be a Federal responsibility and not impact local government, local property taxpayers, and now that we are calling on the Department to fulfill their responsibilities they are saying no, and I do not think that was the intent of what was passed.

That was the reason for my very specific question of Chairman Passman during the time that that measure was being considered on the floor.

Mr. QUIE. I like what you said, you recognize there are some costs of education that are not increased by the fact—

Mr. MINETA. Yes; even if we were to imagine that, what the Department is saying they are willing to do is far short of the mark.

I think there is the other point that still has to be considered, that Mr. Miller just mentioned a little while ago, and that is that it still does affect those who are not only used to it and sitting there as a result of the refugee program but those who are going to get shortchanged.

Mr. QUIE. You cannot put a price tag on it.

Mr. MINETA. How do you really measure the start-up cost? The start-up costs of the special education program probably are more than the continuing cost of an ongoing regular program, and somehow that has to be compensated for. How many school districts have resources to have Vietnamese teachers being in a district?

Let us say if we have them in an area where you have five schools in a school district, and you need that one teacher to get around, how do you do that? These are some of the costs that I think have to be realistically assessed by the subcommittee in coming to a determniation on this item.

Chairman PERKINS. Mr. Miller.

Mr. MILLER. I want to thank you also for your very good statement. I know that you are the one of our California delegation who has been banging his head against the wall on this problem. You raised points that have been raised by myself and others prior. They are: the question of the obligation, the statements made to the Congress, the statements made by those in the Congress directing legislation, as to our intent.

You have been working with people from the administration trying to set up meetings. I ask, when did the obligation change?

During the evacuation, we were told there was going to be no cost. Mark Hannaford cited a possible $14 million. Somebody is going to pay that tab.

I wonder if you might indicate to the committee what brought this change about. Have you been given any rationale for the change in commitment?

Mr. MINETA. Well, I think when a call was made on the administration to call them, so to speak, on their promise was when they said no, we are not going to deliver, and trying to deal with the Interagency Task Force on this question and other related issues there has been a total, frankly, as far as I am concerned, a total mismanagement of the program that is going to cost us in the long run much more in terms of dollars and human resources than originally contemplated in the Immigration Act when we talked about refugee assistance. But, so far, I have not seen the responsiveness on the part of the Interagency Task Force to the needs of U.S. citizens across the country,

nor of the refugees. I would say that was at a very early stage in the game.

Mr. MILLER. You have been much more deeply involved in this than I have, or others have. Do you feel that the Interagency Task Force has no commitment to reimburse even actual costs that, hopefully, Mr. Quie and I would like to see developed?

Mr. MINETA. I would say within 2 weeks after Mrs. Taft became the head of the Interagency Task Force we had a meeting in Congressman Moss' office relative to this whole program and at that time they started out from zero that they were not willing to bear any of the educational costs to local school districts.

Mr. MILLER. Well, that is what I thought I had heard at one of our delegation breakfasts. In fact, we were told to go fly a kite on any cost. Their position has not been to work down from the commitment of full cost. It has been to work the other way; commitment of no cost. Mr. MINETA. That is correct.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much for your statement. I hope that the committee will understand that you, and others, have been working day in and day out trying to get a response from the Interagency Task Force. From the reports we have had at delegation meetings as late as last week, they canceled the meeting in which we were trying to determine their position.

Thank you.

Chairman PERKINS. Mr. Ford, any questions?

Mr. FORD. No; Mr. Chairman. I am sorry I was at a meeting with the New York delegation to hear their problems on the other end of the country. I think they would be glad to trade off. But this is not the first time I have heard from Mr. Mineta on the subject. He serves on another committee with me and he has been lobbying me very effectively, I might say, and I find great difficulty in opposing his

views on this bill.

Mr. MILLER. If they take the Vietnamese students, they can pick up $300 for each one.

[Laughter.]

Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much.

Chairman PERKINS. Thank you very much. You have been very helpful to this committee.

We now have Don McKinley, Chief Deputy Superintendent of California State Department of Education, accompanied by Don White, and Mr. David W. Gordon, Executive Assistant to the Chief Deputy Superintendent, California State Department of Education.

Go ahead, Mr. McKinley, and handle this any way you want to.

STATEMENT OF DR. DONALD MCKINLEY, CHIEF DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT, CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION; ACCOMPANIED BY DON WHITE, DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT FOR CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS, CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION; AND DAVID W. GORDON, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO CHIEF DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT, CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Dr. MCKINLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee.

We are particularly pleased to be here this morning to represent our State Superintendent, Wilson Riles, and also our California State Board of Education, and to convey to you our support for adequate funding to educate these Southeast Asian refugee children.

