CHART OF CASELOAD

Mr. GOFF. I think that is what it is, and I want to be perfectly frank about it. Here is a chart that shows our caseload. This only goes up through 1963. But you can see that this one here is the receipts in red and the blue is how many cases we got out. I am talking about mostly operating rights cases that comprise the greater part of it. Now, in 1963, we got out 8,670

Senator MAGNUSON. What is the red line?

Mr. GoFF. The red line is the receipts-cases coming in. You see, we were coming up pretty close. Now we are gradually slipping back, and in 1964-how is it running, about 16.6 percent monthly? That is right.

Senator MAGNUSON. You think 16 people will help that?

Mr. GoFF. It will help that. That is really what we need.

Senator MAGNUSON. Then you can get along without the rest of them.

Mr. GoFF. No-now, Senator, we shall get along, but, Senator, you know this Commission, you are the chairman of the Commerce Committee.

Senator MAGNUSON. That is just it. I know too well.

Mr. GoFF. All right, Senator. Maybe you do. But remember this, you have given us a job to do, and we are telling you right now that we are doing the best we can. But we just have to say that the rubberband can only be stretched so far.

Senator MAGNUSON. I think you are doing an excellent job in the Commission, and I say this by comparison. And I think anybody that has been on this Commission a long time, as you have, and some others who have been down there, will say that it has been improving every year, particularly the lags, the regulatory lags.

Mr. GoFF. Absolutely, but we are afraid we are going to slip this

year.

ATTEMPT TO REDUCE EMPLOYMENT

Senator MAGNUSON. And you have had more work, but we on the other hand have to try to keep down Government employment. If we granted in this committee every year-I have not figured it up, but we could figure it up the new employees that the agencies pleaded with us for, that they positively could not operate without them, you would not have 2,467, you would probably have 4,000 if we added them up. And at the time, they could not possibly, they would have to close their doors unless they got these new employees, shut up shop. And if we granted every request like that, every agency would have probably, some of them would have 100 percent more than they have now. Senator ALLOTT. It would be interesting to know, Mr. Chairman, if we had granted all these, what would have happened.

Senator MAGNUSON. Then if they got the ones that they went to the Budget with, that they pleaded they could not get along without, I wonder what the figure would be. Although I think we realize that in a growing country, a growing economy, you have more work. This is what we are trying to hold down and see if we cannot get by as tight as possible, to stretch the rubber just as tight as we can stretch it without breaking it.

JUSTIFICATION

Mr. GoFF. Well, Senator, I am certainly in sympathy with that effort. I would like to put this letter and this table in. Senator MAGNUSON. All right, put that in the record. (The material referred to follows:)

LETTER ON WORK OF COMMISSION

CHARLES P. Howze, Jr.,

Chief Counsel, Special Subcommittee on Investigations of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. HowZE: This letter is in reply to your call to former Chairman Walrath requesting information on the proceedings workload of the Commission during the period from 1958 to the end of calendar year 1963. The attached tables have been prepared to provide a graphic summary of workloads and accomplishments during the period.

Table I shows the number of cases received and the number of cases disposed of by the Commission each year since 1958. As the table indicates, annual case receipts have grown each year since 1960 with the sharpest increase occurring during the past year. This most recent increase was due primarily to the 2,739 onetime "second proviso" applications filed under Public Law 87-805. However, even after deducting those cases from total receipts during calendar year 1963 the remaining balance of 8,265 cases received represents a substantial increase over the number of cases filed in previous years. This steady increase has been largely in the motor carrier operating authority docket series where more and more applications are being filed each year. The increased activity in this area shows no discernible trends as to geographic area or type of commodity; rather, it can be attributed to the need for more transportation services in our growing economy caused by shifts in industrial sites, the development of new products and processes, and increased intermodal competition. These growth factors and the increased number of applications which they generate can be expected to continue indefinitely.

In order to keep up with this increasing workload, the Commission has taken several organizations and procedural steps to streamline operations during the past few years. As the case disposition figures on table I indicate, these improvements have brought about steady and substantial increases in productivity each year since 1959.

One organizational change which has made an important contribution to increased productivity is the establishment of employee review boards pursuant to Public Law 87-247, which authorized the delegation of authority to employee boards to decide adversary cases. These boards decided 553 cases during calendar year 1963 which would otherwise have been added to the workload of the Commission or a division of Commissioners. It is only by such means that we have been able to provide prompt disposition of the relatively routine cases and at the same time reserve for Commissioners adequate time for consideration of the complex issues in cases of general transportation interest.

Another important improvement has been the adoption of the decision and order or "dando" procedure. Under this procedure, where the facts merit such action, examiner reports are summarily affirmed by the Commission by means of a short standard form which adopts the recommended report of an examiner as the decision of the Commission and declares the contentions of protesting parties to be without merit. This form is issued in lieu of writing a completely new final report thus reducing considerably the amount of professional staff time required to dispose of each case, not to mention a significant reduction in the typing and reproduction workload. During the past year almost half of the cases personally considered by Commissioners were decided by this method. Still another important factor in increasing productivity has been a reduced emphasis on oral hearing procedure. The use of written testimony and evidence in place of oral hearings has greatly reduced the amount of time and effort required to develop a complete record.

Because of these and other procedural and organizational innovations the Commission was able to take on the onetime workload of 2,739 cases generated by Public Law 87-805 without as serious a deterioration in the control and processing rate of the remainder of its pending docket as would otherwise have occurred. As table II indicates, the number of cases pending before the Commission rose sharply early in 1963 as these new cases were docketed. By the middle of 1963 the size of the docket leveled off and the Commission again began to effect substantial reductions each month; but 7,042 cases still remained on the docket at the end of the year as compared to only 4,711 at the beginning. Thus, notwithstanding an increase in productivity of 9.4 percent which was accomplished with practically no increase in staff for proceedings work, the pending caseload increase by 49.5 percent during the year.

Because we did not receive the additional positions in our appropriation which we considered essential for fiscal year 1964, available manpower had to be spread thinner than usual to handle these additional cases and the average time required to process cases as shown in table III increased during 1963 to 7.6 months as compared to 7.1 months in 1962. While this was still below the 9.1 and 8.6 months required during 1960 and 1961, respectively, and within reasonable proximity of the absolute minimum processing time consistent with the requirements of due process, it marks the beginning of a trend which should not be permitted to continue. Hopefully, the relatively few additional positions requested for fiscal year 1965, together with continued efforts to streamline our organization and procedures will enable us to prevent any further increase.

As the workload of formal cases continues to increase, our ability to handle it within currently authorized employment levels is, in all candor, seriously challenged. Although the Commission takes great pride in the steps which it has taken to meet this challenge, we fully realize that the task can never be considered complete. The Commission's central status system, an automated management information and control system for its proceedings case workload continues to be of significant value in enabling us to stay aware of proceedings workload trends, expediting workflow, and identify opportunities for improvements in procedures and organization. In addition, the Commission, its divisions, standing committees at both the Commission level and the staff level, and appropriate offices and bureaus continue to search for better, and wherever possible, faster procedures for handling our workload. We feel confident that this constant search for better procedures will enable the Commission to fulfill its growing service obligation to the public with promptness and efficiency and to keep employment at the minimum level required to accomplish this goal. Should you desire any further information we shall be most happy to provide it. Sincerely yours,

ABE MCGREGOR GOFF, Chairman.