Mr. BLACK. The fiscal year 1936, which ended June 30, 1936. Mr. BLACK. It is running just about the same proportionately; yes, sir. Mr. WOODRUM. About $45,000 or $50,000 a year? Mr. BLACK. Yes; it would be a little more than $50,000. Last year it was about $53,000 plus. Mr. WOODRUM. Is there any other place where fees could be charged appropriately? Has the Board any recommendations to make in that respect? Mr. BLACK. I do not believe we have, Mr. Chairman. I think that a filing fee is fully justified, although it is not required in all Government agencies. It is well established in our Board, is authorized by statute, and I think should be continued. There is no demand that it be discontinued at all so far as I know. It is perfectly proper, I think. Then the fees for getting these certified copies from our clerk and preparing other data such as is prepared through the clerk's office, it is perfectly proper to charge for that the regular fee. I do not think of anything else that our Board desires to recommend as proper to be charged as a fee. Mr. WOODRUM. Does your 1938 budget contemplate any increases in salaries? Mr. BLACK. Do you mean by that have we made any promotions? Mr. WOODRUM. Yes. Mr. BLACK. We made a few Mr. TRACY. For 1938 we have estimated none. Mr. BLACK. Oh, no; we have included no estimate of any promotions for 1938. Were you thinking of this fiscal year we are now discussing? Mr. WOODRUM. Yes. Mr. BLACK. No, we have not estimated any for that. Mr. Chairman, I have prepared, as usual, three tables here that give some statistics of the Board, which are not very voluminous, and that we usually file for the record. They are numbered statement. no. 1, statement no. 2, and statement no. 3. Mr. WOODRUM. We shall be very glad to have them for the record. Mr. BLACK. Thank you. (The statements referred to are as follows:) NUMBER OF APPEAL CASES STATEMENT NO. 1 Under the Revenue Act of 1926, section 1003 (a), an appeal from the Board's decision was authorized to a United States circuit court of appeals or the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and thence to Supreme Court of the United States on certiorari. Since the passage of that act and to October 31, 1936, of the total 26,879 decisions subject to appeal, 4,651 have been taken. The action of said courts on the Board's decisions is as follows: Appealable cases: By docket numbers_ Appeals taken: By docket numbers.. 1 26, 879 4, 651 1 This includes dismissals and miscellaneous from Mar. 1, 1926, to Oct. 1, 1926, and opinions, dismissals, and miscellaneous from Oct. 1, 1926, to Oct. 31, 1936. Of the total number of 3,942 appeals decided to October 31, 1936, by the United States circuit courts of appeals and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States was applied for in 667 cases. The action of that Court thereon is shown by the following table: Circuit court of appeals action on Board's decisions: The total receipts and expenditures of the Board from its beginning to October 31, 1936, are as follows: 1 A filing fee of $10 fixed pursuant to authority contained in sec. 904 of the Revenue Act of 1926. ? Board is authorized by sec. 1004 (b) of the Revenue Act of 1926 to fix a fee for preparing and conforming a transcript of the record on appeal. * $52,217.06 represents legislative furlough. Represents 4 months only. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1936. CENTRAL STATISTICAL BOARD STATEMENTS OF STUART A. RICE, CHAIRMAN; MORRIS A COPELAND, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY; ROGER W. JONES, ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE OFFICER; WILLIAM R. LEONARD, ASSISTANT REVIEW OFFICER; AND JACOB A. HALE, ACCOUNTANT SALARIES AND EXPENSES Mr. WOODRUM. We will take up this morning the items for the Central Statistical Board. We have with us Mr. Rice, Chairman of the Board, and various other officers of the Board. The first item is for salaries and expenses, and is as follows: For every expenditure requisite for and incident to the work of the Central Statistical Board as authorized by law, including traveling expenses; materials; supplies; office equipment; services; newspapers; periodicals and press clippings; repairs and alterations; contract stenographic reporting services; and not to exceed $400 for expenses of attendance at meetings which in the discretion of the chairman are necessary for the efficient discharge of the responsibilities of the Board, $173,000, of which amount not to exceed $163,000 may be expended for personal services in the District of Columbia. Mr. WOODRUM. The estimate from the Budget is in the amount of $173,000. Mr. RICE. Yes, sir. PRINTING AND BINDING Mr. WOODRUM. Then you have an item— for all printing and binding for the Central Statistical Board, $1,000. Mr. RICE. Yes, sir; making a total of $174,000 as against an appropriated $175,420 for 1937. JUSTIFICATION OF ESTIMATE FOR 1938 Mr. WOODRUM. Have you a statement you wish to submit to the committee, Mr. Rice? Mr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, we have a statement which I believe may be familiar to you and the other members of the committee. I believe it was put at your disposal and I would suggest that it be put into the record, if you choose. It is a fairly concise summary of the Board's activities and financial situation and other relevant material. Mr. WOODRUM. Very well; the statement may be inserted in the record. (The statement referred to is as follows:) STATEMENT IN Support of the PROPOSED APPROPRIATION for Fiscal Year 1938 A. APPROPRIATION TEXT Salaries and expenses.