and binding of congressional publications authorized by law to be distributed without charge to recipients; various programs of the Superintendent of Documents required by law, including the distribution of government documents to the depository library network; an amount to provide for the acquisition of land, and general plans and design of a proposed new Government Printing Office building; and deficiencies for fiscal years 1978 and 1979. The total amount requested is $29.5 million more than the funds. approved for fiscal year 1979 as the $18 million requested for the new Government Printing Office building last year was withdrawn because we had not received the necessary authorization by the House and Senate Public Works Committees. If the building project is excluded from our comparison, the total request amounts to an increase of $6.3 million, or approximately 5.5 percent over last year. The amount requested for Congressional Printing and Binding, $76.2 million, is $2.3 million, or 3 percent, more than we were authorized in fiscal year 1979. The request for Printing and Binding which is not directly related to Congress but is for the printing of congressional publications required by law is $1.2 million, or 11 percent more than appropriated for fiscal year 1979. However, we had a deficiency in fiscal year 1978 of $1.1 million and foresee a deficiency of $2.7 million in fiscal year 1979, which is included in our 1980 request. These deficiencies are the result of unanticipated volume increases and inflationary increase in costs of materials, primarily paper. The increases in the Congressional Printing and Binding and the Printing and Binding Appropriation are caused by increases in labor costs which we estimate will be approximately 7 percent, which would include wage increases, fringe benefit payments, differentials and longevity increases, and an increase in the cost of materials, primarily paper, which has increased this past year by about 35 percent. We have used a factor of only 10 percent, however, for our fiscal 1980 estimate of materials costs. We have been able to offset the effects of labor and materials cost increases to some extent by our efforts at cost reduction. As you will remember, the chairman of this subcommittee directed me last year to find ways to try and reduce the cost of congressional printing. I established, within the Government Printing Office, a study group headed by our Special Projects Officer as coordinator and asked for suggestions from all employees and supervisors on ways to reduce costs, improve productivity, eliminate wasteful duplications of effort, save paper, and even to suggest savings which could not be implemented by the Public Printer without the approval of appropriate officials in the Congress. We received many suggestions worthy of consideration. Several have already been put into effect, and we expect considerable savings in many areas of production and administration which have been taken into account in our appropriation request for 1980. In particular, I would like to mention our success with our "War on Waste" effort, which has substantially reduced our paper usage, and our Quality Control Program, which has helped to reduce costs by decreasing the normal production spoilage in the press and bindery operations. Our people, working with the staff of the Joint Committee on Printing and with the leadership of the House and Senate, suggested changes in the printing or distribution of certain congressional publications which have been approved since we submitted our appropriation request to the Congress. SAVINGS EFFECTED As a result of adoption of these suggestions by the Joint Committee on Printing and the Congress, we will be able to effect savings in fiscal year 1979 which will reduce our request for deficiency; and we will have savings in fiscal year 1980 which we had not planned on which will permit us to reduce both our Congressional Printing and Binding request and our Printing and Binding Appropriation request at this time. The January 30, 1979 resolution of the Joint Committee on Printing to limit the distribution of the United States Code by discontinuing the practice of providing copies of the basic and supplement to executive and judicial branches of the Federal Government out of Congressional Printing and Binding funds will reduce our Printing and Binding Appropriation request for that category of work by $50,000 in fiscal year 1980 and will reduce our deficiency for 1979 by $25,000. The greatest savings will come with the reprinting of the basic edition in 1982 when we estimate the savings will be in excess of $830,000 at today's costs which will surely approach $1 million in 1982. We have received approval to distribute microforms of the bound Congressional Record to the depository libraries which request it in lieu of hard copy. At this point, 585 libraries have requested microfiche. The deficiency in the Printing and Binding Appropriation request for fiscal year 1979 will be reduced by $225,000 and the 1980 Printing and Binding Appropriation request will be reduced in this category by $300,000. The Joint Committee has also approved our suggestion to change the printing of congressional form letters from one side to printed on two sides. This will reduce the Congressional Printing and Binding Appropriation by $32,000. The leadership in both Houses has approved the elimination of the printing of the tailpieces on bills and resolutions of the House and on the majority of bills in the Senate. This will reduce the cost of printing bills by an estimated $250,000 in fiscal year 1980. Öther recommendations are under consideration. I believe we have responded to last year's request of this committee to find ways to reduce printing costs, and we will continue our efforts this year. To recapitulate, our fiscal year 1980 appropriation request should be reduced as follows: NET REDUCTIONS IN REQUEST Congressional Printing and Binding: Original request $76,212,000; Amended request-$75,930,000; a reduction of $282,000. I have a schedule to submit with these details. Printing and Binding: Original request-$15,722,000; Amended request-$15,372,000; a reduction of $350,000. Deficiency-Printing and Binding: Original request-$3,819,000; Amended request-$3,569,000; a reduction of $250,000. A total saving of $882,000, which will reduce our total 1980 request from $138,186,000 to $137,304,000. COMPUTERIZATION OF COMPOSITION Our efforts at modernization are paying off in increased productivity and lower costs. This session of Congress, all bills, resolutions, and amendments will be photocomposed from magnetic tape which is being produced in the House, the Senate, and the Government Printing Office, and which is creating a computer data base of bills which may be used for information retrieval, bill drafting, and the elimination of rekeyboarding as the bill advances to enrollment. The United States Code, 1976 edition, was completed last month; and it was entirely converted from hot metal to computer and photocomposition during fiscal years 1977 and 1978. The entire United States budget, for the first time this year, was converted from hot metal to photocomposition. Numerous other congressional publications, including hearings and reports, have been and are continuing to be converted to more economical methods of production. These savings in composition, together with reductions in cost in other operations, have been taken into consideration in our request; and, if they had not materialized, the appropriation request would be considerably higher. My general statement covers our modernization