Mr. COTTON. How many 15's? Mr. REVELLE. We have two 15's. Mr. COTTON. How many 14's? Mr. REVELLE. We have one 14, one 12, one 9, three 6's, two 5's, and one 4. This additional position is a secretarial position-a secretary to the chairman of the Commission. At the time the reduction in force was effected by the Commission, the chairman of the Commission let his secretary go, and he has been using the services of other secretaries in the interim period. PRINTING AND REPRODUCTION Mr. COTTON. I notice you have $10,000 for printing and reproduction. What is that-reports of the cases? Mr. SMITH. That would be the printing of our determinations and possibly the reports themselves, of which the determination is a part, made to the Congress. Mr. COTTON. No part of that goes to pay any reporters you have to hire to take the evidence? Mr. SMITH. No, sir. Mr. COTTON. In connection with that one case that has been decided, with the possible exception that it may have a final review by the Supreme Court, it establishes most of the precedents necessary for all of the other cases you are considering? Mr. SMITH. From the advice both sides have given us, we think so. Mr. COTTON. One hundred and three is the limit of the cases you have to consider? Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir. Mr. COTTON. Is there any possibility of new claims being presented to you? Mr. SMITH. No. The filing time has long since passed now. ULTIMATE TERMINATION OF COMMISSION Mr. COTTON. Are you quite certain you can conclude your work and finish under the new expiration date in 1953? Mr. SMITH. Mr. Cotton, I would hate to answer that question positively, simply for this reason: our operation there is like that of any court. You find things coming up on both sides that cause one or the other side to come in asking for some continuance that looks like it has to be granted. We are getting pretty hard boiled as far as that is concerned, but these cases do, we know, involve quite a bit of preparatory and preliminary work. For instance, on the Government's side of it, the FBI is doing the auditing work for the Department of Justice in the defense of them, and we are told by the Special Assistant to the Attorney General that those cases take them up to 2 months; that is, a case takes them up to 2 months to fully investigate. That is something that is beyond our control. While he has gone forward and gotten those cases into their hands for investigation, whether he is going to be able to have them right up to the minute in all cases in sufficient time to have them completed by June 30, 1953, is something, as I said in the beginning, I would hate to state positively. We believe we can finish. I will say that much. It is our belief that we can finish the job. We have not changed our views on that from the time we submitted our recommendation of the extension for that period of time. What I have outlined as to the Department of Justice, of course, applies a good deal to the other side, too, although they probably have had these cases before them for a greater length of time than the people dealing with them in the Department of Justice and may be further along. Mr. COTTON. That is all. Mr. GORE. Thank you very much, gentlemen. MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1951. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION OPERATING EXPENSES WITNESSES GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION RUSSELL FORBES, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR W. E. KATON, DEPUTY COMPTROLLER D. E. A. CAMERON, DIRECTOR, BUDGET DIVISION E. L. COTTER, BUDGET REPRESENTATIVE, PUBLIC BUILDINGS SERVICE H. A. HUNTER, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, PUBLIC BUILDINGS SERVICE R. O. JENNINGS, ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER W. A. SCHMIDT, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, BUILDINGS MANAGEMENT P. V. FINEGAN, CHIEF, SPACE UTILIZATION INCREASES IN COSTS OF RENTS, UTILITIES, SUPPLIES, AND EQUIPMENT Mr. GORE. The committee is pleased to have before it Mr. Russell Forbes, Deputy Administrator, together with Mr. Katon, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Cotter, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Jennings, Mr. Schmidt, and Mr. Finegan. Mr. Hunter, most of this supplemental budget request, contained in House Document No. 211, is under the Public Buildings Service; is it not? Mr. HUNTER. The most of it; yes, sir. Mr. GORE. The committee would be glad to have you undertake to justify as best you can this supplemental request. Mr. HUNTER. May I defer for a moment to Mr. Forbes, Deputy Administrator, in case he has something to say? It is perfectly agree Mr. GORE. Yes; we will be very glad to, hear him. Mr. FORBES. I have no prepared statement. able to me to let Commissioner Hunter answer the questions. He and his staff are thoroughly familiar with the estimate. I am appearing here because Mr. Larson is in Europe, as you know. Mr. GORE. What is Mr. Larson doing in Europe? Mr. FORBES. He is working on the stockpile program. Mr. GORE. Are you familiar with the details of this request? Mr. GORE. Yes. Mr. FORBES. In a general way. I am not as familiar with the details as the staff of the Public Buildings Service. 