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(H) U.S. Government Manual, Public Papers of the Presidents, and the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents:

1979, 6,620 pages, $739,000.

1980, 5,720 pages, $622,000.

Response. In estimating the funds necessary, volume estimates are made for each category of work based on past experience. Rates are estimated on the basis of our latest experience with projections of future increases due to rising costs. Rate increases are due to an estimated labor cost increase of 7 percent and a 10 percent increase in material cost. Certain of these categories do not reflect the full increase due to automation and improved work methods. Savings for productivity increases and changing work methods are applied when appropriate.

The following is an explanation of the various increases and decreases between FY 1979 and FY 1980 by categories:

A. Congressional Record is anticipated to experience a 4,000 page increase and a $6.48 per page rate increase for a net increase of $1.4 million. The Record normally increases in volume during the 2d Session.

B. Miscellaneous Publications should not show a volume increase, however, there will be a $6.00 per page rate increase for an overall increase of $30,000.

C. International Exchange should show a slight volume increase, and an $.05 per page rate increase. The net effect will be a $226,000 increase.

D. Committee and Business Calendars volume will stablilize and experience a $20.00 per page rate increase for a negligible increase.

E. Bills, Resolutions, and Amendments will have a rate increase only, of $95.00 per page, for a total increase of $23,000.

F. Committee Reports will also only show a rate increase, $20.00 per page, for a $3,000 overall increase.

G. Documents will have no volume change but will have a $20.00 per page rate increase. The net effect will be an overall increase of $4,000.

H. U.S. Government Manual, Public Papers of the Presidents, and the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents will show a net decrease of $117,000 due mainly to a volume decrease in the number of pages in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents.

DEFICIENCY APPROPRIATION

Mr. BOYLE. Mr. DeVaughn, will you respond to the question on the Deficiency Appropriation?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Basically this is work that was done in 1978, fiscal 1978, on prior year's work. Quite often work will come in, we will set the type and send it back for approval, and the committee will want to hold it. This is particularly true for foreign relations matters where they are waiting for someone to die, or whatever, before they print it. We have obligated the funds at the end of the year, and then when we get the actual order to print, the costs associated with completing the product are more than the obligation, which results in an overobligation of the prior year's appropriations. And so what we do is use the current year's appropriation to temporarily finance that overobligation and then come to this committee and ask for additional funds to be restored.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Have we had this situation before?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Yes, sir, every year since——

Mr. BOYLE. 1954, I believe.

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Prior to then?

Mr. MERCER. 1958.

Mr. BENJAMIN. What was it last year? Do you recall the figure for last year?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. No, we did not request

Mr. MERCER. In 1979 there was no deficiency request. In prior years there have been requests.

Mr. BENJAMIN. What was the figure that you submitted to us in 1978?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. The amount appropriated for 1978 was $12.6 million.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Deficiency?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. No, sir, that was the total appropriation.
Mr. BENJAMIN. How much of that was deficiency?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. That is what we are asking for now. We are obligating at a rate of $13.7 million.

Mr. BOYLE. But the Chairman is asking when we came in 1978 did we ask for a prior year deficiency in 1978?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Not for that year.

Mr. BOYLE. In 1977 or 1976?

Mr. BENJAMIN. When is the last year GPO asked for that?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. The year before, I believe. We can supply that for the record. It is not infrequent.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Would you please?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Yes, sir.

[The information follows:]

Prior to the Fiscal Year 1980 request for a deficiency appropriation, the latest previous request was submitted with the Fiscal Year 1978 budget. This deficiency amounted to $3,443,570 and was appropriated to GPO in the Fiscal Year 1978 Legislative Branch Appropriation Act, Public Law 95-94. The deficiency was applicable to Fiscal Year 1976 requirements and was so identified at that time.

PRIOR YEAR OBLIGATION OVERRUNS

Mr. BENJAMIN. The interesting thing, as I look at your language, you indicate that is for payment of obligations incurred under the appropriation for similar purposes for preceding fiscal years.

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Is that more than just fiscal year 1978?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Yes, sir. Our deficiency this time, what we are asking for this time, covers 2 fiscal years, 1978, and what we are anticipating for 1979, but we have on occasions in the past asked for as many as 3 or 4 years, added together, deficiencies. Sometimes a job will lay around for 3 or 4 years before we are authorized to print it.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Yes, I can conceive of that. I guess the question in my mind is the size of what you are requesting, and the fact that you already know that you are going to have it for 1979, and then earlier we discussed withholding, and we weren't able to really prescribe where that withholding of 5 percent would be. It would appear that the budget is going to run considerably over what you are estimating in 1979, if you consider the withholding.

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Let me ask you this: Can you tell us what jobs these involve, and the amount, the size of the job?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. We can do that. I have here the categories, breakdown of the amount by categories.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Would you submit that for the record?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Yes, sir.

[The information follows:]

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TIME LAG IN ORDER TO PRINT

Mr. BENJAMIN. If I understand you then, in this fiscal year you are going to finish up the job that had been previously obligated in a previous fiscal year except for those that apply to 1979; is that correct?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. The 1978 money has already been spent. We used 1979 funds to complete 1978 jobs, and now we are asking that the 1979 appropriation, be in fact, reimbursed.