-For every expenditure requisite for and incident to the work of the Central Statistical Board as authorized by law, including traveling expenses; materials; supplies; office equipment; services; newspapers; periodicals and press clippings; repairs and alterations; contract stenographic reporting services; not to exceed $400 for expenses of attendance at meetings which in the discretion of the chairman are necessary for the efficient discharge of the respon sibilities of the Board, $173,000 of which amount not to exceed $163,000 may be expended for personal services in the District of Columbia. Printing and binding.-For all printing and binding for the Central Statistical Board, $1,000. Estimate 1938, $174,000; appropriated 1937, $175,420.-The foregoing amounts and text have been approved by the Bureau of the Budget and by the President. They represent a total reduction in the 938 estimates of $1,420. B. REORGANIZATION OF THE BOARD Since the last meeting of representatives of the Central Statistical Board with the Committee on Appropriations, the Board has been reorganized to operate under the authorities vested in it by the act of July 25, 1935 (49 Stat. 498). At the time of hearings upon the 1937 appropriation, the Board had not begun the reorganization authorized by its act by reason of the fact that the first appropriation for the statutory Board did not become available until the passage of the First Deficiency Appropriation Act of 1936, which contained as one of its item an appropriation of $70,600 for the expenses of the Board from January 15, 1936, to June 30, 1936. Immediately after the passage of the appropriation act, the President issued Executive Order No. 7287, prescribing the method of selecting members of the statutory board. In accordance with its terms, the chairman of the Central Statistical Committee secured designations of six board members from officers charged with this responsibility. These members are: George C. Haas, Treasury Department; Oscar E. Kiessling, Department of the Interior; Mordecai Ezekiel, Department of Agriculture; Ernest G. Draper, Department of Commerce; Isador Lubin, Department of Labor; and E. A. Go denweiser, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. On March 5, 1936, Mr. Stuart A. Rice, who had been appointed by the President as acting chairman of the board on September 17, 1935, was confirmed by the Senate as the chairman of the board. Upon the confirmation of Mr. Rice, the chairman of the Central Statistical Committee announced the organization of the statutory board. The chairman and the six designated members, in accordance with the provisions of Executive Order No. 7287, elected to membership in the board the following: E. Dana Durand, United States Tariff Commission; Ernest M. Fisher, Federal Housing Administration; Corrington Gill, Works Progress Administration; Frederick F. Stephan, American Statistical Association; Leonard D. White, Civil Service Commission; and W. H. S. Stevens, Federal Trade Commission. There are now two vacancies in the elected memberships of the board. One vacancy has not yet been filled, and the second recently has come about through the transfer of Mr. Stevens to the Interstate Commerce Commission. Concurrently with the organization of the board upon a statutory basis, its staff was transferred from the nonclassified service to the classified civil service through a series of noncompetitive examinations. C. AUTHORIZATIONS AND FUNCTIONS to The Central Statistical Board is charged in section 1 of its act plan and promote the improvement, developmnet, and coordination of, and the elimination of duplication in, statistical services carried on by or subject to the supervision of the Federal Government, and, so far as may be practicable, of other statistical services in the United States." Under section 5 of the act it is given the further power to make investigations of statistical services; to require the submittal of information concerning any existing and proposed statistical work carried on by an agency of the Federal Government; to plan and promote the economical operation of statistical agencies; and to perform such other duties consistent with section 1 of its act as the President or Central Statistical Committee may prescribe. The Board itself does not engage in the regular collection and publication of statistics. It deals mainly with the agencies which collect or analyze statistical information and serves to keep these agencies in touch with each other. The Board seeks to inform itself currently regarding the chief developments in statistical work throughout the Federal Government and to inform each agency regarding developments materially affecting its interests. The Board provides technical advice and assistance in the planning of statistical inquiries and