85541-51-pt. 3- -5 BASIS FOR BUDGET REQUEST Mr. GORE. Mr. Hunter, how do you justify this request? Mr. HUNTER. Basically this whole item originates in the changes that have taken place in the price structure applicable to rents, supplies, and utility rates. Mr. GORE. What part is rents, and what part is supplies? Have desks gone up? Mr. HUNTER. This estimate does not include anything for desks. DESK SITUATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Mr. GORE. I will ask you that, Mr. Forbes. Have executive desks gone up? Mr. FORBES. Yes; they have gone up. Mr. GORE. Is that why you are buying so many? Mr. FORBES. One reason why we bought them, which we are very pleased to report, is that by buying them when we did early in the year we saved about three-quarters of a million dollars in price over and above the handling charges. Mr. GORE. What would you have saved if you had not sold at about 25 percent of cost a lot of desks declared surplus recently, if you had used those instead of selling them for little or nothing and then buying these new ones? Mr. FORBES. As far as I know we did not sell any at 25 percent of the cost. DISPOSAL OF SURPLUS DESKS Mr. GORE. You have nothing to do with the sale of surplus desks in the Government? Mr. FORBES. We have responsibility for the utilization program; yes. Mr. GORE. How do you exercise it? We have no Mr. FORBES. The agencies declare property excess. authority to say to a certain agency "You have 100 desks that you do not need." We have to wait until they declare them to us as being excess to their needs, whereupon the other agencies of the Government, including the Department of Defense, are asked whether or not they need them. If they say they do not and if they are at all usable and repairable, we take them into our own inventory in the Federal Supply Service and hold them until some Federal agency needs them. As far as I know, there has been no sale by the General Services Administration of excess or surplus desks within recent months. Mr. GORE. Well, if they are declared surplus, is it your agency that sells them? Mr. FORBES. The term "excess" as distinguished from "surplus" applies to that interim time in which we are determining whether any Federal agency needs them. In other words, if you are the head of an agency and you report to us that you have 50 desks which you do not need, those are excess, and the period when the other agencies are being screened to determine whether they have need for them is the excess period. If no one says they can use them or need them at a fair value which is fixed according to their condition, then they become surplus. The next move then would be to offer them, according to the law, to educational and health institutions. If they do not need them, they are then sold, and the sales, for the most part, are handled by the agency which originally declared them excess. Mr. GORE. You used a phrase there that may be significant when you referred to the right of an agency to refuse to take them at a price set according to their condition and repair. Suppose an agency said "This desk has a mark on it. We would rather have a new one." Do you have the power to say "No. You have to take this one"? Mr. FORBES. We have no power to tell them that under the existing law. Mr. GORE. Then, if an agency comes in and wants 1,000 desks and you have 5,000 that are good except that there are marks on them and they say "No. We don't want a desk with marks on it; we want a new desk," you have no choice but to place an order for 1,000 new desks? Mr. FORBES. That is right-unfortunately. CURRENT LIST OF EXCESS DESKS Mr. GORE. Will you supply to the committee a list of all agencies that have declared desks in excess during the calendar year thus far and then indicate in a chart what disposition has been made of the desks and also how many desks of similar types have been bought this year? Mr. FORBES. All right. (The matter referred to follows:) EXHIBIT I. Excess desks reported to GSA in Washington area Jan. 1 to Aug. 6, 1951 1 48 of these 1,788 desks were subsequently disposed of as surplus by GSA because they were found uneconomical to repair. EXHIBIT II.-Transferred or in process (included in exhibit I) EXHIBIT III.-Purchase and sales of new desks by GSA in Washington area Jan. 1 to July 31, 1951 LIMIT OF GSA AUTHORITY OVER FEDERAL PROPERTY Mr. GORE. We created the General Services Administration, but it appears it is a general expenditures administration with no authority in any realistic sense over all of the vast properties and over waste and duplication in the Government. Mr. FORBES. We are sorry, Mr. Gore, you feel that way about it. Mr. GORE. I am, too. Mr. FORBES. But we feel within the limits of our authority we are doing a good job. This deficiency in our authority has been discussed with this committee before. There is pending before the Congress, as you know, legislation which would close this gap in our authority and which would enable us, particularly in the case of furniture, to control it. In other words, it would vest in the General Services Administration the ownership of all furniture, so that in that case we could shift it around as needed and not be subject to these complicated currents of opinion you mention, where an agency can refuse to take something because it does not quite fit its decor as to color or style and so forth. Mr. GORE. Is it contemplated that any new desks will be purchased with any part of the funds requested in this supplemental before the committee now? Mr. FORBES. No. DESK PURCHASES AND WAREHOUSING Mr. ANDREWS. How many desks did you buy? Mr. FORBES. I do not know the exact number. Mr. ANDREWS. The newspaper I have before me says six carloads. Mr. FORBES. I think it was much more than that. Mr. ANDREWS. More than six carloads? |