We also appreciate, Mr. Chairman, the opportunity, at this particular hearing, to testify on H.R. 7897, and on the matter of refugee children in general, but we want to emphasize that we think the bill whose provisions best meet the needs of these children is S. 2145, which passed the Senate on October 29, by unanimous consent. And so, with agreement of the chairman, we would like to address our testimony to the provisions of this particular bill.

I have prepared testimony which I would like to submit.

Chairman PERKINS. Without objection, your prepared statement will be inserted in the record at this point and proceed in any manner you prefer.

[Dr. McKinley's prepared statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DONALD R. MCKINLEY, CHIEF DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee: I am pleased to be with you this morning representing Superintendent Wilson Riles and the California State Board of Education to convey our support for adequate federal funding for the education of Indo-Chinese refugee children.

Although we appreciate the opportunity to testify on H.R. 7897, and on the matter of refugee education generally, we want to emphasize that the bill whose provisions best meet the needs, and whose passage we support, is S. 2145, which passed the Senate October 29 by unanimous consent. With the agreement of the Chairman, we will address our testimony to the provisions of that bill.

As you deliberate today, schools throughout the nation are providing services to an estimated 40,000 Indo-Chinese refugees between the ages of 5 and 17, children who were suddenly brought to this country late last spring. In California alone, we estimate that over 10,000 refugee children will be enrolled in public schools by the end of this calendar year. This is more than 25% of the national total. As our schools closed for the summer recess in June, the evacuation of thousands of Southeast Asians filled headlines and touched our national conscience. The magnitude of the demands that would be made on our school systems by the children of this migration was uncertain. All we had to depend upon were general federal commitments, commitments yet unfulfilled, to provide adequate resources to enable us to respond to this emergency. Yet today, the impact of this migration is a hard reality in many classrooms of this nation._

As schools attempted to gear up to meet the sudden and unexpected needs of these children, they were also facing a grave financial crisis which has brought many school districts to the brink of bankruptcy. The effects of inflation on school districts in recent years have been staggering. The resources of local taxpayers have often been stretched to the breaking point to merely maintain existing school programs.

The bill before you today, the Indo-China Refugee Children Assistance Act of 1975, is simply a minimum effort to ensure that the Federal Government meets its expressed commitments to our local taxpayers to absorb the initial costs of what is clearly a national responsibility-educating Southeast Asian Refugee Children. Last spring, when the emergency evacuation of Southeast Asians began, the President and his representatives, including Ambassador L. Dean Brown, then Chairman of the Federal Government's Interagency Task Force on Indo-China Refugees, urged our citizens to reach out and welcome the refugees. And they were told that adequate federal support would be forthcoming to bear at least the initial costs of providing education, health, welfare, and a variety of other necessary services. I quote from Ambassador Brown's statement of May 12, 1975, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

"The Department of HEW, subject to Congressional action on the Administration's bill, will provide full reimbursement to state and local social service and health agencies for costs they may incur in providing income assistance, health

maintenance, social services and educational services to refugees who are in need of such assistance."

Trusting in these commitments, many of us in California spoke out in support of the President and urged our citizens and our schools to open their hearts and their doors to the refugees. And I am proud to report to you that the response to date has been most encouraging. Let me cite just one example of this response. At Camp Pendleton, California, one of the four refugee reception centers, there was-from July 1 through October 31-a "survival English" program designed to give the refugees a basic grounding in the English language so that they could be helped to function in their new communities. This program operated seven days a week, and each day more than 100 American volunteers from surrounding communities came to work with more than 15,000 refugees in tents set up for the educational program. In all, more than 700 American volunteers assisted in the program.

Throughout Congressional deliberations on the authorization and appropriation measures for support of refuge resettlement, numerous assurances were given that local communities and taxpayers would not be adversely affected by the resettlement of refugees. The Congress reaffirmed these commitments and provided funds on May 23, 1975, to support refugee resettlement. At that time, the Congress also directed the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to develop an adequate method of distributing the funds appropriated to meet educational needs.

And what has been HEW's response thus far to this Congressional directive? I submit that this response has been inadequate and insensitive to the needs of the children and the burden placed upon our local taxpayers.

We are pleased that HEW is now proceeding with its plan to distribute supplementary funding for refugee education in the amount of $300 per child, and $600 per child for students above a threshold level in heavily impacted districts. In recognition of these grants, we feel it appropriate to recommend elimination of the "Supplementary Assistance Grants" incorporated in S. 2145. We would also like to recommend a number of technical amendments and committee report items. These are presented as Attachment A to this testimony.

