APPLICATION OF FIVE-PERCENT REDUCTION

Mr. BENJAMIN. Last year, a five percent reduction was applied to those activities not required by law. Tell us where you applied those reductions and what effect they had on your activities.

Mr. DEVAUGHN. We are trying to spread it around as much as possible. Our initial letter back to the committee said it would come out of the Congressional Printing and Binding Appropriation, but we are really trying to spread it throughout the entire three appropriations that we have received. It was just impossible to tell at the beginning.

This will probably come up later in some of your questions but we have a unique situation in our appropriation. Technically, I guess legally, it is our appropriation, but in the real sense it is not, in that the Government Printing Office does not have the authority over the obligations. The obligations are made by the Congress, either by law or through some action that the Congress takes, and the Public Printer has no authority to say, well, it looks like we are spending at an excessive rate and we better slow the program down or stop doing work that is ordered, or whatever. The obligations are made by another party, and we just simply fill the order. So it was extremely difficult to tell in advance where the best opportunities would come to affect these savings, and right now I think we are running a little below normal, so hopefully we will effect the overall five percent.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Have you at least got goals on where that five percent is going to be withheld? I would presume you are looking at some experience on this as to where to finally apply it all. Mr. DEVAUGHN. Not really. As I say, we have no control over it, and without control we can't set goals that we are going to shoot for because there is no way to control the achievement of the goal. Mr. BENJAMIN. What does the withholding amount to in actual dollars?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. Five million four hundred thirty-one thousand dollars.

Mr. BENJAMIN. What is going to happen if you come up to September 1 and you haven't accounted for this and you start going into the use of these moneys?

Mr. DEVAUGHN. We will be back over to this committee well before that, asking for a supplemental appropriation.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Let me ask you to submit for the record your projected savings as best you can at this point. I have got to urge upon you that you have got to withhold this money; otherwise, this subcommittee, with Mr. Conte, who introduced the 5 percent cut amendment, is not going to be very receptive.

[The information follows:]

During our Appropriation Hearings on February 22, 1979, I promised to
provide my views in writing about the five percent restriction on
Fiscal Year 1979 appropriations. As was stated in a June 26, 1978
letter to the Staff Director of the Legislative Branch Subcommittee on
Appropriations, it is our opinion that our appropriations are not subject
to the five percent limitation contained in Section 311 of Public Law
95-391 dated September 30, 1978. Our basis for this conclusion is that
the restriction is limited to "payments not required by law."
Moreover, it could be stated as a general rule that the terminology
"payments required by law" pertains to expenditures where the authorizing
legislation is so structured as to remove the obligating authority for
payments from the control of the agency head or the official to whom the
appropriation has been made. For example, Social Security laws are so
structured as to obligate the appropriation and require a payment once
the recipient has properly filed his or her application and meets the
legal criteria of such payments. At that point, the payment to the
recipient is required by law to be made within the maximum extent of the
budgetary authority. Similarly, appropriations made to the Public
Printer are obligated by the Congress whenever it takes actions which
require printing. The Public Printer is not authorized to refuse to
print for the Congress.

Concerning the Depository Library Program, the obligation is incurred by
operation of law immediately upon the printing of a publication by any
Government agency whenever an appropriately designated Depository
Library is entitled by law to have a copy of the Government publication.

In other words, where the obligation authority is fixed by law rather than being under the control of the Public Printer, the "obligation and expenditure" could be considered as being required by law. Since the appropriations to the Government Printing Office fall into this category, they should not be subject to the five percent restriction.

2

However, this is an interpretation over which reasonable people can disagree and should you decide that, notwithstanding the above rationale, our appropriations are nevertheless subject to the five percent restriction, there are a number of rather important decisions to be made.

First, as I pointed out to you at the hearings, the Government Printing Office is operating at a high point with regard to efficiency. You may recall my statement that through new technologies and increased cost effectiveness, we are doing more work with fewer people and that we have, in fact, been able to reduce our staffing by more than 1,000 people during the past few years. Consequently, there is little or no "fat" to be cut from our appropriations. Any cuts will, of necessity, have to result from cuts in the service we provide and, as pointed out above, I do not possess the unilateral authority to implement such cuts.

