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INCREASED LOYALTY PROGRAM WORKLOAD

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Moyer, this is a request for $1,700,000 for the continuation of your regular loyalty program. Is that correct? Mr. MOYER. That is correct.

Mr. THOMAS. No new elements are in it?

Mr. MOYER. There are no new elements in it except that the backlogs are increasing and with the existing funds

Mr. THOMAS. I got the impression from Chairman Ramspeck when I was talking about this to him a few days ago, the Commission was taking over the work of the FBI and that the funds requested here were in the nature of a supplement to pay for the work that the FBI had been working on heretofore. Apparently I misunderstood the chairman because the justifications do not indicate that.

Mr. MOYER. I think so, Mr. Chairman. There is proposed legislation which has not been acted on by the Congress which would permit the Commission to take over certain investigative work which FBI is now required to handle by law for certain of the agencies such as the Atomic Energy Commission and the Voice of America. But this supplemental does not touch on that.

Mr. THOMAS. These funds are requested for the purpose of continuing your presently existing functions under the loyalty program, namely to check the files of the FBI, to run your own files and also to check the files of the Committee on Un-American Activities. In so checking, if you find some derogatory remark about the prospective employee or one who is presently on the rolls, then you send such information over then to the FBI for their future investigation. Then you clean your own hands of it and drop the case so far as you are concerned, and what is done in the future is the result of the activities of the FBI. Is that correct?

Mr. MOYER. That is correct insofar as loyalty is concerned, Mr. Chairman. We frequently get information, though, as to suitability or arrest records, which we do investigate.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I think there is one other angle to the point that you made, Mr. Chairman. That is, after the FBI completes its investigation that case does come back to us for adjudication.

BACKLOG OF LOYALTY WORK

Mr. THOMAS. How many cases do you have in your backlog now? Mr. WILLIAMS. A little better than 430,000.

Mr. THOMAS. What is your anticipated future increase?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We expect to get during the year very close to 800,000, 789,000 cases during the year, making a workload of approximately 1,200,000 cases.

Mr. THOMAS. Your justification indicates that you have 669,000 cases to be processed and that to be processed there will be 815,078

cases.

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is the number we can do with the funds that we have. We can process the 669,000 with the funds that we have. With the funds that we are requesting we can do the higher figure of 815,078.

Mr. THOMAS. These 669,000 cases to be processed now are presently on the payrolls of the various agencies of the Federal Government and working, I presume?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir. The 430,000 backlog represents people actually on the rolls. The workload for this year is anticipated people who will come on the rolls.

COMPREHENSIVE NATURE OF LOYALTY INVESTIGATIONS

Mr. THOMAS. What is the intervening time required between the time a man goes on a payroll until you finish your investigation? Mr. WILLIAMS. Approximately 11 weeks.

Mr. THOMAS. Eleven weeks.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes.

Mr. THOMAS. If one of those cases should be referred to the FBI, what is the intervening time there?

Mr. WILLIAMS. That varies a great deal, Mr. Chairman, depending upon the resources of the FBI. They do have a considerable backlog of cases.

Mr. THOMAS. Another 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 months?

Mr. WILLIAMS. On the average of 4 months.

Mr. THOMAS. Suppose then that after the FBI completes its investigation, a case comes back to the Civil Service Commission for determination and that it goes to a hearing before one of your regional loyalty boards. How much additional time is required?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Approximately 2 months.

Mr. THOMAS. That is a total then of 7 or 8 months?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes.

Mr. THOMAS. During that time is the employee on the Federal payroll or is he suspended?

Mr. WILLIAMS. He is on the payroll but the agency is notified of the pending action so that they take whatever security measures they see fit, based on the information that we have at the time.

Mr. THOMAS. Is it the common practice that after the cases go either to FBI for investigation or is in the hands of one of the regional loyalty boards that the employee remains on his job during that period?

Mr. WILLIAMS. There are two common practices followed, Mr. Chairman. One is to suspend the employee until the case is decided, the other is to move him into a job which has no loyalty or security implications. There is one other factor I think we should bring out, and that is that in the case of sensitive positions, that is, positions which an agency may designate as sensitive. We pick those cases up immediately. We pick them out of order and we process those on the average, 10 days. If derogatory information is disclosed, they immediately go to the FBI and they handle them on a priority basis.

TRAVEL

Mr. THOMAS. In the appropriating language there is the following: And the limitation under this head in the Independent Offices Act of 1952 on the amount available for travel expenses is increased from $575,000 to $649,000. That is an increase of $69,000, is it not?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes.

Mr. THOMAS. Why that increase?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Our limitation actually is $575,000 in the final passage of the bill, as I recall.

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, and in conference that amount was increased considerably. It was increased from about $500,000 up to $575,000, was it not?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes; that was on the basis of the amount of work we would have to do.

Mr. THOMAS. Why the additional increase of $70,000?

Mr. WILLIAMS. For this reason: This supplemental anticipates the hiring of 82 investigators to take care of the suitability investigations. We expect through the means of this supplemental, if the Congress grants it, to process about 13,000 more suitability cases. Those are handled by investigators.

Mr. YATES. May I have a definition of what you mean by a "suitability case," Mr. Chairman?

Mr. THOMAS. Surely.