However, these grants do not account for the substantial additional basic educational costs which school districts must bear in providing services to refugee children. In California these added basic costs for refugee children are expected to reach $12 million to $20 million in 1975-1976 alone.

And who will be responsible for the rest of these mandated costs that our taxpayers assumed would be borne by the Federal Government? We have two choices. First, the additional fiscal burden of educating refugee children will fall squarely on the local taxpayer, and especially on those least able to afford that additional burden. I'm speaking of the sad fact that the bulk of our revenue for education is raised through regressive taxes. Property taxes, sales taxes, use taxes and the like fall most heavily on our poor and elderly citizens. For example, in California more than fifty percent (56%)—some 56.5% to be precise-of the revenue to support our schools is raised through property taxes.

The second choice is to absorb the refugee children within existing budgets. And as you well know, this will mean cutting the pie into even smaller pieces to serve these additional children. Without question, it will also mean cutting back on programs for children with special needs such as the handicapped, the educationally disadvantaged, the non-English speaking to name just a few.

And thousands of districts are facing these hard choices today. Therefore, immediate federal action is imperative.

The bill you are considering today has broad bipartisan and national support, and I believe it represents a very reasonable proposal directed toward restoring the federal commitment to assume the full costs of educating all refugee children during the current school year. The bill also authorizes reduced funding-approximately fifty percent (50%) of first year funding-to provide partial support in the next school year.

In addition, the grants are to be channeled through State education agencies in order that reimbursement funds are provided equitably to State and local level budgets, thus avoiding potential "double payments."

I want to assure you that we in California do not view this bill as a reimbursement program that should go on and on and on long after the need for it has ceased to exist. Rather, we see it as a short-term measure designed to equitably distribute the fiscal burden of educating refugee children, to meet the educational

needs of the refugee children, and to maintain the faith of our citizens in a Federal commitment that we believed was made in earnest-that the local taxpayer would not be unfairly burdened with the cost of providing necessary services to an immigrant group brought to our country through direct Federal policy and action.

I am grateful for the strong support of Senators Cranston and Tunney, Congressman Roybal, and the superb group of cosponsors who have joined in these efforts in the House and Senate. I also appreciate the efforts of this subcommittee in scheduling hearings as rapidly as possible so that action on the bill might go forward. I urge your full support and swift action on this measure.

Thank you very much, and I would be pleased to answer any questions.

WILSON RILES, SUPERINTENDENT, CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NOVEMBER 5, 1975.

ATTACHMENT A

Recommendations for Committee Report Items and Technical Amendments to S. 2145, The Indo-China Refugee Children Assistance Act of 1975.

1. We recommend that the Committee Report make clear that Sec. 4 of the Act does not imply that special services to Vietnamese refugee children are necessary to qualify for the basic support funds in the bill; the purpose is to reimburse states and LEA's for the costs of providing regular education programs for these children.

2. Page 2, line 16, Sec. 2(5): Delete "second fiscal year preceding." Line 23, after "made)," insert "plus or minus any changes necessary to reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index between the year for which such data are available and the fiscal year for which such determination is made." Page 3, line 2, delete "preceding."

Rationale: Because the latest Office of Education figures on average per pupil expenditures are two years old, this change would bring the figure up to that of the current year.

3. Page 9, beginning line 1: Delete the entire "Supplementary Assistance Grants" section.

Page 5, beginning line 19, delete subsection (d)-not needed if the above section is deleted.

Rationale: HEW has committed itself to pay at least $300 per child under its program, so this part of the bill is no longer needed.

4. Page 12, line 6, after "sums" insert "as are necessary"; line 7, change "January" to "July".

5. Page 12, after line 2, insert a new subsection under Sec. 9, as follows: "Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, in any state in which the state educational agency elects not to participate in this program, or in which the Commissioner determines that the number of Indo-Chinese refugee children is so small as to make impractical the administration of the program by the state educational agency, he may make grants directly to a local educational agency in such state in the amount to which it otherwise would be entitled under the provisions of this Act, upon application by such local educational agency to the Commissioner.

Dr. MCKINLEY. I would like to highlight a few of the things I think we would like to bring to your attention particularly.

We do appear here as a team and at the conclusion of my remarks, Mr. White or Mr. Gordon would be happy to respond to questions.

As has been indicated very articulately by several people prior to our coming to the table, we do have a number of these children in the United States today. In California, as of this date, we estimate we have approximately 8.500 in our schools, 6,900 being a figure of some month and a half ago. We also project that by the first of January we may have as many as 10,400 refugee students in the California schools.

I think it has been fairly well presented by two of our previous people who testified this morning that as the schools meet this fall to take care of these youngsters and to incorporate them into their various systems they face a grave financial crisis. I doubt that the situation in