The appropriations to GPO for Congressional Printing and Binding are for requirements of the Congress. Obligation of funds is caused by actions of the Members and Committees and not by anyone under my control. GPO only maintains the accounting records for these transactions. If the Congress wants us to restrict five percent, which is $5.4 million, in Fiscal Year 1979, we will need your guidance.

I have grouped those items in the Congressional Printing and Binding
Appropriation that appear to be absolutely essential to the conduct of
Congressional business and which probably can not be cut back. The
categories and amounts for Fiscal Year 1979 are shown below:

We have thoroughly reviewed all of the other programs that are funded by appropriations and have identified the following items which could, in combination, comprise a $5.4 million reduction. We believe these programs to be the least essential of all on-going programs and therefore represent items that could possibly be discontinued for the balance of Fiscal Year 1979. However, each cut would still have consequences which must be considered prior to instituting any action. The programs are listed below.

However, this

GPO could stop distributing By-Law publications.
would cause constituents to complain when they stop receiving
publications from their Congressman or Senator.

2.

Depository Library Distribution

1,500,000

Temporarily cut back the categories of publications supplied to
designated libraries. This would result in substantial criticism
from the library community.

The Committee could direct Executive Agencies to reimburse GPO for these publications in the same manner as is being done for the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations. This would also cause many complaints.

6.

Bound Record

4,080,000

The Committee could direct GPO to reschedule the printing and distribution of the Bound Record until future years when funds are available.

9.

If funds for Franked Envelopes and Document Franks were reduced, Members would have to use their official Office Expenses Allowances or eliminate these mailings for the balance of Fiscal Year 1979.

International Exchange

700,000

Action in this area could lead to criticism from participating
governments.

The potential combination of actions that could be taken are numerous.
I have included the above for your consideration but I will need Con+
gressional authority for the cuts. I will be glad to work with you
and/or your staff to determine which actions are most appropriate.
respectfully request that we begin working together to resolve this
problem as soon as possible in order to avoid the need for any pre-
cipitous action.

Sincerely,

I

JOHN J BOYLE
Public-Printer

OTHER AGENCIES EARMARK FUNDS

Mr. BENJAMIN. I realize your problem. You have explained it very well, but the thing is we better have you look at this now. I realize they are under different conditions, but the other agencies have been able to describe where they have withheld the money. Some of them, of course, are asking for it back, or the release of it, but at least they started out with a program to show a good-faith effort to withhold it.

Mr. BOYLE. Mr. Chairman, we could pick up particular categories and say we are going to withhold five percent out of our hearing appropriation; we are going to withhold five percent out of the bills, and depository libraries, but at the end of the year, when we have that five percent withheld, we don't have the opportunity to say we are not going to print any more bills because we are out of money. In fact, the chances are if we have underestimated the bills or number of pages, we will be back for a supplemental appropriation.

But as far as picking out a particular category, it is difficult, more difficult for us to say that we are going to save money in this area, when it is totally not under our control. We print what the Congress sends us to print.

Mr. BENJAMIN. You originally listed the cut under Congressional Printing and Binding in the FY 1980 budget that was submitted by the President in January. Now, you don't feel you are legally required to make that cut, if I understand you correctly.

Mr. DEVAUGHN. We don't know, but I would say we would not be able to come up with the full $5 million, and we would probably be back over here with a request for a supplemental appropriation and try to convince the committee of the need for it, and our inability to take care of it.

Mr. BENJAMIN. I would appreciate your looking at that rather carefully and early. We are going to run into several difficulties. One is that all of us realize that the agencies, not necessarily legislative branch agencies, when asked to make a cut, will make it in the account that the Congress most favors, so that there will be great pressure for the appropriations to be subsequently increased. I would not advise you not to do that, and perhaps the worst appro

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