4 may not be priority targets because of contracting work force due to labor saving mechanization (in the apparent cases of both meat packing and tobacco) and the affected class gains under several court cases. Yet, because industry assignments and compliance resources are fixed on an agency-by-agency basis Agriculture's compliance staff and resources cannot be deployed in the banking industry. Although theoreti cally this problem can be resolved by more balanced appropriations, the reality is that each agency is funded by a separate congressional appropriations subcommittee. 5 OFCCP's response to the fragmentation problem and the difficulties it poses has been to move toward 4 Quarles v. Phillip Morris, Inc., 279 F. Supp. 505, 1 FEP 260 (E.D.Va. 1968); Robinson v. Lorrilard Corp., 444 F. 2d 791, 3 FEP 653 (4th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1006 (1971); Russel v. American Tobacco Co., 374 F. Supp. 286, 5 FEP 431 (M.D.N.C. 1973). 5The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' Federal Civil Rights Enforcement Effort--1974 does not make note of this fact: "In spite of assurances to OMB in 1971, OFCC has continued to permit vast disparities in the relative resources allocated to Agency Compliance programs. Agency compliance staffs and budgets vary widely and bear little relationship to the size of the Agency Workloads." In coordination with the Office of Management and Budget, OFCCP has developed and implements a unitary budget system in which resource requests are based upon a compliance review coverage benchmark of 20 percent annually. However, largely because its scope of interests embraces the primary mission of the agencies for which it appropriates funds, each of the dozen or more House and Senate appropriations subcommittees does not share OFCCP's consolidation of the program within fewer compliance 6 agencies. In fiscal year 1975, the responsibility tively. then assigned to the Agency for International Devel- consolidate the responsibility for construction into the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental 6That That course of action appears to be consistent with interim steps recommended in the Staff Report of the Subcommittee on Equal Opportunities. "The number of contract compliance agencies should be reduced to no more than five federal agencies with a goal of one compliance agency in five years," p. 19. It also appears consistent with those recommended in the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's Federal Civil Rights Enforcement Effort--1974, Volume V: "OFCCP should consolidate the current delegation of authority in fewer than 10 agencies assuring approximately equal responsibility and resources are allocated to each compliance Protection Agency, the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, the Energy Research Development Administration, the Department of Transportation, and the Small Business Administration. There are two serious limitations to this approach. First, because there is a stigma attached to such transfers, the ranking cabinet agencies tend to resist removal of compliance responsibility. Second, beyond a certain point the transfers destroy the rationale of the assignment system which is based on industry relationships. For example, although Treasury has a limited program there is no functional basis for locating the responsibility for the banking industry in any other It is a fundamental finding of the Task Force that, regardless of its location in the Federal structure, the Executive Order Program will be unable to realize its full potential in bringing about the full equal employment rights and benefits to which minorities and women are entitled so long as the responsibility for administering and implementing its requirements are so hopelessly fragmented among mul that the responsibility and authority, including budget and staff resources of the compliance agencies, be consolidated in the Department of Labor. In addition to achieving an optimum degree of effectiveness, such a consolidation would result in a cost savings of 20 to 30 percent or $8 to $12 million, which could be converted to greater compliance review coverage. The cost savings would result principally from a decrease in management overhead at the headquarters level, a decrease in supervisory positions at the field level, and an increase in efficiency at the. operating level. At the headquarters level, each individual compliance agency has its own separate management and program support staff at grade and salary levels ranging from GS-13 to GS-18. By centralizing the management and program support functions within DOL, fewer positions and grade levels would be required. At the field management levels each agency has supervisory positions at levels GS-15/16 and GS-14/15. Under a consolidated field operation, this management overhead would be substantially reduced. From an operating standpoint the cost per compliance review ranges from $1,406 at the Department of Defense, the most efficient compliance agency, to $4,028 at the Department of Health, compliance agencies. By consolidating compliance review responsibility in the Department of Labor, OFCCP could assure that the cost per compliance review would remain consistently at the lower figure. In arriving at this recommendation the Task Force has considered questions which have been raised concerning the availability of resources at a level equal to the aggregate of those now existing in the several agencies; the possibility of confrontations with the procuring agencies over the use of the contract sanctions of cancellation, termination, suspension, and debarment; and the desirability of divorcing the rest of the Executive Branch from commitments to EEO enforcement and civil rights, generally. As to the question of resources, the Task Force finds that under the Department's leadership in developing a unitary budget system with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) the resources of OFCCP and the compliance agencies have increased from approximately 228 full time positions and $5 million in fiscal year 1967 to approximately 1,900 full-time positions and $42 million in fiscal year 1977. The Task Force also finds that the critical problem which confronted the Department in achieving these resource levels and |