in the publication of data. Through the exercise of informatory and advisory functions, the Board seeks to provide such leadership for the statistical services as will promote im provement in organization, in methods of operation, and in the content of published results. D. WORK OF THE BOARD The early program of the Central Statistical Board, that had its origin in emergency needs, has been replaced almost entirely by a continuing program relating to the permanent Federal statistical services. The Board's main activities may be summarized briefly under the following heads: (1) Review of and advice on the plans for statistical inquiries and review of press releases and publications; (2) surveys of the organization and activities of particular statistical agencies with a view to constructive suggestions for improvements; (3) special studies of statistical services in related fields, including studies designed to be of value to the statistical agencies generally, studies of statistical problems common to several agencies, and the planning and supervision of special tabulations of data collected by one agency in order to serve the requirements of another; (4) suggestions for the promotion and development of more adequate business and industrial statistics; (5) the development and maintenance of a statistical clearing house and statistical information service; and (6) the preparation of special reports for administrative use by officials of the Federal Government. The following illustrative paragraphs are numbered to coincide with the preceding summary of activities: 1. Review of and advice on plans for statistical work and of press releases and publications.—Statistical plans that come to the Board for review include examples of every phase of statistical work. About 40 percent of the plans reviewed come to the Board in the form of questionnaires, schedules for transcribing data from original records, circular letters, or administrative report blanks. Plans for statistical inquiries also come to the Board in the form of systems of classification; instructions for field work and editing; and coding, punching, and tabulation plans, as well as general outlines of the purpose, scope, and procedure of inquiries. The chief purposes of Board review are to improve the quality of statistical information available, to promote economy in the statistical services, and to protect potential respondents from unduly burdensome or unnecessary inquiries. During the fiscal year 1936 the Board received and reviewed 997 statistical forms, not including forms received after dissemination. In the first 5 months of the current fiscal year, the Board has reviewed 528 forms. In the opinion of the Board, the annual number of forms reviewed will be greatly increased by reason of the recent issuance of a regulation requiring the submittal of statistical forms. Hitherto the Board has depended upon an informal letter requesting the cooperation of the statistical agencies in submitting their forms for review. In addition to the review for forms for the regular statistical agencies, the Board and the Works Progress Administration established, in May 1935, a joint coordinating committee to review applications for works projects of a statistical and related nature. The membership of this committee includes Mr. Stuart A. Rice, chairman of the Central Statistical Board as acting chairman of the committee; Mr. Corrington Gill, representing the Works Progress Administration; Mr. Charles Eliot, representing the National Resources Committee; Mr. Morris A. Copeland, representing the Central Statistical Board; and three non-Government members; Mr. Robert P. Lane, director of the Welfare Council of New York City, Mr. Willard L. Thorp, director of economic research for Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., and Prof. T. O. Yntema, school of business, University of Chicago. Up to June 30, 1936, the committee had taken action upon a total of 4,331 statistical survey and research projects, calling for expenditures in excess of $350,000,000. The thoroughness of the committee's review procedure is shown by the fact that approval was recommended for only 1,577 projects, with a total budget of about $74,000,000. A table showing the committee's action upon State and local projects is attached. The committee has been able to guide statistical works projects into useful channels so that the works program has made important contributions to our statistical information through such Federal projects as the Census of Business for 1935 and through such local statistical projects as real property inventories. The committee's work has been notable in protecting the public against a very great potential increase in questionnaires and interviews and has thus prevented annoyances to an extent which it is difficult to realize. Through the prevention of unwise projects, the committee also has protected the established statistical services of the Federal Government against the serious public revolt that a deluge of questionnaires would surely have provoked. These figures include 99 Federal projects and 535 local N. Y. A. projects amounting to $85.895.000 and $860.000 respectively. |