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This item is under the supervision of the Architect of the Capitol and is for the furniture and furnishings for which the budget request is $71,700, as compared to the appropriation of $75,000 for 1957. We will insert page 159 of the justifications into the record at this point.

(The page referred to follows:)

Library buildings and grounds: Furniture and furnishings

1957 appropriation in annual act

Deductions:

Special nonrecurring furniture and equipment:
Resurfacing desk tops, main reading room, main
building.

Additions:

Composing machines and related equipment, Card
Division.

Card cabinets for Copyright Office..

Base for 1958

Annual requirements: Maintenance and repair, office
machines and devices, increased from $8,500 to
$9,500____

Special replacement and improvement program: Mov-
able partitions, increased from $6,100 to $10,000__--
Special nonrecurring furniture and equipment:

Refurnishing study facilities on deck D, main
building

Electric adding machines for Card Division.
Visible file cases for serial record_

Microfilm reading machines for Serial Division
Replacement of rugs, congressional reading room,
main building__

Total estimate for 1958

SUMMARY OF BUDGET INCREASES

$75,000

$10, 000

5, 200
5, 200

-20, 400

54, 600

$1,000

3, 900

4,800

2,900

1,700

1,700

1, 100

+17, 100

71, 700

Mr. NORRELL. Mr. Stewart, would you just briefly make any comment on this item which you desire to make?

Mr. STEWART. The nonrecurring items show a deduction of $20,400. The increases total $17,100 as follows: $1,000 increase for the maintenance and repair of office machines and devices, which has been increased from $8,500 to $9,500; $3,900 for movable partitions; $4,800 for refurnishing the study facilities on deck D, main building; $2,900 for electric adding machines for the Card Division; $1,700 for visible file cases for serial record; $1,700 for microfilm reading machines; and $1,100 for the replacement of rugs in the Congressional Reading Room, main building.

Mr. NORRELL. Are there any questions, gentlemen?

MOVABLE PARTITIONS

If not, the next item that I want you to discuss is the item of a plus sign of $3,900. We have been providing funds for movable partitions for something like 8 years. You are asking for an increase of $3,900 for that purpose in this budget.

Why do we need to continue supplementing these partitions any longer? It looks like we ought to be about through by this time,

anyway.

Mr. STEWART. Mr. Chairman, may I ask Dr. Mumford to answer that question, since this is a request from the Library to me?

Dr. MUMFORD. Mr. Chairman, I can speak to it, but if I may, would like to ask Mr. Gooch, the Director of our Administrative Department, to speak to it.

91940-57-8

Mr. GOOCH. Mr. Chairman, movable partitions have been required from year to year because of shifts in the staff within large areas, or from one area to another. These are, in general, a very movable type of partition consisting largely of screens with the minimum of anchorage where anchorage is required to floors, principally. We have had a $10,000 appropriation or allotment for that purpose from year to year for some time. The amount allowed in the present fiscal year is $6,100. Because of the rounding out of the appropriation the allotment was reduced.

In the coming year we will have to do a good bit of partitioning in the cellar in order to relocate some of the laborers and the char force because of the alternating-current installation which will use some of the areas in which these people are now quartered.

We further expect some major shifts in the staff in the annex which will require relocation of several hundred employees. We do not feel that there is any justification for a permanent-type partition, but we do regard this as a necessary item in order to provide the proper screens and the movable-type partitions which we have been using.

This may decline somewhat in the future, although for the coming year or two we would expect that the present level of need would be maintained, sir.

Dr. MUMFORD. I think, Mr. Chairman, that certainly we can assume that this program will not need to go on at this level indefinitely. I have questioned this in particular with my colleagues at the Library, but it does mean that we have been able to make better use of the space which we have without resorting to permanent partitions.

Mr. HORAN. You have been accumulating these partitions through the years. What do you do with all of them?

Dr. MUMFORD. Well, most of them remain; that is, we fence off a work area here, and then next year, or this year, we need to fence off another work area over here. We have during the current year, for instance, removed the staff of the Reference Department over to those offices that were formerly occupied by Dr. Putnam and others down in the northwest pavilion, and we needed a number of these partitions in order to do that.

Mr. HORAN. All of these partitions which we have allowed you in the past are in use?

Mr. GOOCH. Not every unit, sir. However, they are very frequently not usable in a lot of locations because of size, shape, and dimensions. Each particular area requires some special treatment and we have not been able in the majority of cases to transfer partitions from one area to another.

We may integrate the material and make use of it as far as we can, but it does not do away with the need for additional partitions.

Dr. MUMFORD. Many of them do remain indefinitely or permanently where they are.

Mr. HORAN. That is all.

Mr. NORRELL. Mr. Kirwan?

Mr. KIRWAN. No questions.

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Mr. NORRELL. We will now take up the Botanic Gardens, "Salaries and expenses." Your request is for $275,500 as compared to the appropriation this year of $253,600. At this point we will insert pages 167 and 168 of the justifications in the record.

(The pages referred to follow:)

Salaries and expenses, Botanic Garden

1957 appropriation in annual act___
Additions:
Personal services increased from $222,100 to $230,400:
Wage rate increases authorized by Public Law 763,
83d. Cong-

Under the provisions of Public Law 763, 83d
Cong., 18 laborers and mechanics on the Bo-
tanic Garden roll are compensated on a wage-
board, prevailing rate basis. Public Law 763
provides that the compensation of such employ-
ees shall be fixed and adjusted from time to
time, as nearly as is consistent with the public
interest, in accordance with prevailing rates.
An increase of $4,200 is requested for 1958 to
meet on a full-year basis the cost of increased
wage rates established for these positions as a
result of a general survey of Government and
industrial employees' wages in the Washington
metropolitan area, conducted during the past
year. This increase is necessary in order that
the Botanic Garden wage-board employees may
be compensated in accordance with present pre-
vailing rates.

Under the provisions of Public Law 763, a grade system is maintained for all wage-board positions compensated under that act. 3 salary steps are fixed for each grade. An employee serves 6 months at the minimum step of his grade, is then promoted to the second step, and after 18 months in the second step is promoted to the third or top step of his grade. An increase of $800 is requested for 1958 to meet the cost of within-grade promotions falling due in that year, authorized by Public Law 763 under the wage-board system.

An increase of $1,000 in the overtime pay
allotment is requested for 1958 to meet in-
creased overtime pay costs resulting from base
pay increases in the fiscal years 1957 and 1958
under Public Law 763.

Within-grade promotions authorized by the Classi-
fication Act of 1949, as amended_

$6,000

1,500

800

$253, 600

1 additional day's regular pay above 52-week base,
occurring in 1958, which did not occur in 1957..
Payment to employees' life insurance fund, required
by Public Law 598, 83d Cong. No allotment for
this purpose has heretofore been provided..
Contribution to retirement fund, required by Public
Law 854, 84th Cong., commencing July 1, 1957. 13, 000

600

+21, 900

Total estimate for 1958

275, 500

Mr. NORRELL. Will you proceed?

Mr. STEWART. There is a total increase of $21,900, of which $6,000 is occasioned by Public Law 763 for wage-board pay increases; $1,500 for in-grade promotions under the Classification Act; $800 for an additional day's regular pay above the 52-week base; $600 for payment

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