Mr. WILLIAMS. It is where, through the record check process, Mr. Yates, we develop information not of a loyalty nature but of such character that it indicates that the individual should not be on the Federal payroll, information such as a serious arrest record, a sex offense, or something of that sort. We have to prove that so that there is a limited investigation made to substantiate the facts. If they are proven, then the person is removed from the job.

JUSTIFICATION OF ESTIMATE

Mr. THOMAS. At this point, Mr. Reporter, we will insert the table on page 2 in the record.

(The table referred to is as follows:)

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Mr. THOMAS. Page 2 indicates that you now have 1,478 employees engaged in this loyalty work. Is that correct?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes.

Mr. THOMAS. Nine hundred and eighty of them are doing record checks and inquiry case work; one hundred and sixty-one are doing files activities; one hundred and one are doing suitability conversions

from record check inquiry cases. There are 179 on the regional loyalty boards, and there are 57 on the Loyalty Review Board. That is a total of 1,478. For the same type of work you want an increase of 539 employees, which will give you in the neighborhood of 2,000 doing loyalty work. Is that correct?

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is correct, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. The actual cost of your personnel for these 539 people is what? Where is that figure?

Mr. WILLIAMS. It is on the same table, sir. The amount is $1,541,630.

OTHER OBLIGATIONS

Mr. THOMAS. That is right, $1,541,630. The difference between $1,541,630 and $1,700,000 is $158,370, and that is broken down into travel and other items which are as follows: Travel, $74,000; supplies and materials, $38,370; and equipment, $46,000. That makes a total of $158,370.

Under the limitation on personnel in the independent offices supplemental bill were you required to reduce any of your personnel? Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir. Under the provisions of the Jensen amendment.

Mr. THOMAS. How many?

Mr. WILLIAMS. About 425.

Mr. THOMAS. Why do you need this amount of $74,000 for travel, $38,370 for supplies and materials, and $46,000 for equipment? Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, the money we received from our appropriation

Mr. THOMAS. I note that you want desks, $25,000; portable typewriters, $5,740; dictating machines, $14,350; and briefcases, $820. It looks to me as if you ought to have those on hand now, having been formerly used by the people who were with the Civil Service Commission prior to the adoption of the 1952 independent offices appropriation bill.

Each

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, the supplies and equipment are in connection with the record check work. That is a payment for the card stock we use, the stencils we use in making index cards for these cases. case results in 15 index cards which funnel out to these various offices where we make our checks.

The dictating equipment is for the use of the additional investigators we will hire. We do not have that equipment on hand, sir. We have the equipment only for the investigators we presently have.

RATE OF EMPLOYMENT

Mr. THOMAS. I notice a very illuminating statement here on page 6 of your justification which I will read into the record:

Receipts of record check and inquiry cases are based on the number of placements to be made in the Federal service. For fiscal year 1952 the number of placements is estimated to be 920,390, computed as follows:

(1) Placements due to expansion in the Federal service from 2,316,000 on June 30, 1951, to 2,450,000 on June 30, 1952, namely, an increase of 134,000.

(2) Placements due to turn-over in the Federal service, 33 percent per year—

which figures out in round numbers to 786,000, which gives us a grand total of 920,000.

How recent and how accurate are those figures?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, the employment in the Federal service as of the 1st day of September was 2,342,000. Actually today we are only 108,000 short of where we say we will be next June 30.

Mr. THOMAS. What is that figure again of September 1?

Mr. WILLIAMS. 2,342,000.

Mr. THOMAS. What was it on the 1st of July of this year?

Mr. WILLIAMS. On the 1st of July of this year it was 2,024,347. Pardon me, that is as of the 1st of February. For the 1st of July of this year it was 2,333,424.

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES COVERED BY JENSEN AMENDMENT

Mr. THOMAS. You mean employment is picking up since the passage of the appropriation bill, particularly the independent offices and the others?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. By virtue of the fact that the armed services, the Post Office Department, and the veterans' medical facilities, which comprise in the neighborhood of three-fourths of the total Federal employment, were not covered by the Jensen amendment and the other riders.

Mr. WILLIAMS. We ran a rough count on that, Mr. Chairman, and it does figure out to about 18 percent of the Federal employment being covered by the Jensen amendment.

Mr. THOMAS. That is no more than 18 percent? My figure was 20 percent, and I think yours is more accurate.

Mr. Reporter, at this point in the record we will insert

Before I go into that, is this figure of 33 percent on Federal turnover an approximate figure or is it reasonably accurate, and how do you arrive at that figure and when did you arrive at it?"

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, we took the last 5 months' experience, Mr. Chairman. During those months, in March it was 2.6; in April it was 2.7 a month; in May it was 2.5 a month; and in June it was 2.5 a month; and in July it was 2.6 a month.

Mr. THOMAS. Well, in your regular budget for 1952, if my memory serves me correctly, your annual turn-over estimate was 36 percent. Mr. WILLIAMS. That is right.

Mr. THOMAS. Now you have come up with a better estimate?
Mr. WILLIAMS. That is right, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. You think it is more realistic under present conditions than your 36 percent?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. Well, if a little guessing is in order, I think it is a little high. I hope it is, because turn-over is certainly a wasteful thing in the Federal service; is it not?

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is right.

ANTICIPATED WORKLOAD

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Reporter, at this point in the record will you insert the table appearing on page 3 which deals with work items and net costs per unit?

(The table referred to is as follows:)

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