Mr. BOYLE. Mr. Chairman, I have three examples here. We have jobs that were ordered, obligated in 1976 and billed in 1978. Here is a Committee Print that we obligated $38,000. The amount finally billed was $65,000. A hearing ordered in 1976 was completed in 1978 and we had obligated $29,000. It was billed for $53,000. The variances run 70 to 80 percent. We have jobs that were ordered in 1976 and 1977 that we might not complete until 1980-1981. We don't know the size of the job. We continually keep getting copy on a requisition that was received to print such and such a publication. It can cover a 2-year period. There is no way possible we can guesstimate the number of pages we are going to get in a publication or that we can determine when the proofs are going to be returned to print.

Mr. BENJAMIN. What happens to your unobligated balance at the end of a fiscal year?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. It expires.

Mr. BENJAMIN. What happens to your obligated balance but not yet spent at the end of the fiscal year?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. That is held. We hold on to that obligation. Mr. BENJAMIN. If you didn't hold on enough, you need a deficiency appropriation.

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Yes, sir, that is correct.

Mr. BENJAMIN. How much has reverted in the last several fiscal years to this account?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. We have had fiscal years where money has reverted.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Any of the fiscal years that we are talking about here where the job started and you miscalculated?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. No, sir, not included in these deficiencies. It is conceivable that we could have turned money back, say, for 1974, and 2 years from now we will come in and ask for some money for 1974 because what we held on to wasn't enough. That is conceivable.

Mr. BENJAMIN. What I am trying to calculate or at least analyze in my own mind is why you use this device? I assume if your printing in fiscal 1979 was on orders started in 1976, 1977, and 1978, then it is an expenditure in 1979. You kept out an obligation or withheld an amount that may not be sufficient but it is available to you.

Why use this device at all?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. The alternative to a device something like this would be if, say, we only obligated $50,000 for a job and we held on to the $50,000, but then it turns out the job is going to cost $75,000. There would be nothing to charge this excess to. We couldn't legally charge it to the current year's appropriation without this language, and it is more than is available for the year that we held the obligation, so particularly any agency without the language we have would be forced to say, we can't do the job until we go back and see the appropriation committee for a deficiency.

I would say that the appropriation committee, this particular committee, came up with the language, and Paul Wilson, who was the staff director at the time, worked up this language. It had the concurrence of the Comptroller General, and it has had his blessing through the years. It has worked well.

Mr. BOYLE. I have the language taken out of the Report on the Legislative Appropriation Act of 1958 which might answer the question or help to answer it.

APPROPRIATION LANGUAGE

It says:

The provision that allows GPO to use the current year's appropriation to liquidate prior year obligations was established in fiscal year 1958 with the concurrence of the General Accounting Office because the Government Printing Office exercises no control over the volume of printing and binding that is required by law to be performed for the Congress. GAO concluded that the Congress intended to authorize the Public Printer to perform the work ordered by the Congress and that it will appropriate the funds necessary to meet any prior year deficiency. The House Appropriations Committee stated in Report No. 455.

Mr. DEVAUGHN. That is the 85th Congress.

Mr. BOYLE [continuing].

That printing and binding for the two Houses of Congress is performed under various provisions of the law. Most of it is wholly insusceptible of accurate forecast as to volume. Such major items as the daily and permanent Congressional Record, number of bills introduced, number and length of hearings may and do vary widely from day to day and year to year. The result is that neither the Printing Office nor the committee can adequately judge financial requirements in advance. For this reason the committee has adopted language providing that if requirements in a given fiscal year exceed the amount appropriated, the difference can, if necessary, be charged against the subsequent year's appropriation. This will permit orderly financing arrangements pending opportunity of the Public Printer to present the full facts in the situation to the committee.

UNLIQUIDATED OBLIGATIONS

Mr. BENJAMIN. How much in the way of funds do you have that have been obligated for fiscal year 1978 or preceding years that have yet to be spent?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. We have a great deal. We can provide a list, but we have funds going all the way back to the 1950s.

Mr. MERCER. We can provide you a complete history of the whole thing.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Do you still think the job is going to come through?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Yes, sir. They are unliquidated obligations. Yes, sir. We are required by section 1311 of the Supplemental Appropriation Act of 1955 to reverify the validity of the unliquidated obligations every year. If we decide that jobs have been canceled or won't come through, then that money would revert back to the Treasury. Mr. BENJAMIN. How extensive is that list?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. It is a very extensive list.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Obligated but unliquidated funds.

Mr. DEVAUGHN. In money it is not that much. But in volume, of course, we list each job and jacket number, and it might be a tabulation about this thick. That would be about 2 inches.

Mr. BENJAMIN. When you review them, how do you analyze whether the job is going to be completed, and if it is not going to be completed, what do you do with these obligated but unliquidated funds?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. If it is not going to be completed, if that determination is made, then the money would revert back to the Treasury. We would deobligate, or in effect, unobligate it, and at that point it would be beyond the expiration period and would revert back to the Treasury.

Mr. BENJAMIN. How do you ascertain in your review that the job is not going to be completed?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Mr. Sonntag keeps us advised by his contacts with the various committees. We know whose work it is, and he has more of a feel for whether the work is still viable or not. Mr. SONNTAG. We check with the committees to see if it is still alive.

Mr. BENJAMIN. If I understand it, we have the obligated but unliquidated funds dating back 20 years or more.

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Give me some idea, just give me an example of something like that here on the Hill.

Mr. BOYLE. Yes, sir, we will furnish it for the record, but it is interesting. We have an executive agency, one, in particular for which we have set type that stands for 20 or 25 years before we ever print it because of the security nature.

[The information follows:]

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