every old-line department is in better shape to hire some temporary employees to fit in with their experienced people than to require these new defense set-ups to hire temporary folks altogether. This is a national emergency. I have heard of numerous cases in which the Department of Agriculture as well as other organizations have not only held on to their personnel but have gone out seeking new programs and seeking defense designations to keep their folks busy and not lose them. We have reached a point where we need cooperation. If we are not getting it, I want to know about it and why.. If we are getting it, I want to know about it.

If you have an objection to that rider, feel free to express your opinion. I do not hold myself out to be an authority on this matter. I will say that rider was prepared with the best help I could find in the executive branch.

I have had some disagreement with the Civil Service Commission, which, in my judgment, has been slow to fully implement the provision. I am told that part of their problems is the objections of the regular departments who want to stay intact, keep their experienced folks, and find them some made work to do.

Mr. REID. Mr. Chairman, as far as the rider affects the Department of Agriculture, it has increased very considerably the paper work in the Department.

It will increase the paper work very considerably more because our department is not an expanding department, as the figures which I have given you have shown.

Every promotion we make, every transfer we make, all of the things we make under the rider have to be made on a temporary basis, indefinite basis.

Mr. WHITTEN. That is no change from the last war when national defense agencies hired on a temporary basis, is it?

Mr. REID. Yes; it is a decided change from the last war.

Mr. WHITTEN. The temporary status is not different.