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Average cost per unit of printing and binding chargeable to the congressional appropriation

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Congressional printing and binding billings for work ordered in fiscal year as of

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NOTE. With the inception of the revolving fund accounting system in fiscal year 1954, all billings for each fiscal year are based on the orders received during the respective fiscal

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Based on information developed annually for hearings before the Committee on Appropriations.

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NOTE. Separation of total expenditures by printing and binding operations and sales of publications operations is not available prior to fiscal year 1963.

Intrafund expenditures consist of expenditures incurred by printing and binding operations on behalf of the sales of publications operations.

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CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE PRINTING AND BINDING

Senator MONRONEY. How soon do you expect to have this report that you will make on the individual committees and offices to obtain closer oversight for their costs?

Mr. HARRISON. We are working on it now and will make a report at the earliest possible moment.

Senator MONRONEY. Do you have any figures that would give us a guideline about what these limitations on the committee should be?

Mr. CRAGG. Our past records do not reflect the cost by committees. Mr. HARRISON. This would have to be something we would live with for a year and come up

Senator MONRONEY. You would come up with a total figure, cost estimate of $3,800,000 for the printing of hearings?

Mr. HARRISON. That is right, sir.

Senator MONRONEY. That would be the bulk of the cost, your reports would be so many, and perhaps the cost of printing bills would be so many, but you could round it off, perhaps at $4 million, the cost of printing hearings and maybe some way arbitrarily establish a limit beyond which they should not go?

Mr. HARRISON. I think what we might better do would be to submit to you at the end of this year what each committee has spent in the way of hearings and then stand back for your directive.

Senator MONRONEY. That is for the fiscal year beginning July 1? Mr. HARRISON. Yes, sir.

Senator MONRONEY. You have to start charging that?

Mr. HARRISON. That is right, sir.

Senator MONRONEY. I think that would be probably wise. Maybe knowing that it is going to be calculated and made a matter of record maybe the chairmen will cooperate with the House and with the Senate to keeping this as reasonable as possible.

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE REVOLVING FUND

Will you explain briefly for the record the purpose of the revolving fund?

Mr. HARRISON. The purpose of the revolving fund is to furnish a working capital in order that the Government Printing Office can operate on a business-like basis. The revolving fund was authorized by law in 1953.

The Office now operates in a manner similar to a commercial printer. We receive an order from a customer agency. We print the order, deliver it, and bill at cost. We are paid by the agency-and we deposit the amount into the revolving fund in the Treasury Department and operate against that account.

The appropriation for Congressional Printing and Binding is placed in a separate account in the Printing Office and the work for Congress is billed against this account.

Our financial operations are audited by the Comptroller General each year and a report made to Congress.

Senator MONRONEY. Turning to the office of Superintendent of Documents, $5,829,000 requested, and the House has allowed the full amount. This represents an increase of $267,000 over 1965 appropriations.

Before you start this, Senator Proxmire has returned. Do you have any further questions? We are just moving away from the appropriations sought for the building. I thought if you had any further questions

BREAKDOWN ON SPACE USAGE

Senator PROXMIRE. There is only one other question and I think perhaps you can put your answer in the record, if you do not have it now. The number of square feet seemed to me to be really enormous— 2 million what?

Mr. HARRISON. 2,100,000.

Senator PROXMIRE. Do you have a justification in here for that enormous number? I am sorry I have not had a chance to review this. This just came to my attention.

Senator MONRONEY. I asked him to divide it by office space required, by storage space for paper, by space for the document room, office of the document room, by space for the distribution of the documents and then for the actual printing space, so we will have a breakdown as to how much will be used for each purpose.

PERSONNEL AND SPACE RELATIONSHIP

Senator PROXMIRE. Any benchmark such as the relationship between the personnel and the number of square feet? Please provide it and indicate why you do not think it is relevent if you do not think it is. I see you shaking your head. Maybe you do not like that comparison, but it seems to me we ought to get all of the information we can on that, and that might be of some value, although the chairman has gotten the major material we are going to need.

Mr. HARRISON. I do not think it would be meaningful to apply personnel to square feet of space in our printing operations.

Senator PROXMIRE. The difficulty is that the printing industry feels very strongly on this, and they do have a great deal of experience and a great deal of success. I think they are in as competitive an industry as there is and, since they do feel this way, it seems to me we ought to get every kind of statistic we can get to evaluate the request since it is controversial.

Mr. HARRISON. On page 13 in our brochure, we gave a breakdown of the space, broken down by production, delivery and shipping, receiving and storing, administration, documents, distribution, main

tenance, and building equipment, cafeteria, recreation, and miscellaneous-as of now in our present operation and in our proposed operation.

Senator PROXMIRE. That is fine, and if you will also indicate the personnel it will be helpful.

Mr. HARRISON. We will attempt to do that. But for an area which has large presses, there are a small number of personnel, while in the bindery where a great deal of the work is handwork, there would be a very large number of personnel.

COMPARISON OF STATISTICS WITH PRIVATE INDUSTRY

Senator PROXMIRE. We can get statistics possibly from the industry on what their relationship is between personnel and the number of square feet in very similar operations.

Mr. HARRISON. If they are doing the same kind of work, then I think that would be possible, but if they are doing work as I have seen other specialty plants doing, that might compare remotely to our plant in size, then I would say there is no comparison.

Senator PROXMIRE. If it is paper storage, that can be similar. Every printing company has enormous

Mr. HARRISON. Not necessarily. For example, the McCall plant in Dayton. They will use two or three carloads more paper a day than we do, but it is all roll stock and it is all about the same kind. They handle few inventory items and they can stack it in one location, and do not have to store and remove stock from many different locations. With our 600-plus lots of paper, because of the types of work we have to do, it takes a good deal more space to store than it would one kind of paper.

Senator PROXMIRE. I think you are right, but at the same time it would be helpful to be able to compare what you allow for storage for paper and what they do and then try and evaluate the differences if we can. We can then make a better informed judgment.

Mr. HARRISON. Yes, Senator. We will do the best we can on it. Senator PROXMIRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (The information requested follows:)

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