accomplishments and productivity improvements in greater detail. REDUCTION IN THE NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES I would like to mention that, notwithstanding a continuing increase in our workload volume each year, we have been able to reduce the number of employees in all areas of production, administration, and documents. The 7,574 employees on our rolls is 340 fewer than last year, and is down about 1,000 people in the past 3 years. In fact, we are at our lowest level of employment since 1967. This is all as the result of improvements in equipment, training, work methods, management practices, and the cooperation of a dedicated group of employees and supervisors. I would like to touch briefly on the Superintendent of Documents operations and the appropriations request of $23,037,000, $1.4 million less than last year, to cover these programs which require an appropriation. The Superintendent of Documents, Mr. LaBarre, will provide a more detailed statement when we discuss the Documents appropriation. As you know, the sales of publications to the public, which we call the General Sales Program, was made self-sustaining in fiscal year 1978; and we no longer request an appropriation to cover the cost of the operation. I am happy to say that the program is healthy; we are breaking even; sales are increasing; and the customers, the general public, appear to be satisfied because our complaints on service, or lack of it, are at an all time low. The Special Sales Program, which does not recover its costs because the publications are priced without the control of the Public Printer, requires a subsidy in the form of an appropriation to make up the difference between the cost of printing, binding, and selling the publication and the amount we receive as revenue when we sell it. The major part of the Documents request is for salaries and expenses connected with the distribution of government publications to designated depository libraries, the compilation of catalogs and indexes of government publications, and the mailing of certain publications for Members of Congress and other government agencies in accordance with specific provisions of law or on a reimbursable basis. The Depository Library Program is the largest program of Documents funded by appropriation. The program is continually expanding, and on October 1, 1978, Public Law 95-261 expanded the program to accredited law school libraries. We are requesting a supplemental appropriation of $980,000 for fiscal year 1979 to cover the costs for these additional libraries. MICROFICHE AVAILABLE TO DEPOSITORY LIBRARIES Our efforts at making microfiche available to depository libraries in lieu of printed hard copy, at their choice, is helping to keep the costs of the program down. In fiscal year 1978, we distributed more than 2.8 million microfiche to depository libraries and expect the program to increase steadily in fiscal years 1979 and 1980. In fact, all programs of Documents are expected to increase in volume in 1980 without a commensurate increase in cost. On the new Government Printing Office building, we are back again with a request to approve $19.4 million so that we can proceed with the acquisition of the land and the preliminary architectural and engineering studies and plans. Last year, we withdrew our request because we did not have the approval of either the House or Senate Public Works Committees. This year, we would ask the committee to consider our request because we have received approval of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee for a new Government Printing Office and have hope that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will consider our request for approval early in this session, possibly before the mark up of the Legislative Appropriations bill. We understand that without approval of both the House and Senate Public Works Committees the appropriations request cannot be approved. I have not touched on all the matters in my general statement, Mr. Chairman, and my staff and I will be happy to answer any questions the committee may have. AUTOMATIC DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM Mr. BENJAMIN. Thank you very much. A problem you are very much aware of is the excessive printing ordered by both congressional and executive branch agencies which is aggravated through the automatic distribution of publications. Can you give us a rundown on what steps have been taken in the past year to cut down on excessive printing? Mr. BOYLE. Yes, sir. In the past year-in fact I have a recent letter from the Joint Committee on Printing-the staff of the Joint Committee and the GPO have been researching and contacting all the Members of the House and the Senate as to their desire to receive certain publications at their request rather than by-law distribution. In addition to that, Mr. Sonntag and his staff continually question the committees on their necessity to have the total number of copies authorized by law on bills, reports, hearings and other congressional printing jobs. We question the quantity and we have had quite a bit of success with the committees on cutting down the standard number of copies that they are entitled to. The publications that each Member must request in writing are the Foreign Relations of the United States, the United States Treaties and other International Agreements, the United States Statutes at Large, the biweekly edition of the Congressional Record, and the bound, permanent edition of the Congressional Record. Those were automatic distributions before this committee took the steps in the past 2 fiscal years to stop this practice. Mr. BENJAMIN. Would you explain somewhat what you are doing to the distributees in the executive branch? Mr. BOYLE. In the executive branch? In Title 44 there is specifically spelled out the number of copies that are authorized by law to distribute on, for instance, the Ĉongressional Record, the Bound Record, and most of those publications that I listed, and the U.S. Code. I guess the best example of cutting down the automatic distribution to executive agencies and judiciary would be the recent, the present attempt right now of the Joint Committee on Printing to stop the authorization of automatic distribution to the Executive and the Judiciary of the United States Code, which in 1982 would save over $1 million because that would be the year of the complete reprinting. Mr. BENJAMIN. Are you doing that in the same manner by sending a letter of inquiry, and if there is a positive response, then sending it out? If there is no response or a negative response, you do not send it out? Mr. BOYLE. On the United States Code, the agencies that do not receive the automatic distribution will be entitled to order the number of copies that they require at the price added rate before we go to print. They will be notified by the Government Printing Office that they will no longer receive a free copy. They must get their order in before we go to press on the first supplement so that we can determine the amount to print, and they will be billed for the number of copies that they order. The Joint Committee has directed the Government Printing Office to contact each affected office. So we are doing the contacting, and that is the way I would say it would work. As far as questioning an agency on other distribution that is provided in Title 44 or some other laws, I am sure they would say that they are entitled to those by law. I would have to honestly say we haven't taken any steps to question an agency's need for copies. You can correct me if I am wrong, Mr. DeVaughn. |