Included in title III is $579,691,188, a reduction of $4,124,750 from the budget requests accounted for under that title. Additionally, various items in title I include approximately $29,604,500 of the requests of $30,084,500 for increased pay costs submitted and considered in connection with supplements for other than increased pay costs. Each subcommittee concerned with the applicable programs and activities has reviewed the related pay cost supplementals. Reductions aggregating $410,750 were possible in the legislative branch items partly because, unlike those for the executive branch, they had not been centrally screened. And one of the other requests-for postal operations-has been scaled down by $3,714,000. As noted in the summary table, the executive branch proposed absorption of substantial portions-42 percent of the military pay and 35 percent of the civilian pay, overall. The increased civilian pay costs have been running since last July 1; the military since September 1. As a general proposition, it would be unduly disruptive to the many ongoing functions if substantial further absorptions were pressed for this late in the fiscal year. One other point needs mentioning. Congress attached provisions to the general civilian pay raise (Public Law 88-426, title I) requiring the executive branch to absorb at least 10 percent of the 1965 cost within the regular fiscal 1965 appropriations and putting an overriding ceiling of $544 million on the supplemental appropriations permitted to meet that cost-the ceiling being exactly the lump-sum civilian pay cost allowance in the 1965 budget. The amounts in the accompanying bill for the title I costs under Public Law 88-426 are well within those two limitations. It is not possible to identify separately how much of title I costs are being absorbed within available funds because, in most instances, such costs are being met along with the costs of other pay increases from the same appropriation. Therefore, for the purpose of demonstrating compliance with the law the extent of the absorption must be arrived at by deduction. The most conservative assumption is that the costs of all other civilian pay increases are to be met completely from presently available funds before any of these funds are applied to the absorption of title I costs. Using this assumption and the estimates as submitted to Congress, about $155 million, or some 24 percent of title I costs in the executive branch-in contrast to the 10-percent minimum required by the statute is being absorbed, and slightly less than $500 million of the supplementals requested-contrasted to the $544 million statute ceiling-is assignable to these costs. Committee reductions put the situation in slightly better standing. |