Mr. TARVER. You think the $5,000,000 will be completely expended?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. TARVER. In fact, you said yesterday you had applications of the type which merited approval for twice the amount of aid you were able to give.

Mr. WILLIAMS. In many sections of the country it will be more than twice; it will be three or four times as many.

Mr. HARE. Would there be any increase in the amount per student for student aid in the high schools and colleges next year if any appropriation were made?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Not under this plan.

Mr. HARE. They would get the same as last year?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir. I think, frankly, that there should be some increase permitted the individual pupil. I think that under the present situation with respect to the cost of living, and also with regard to the acceleration that has been adopted by practically every institution in the country, their opportunities to work in the summertime are practically negligible. They are now staying in school the whole 12 months, which makes a very great difference in the amount of money they are able to earn on their own as an aid to continuing in school. This budget that we have, of about $14 a month, simply does not provide enough money for them to stay in school unless they can work in the summertime and get some funds with which to supplement that monthly earning. I should like to recommend that they be permitted not less than $25 a month, with a maximum of, say, $40 a month.

Mr. HARE. Do you mean for college or high school?

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, sir; I would not make any change in the payments to high-school pupils.

Mr. HARE. What is the average there?

Mr. WILLIAMS. It runs about $4.50 a month to a top of $6.

May I ask permission of the committee to insert this material, or some of it, that has come in from the school and college people, in order to document my statements?

Mr. TARVER. As far as I am concerned, I should be glad to have you insert no statements in extenso from college people but a summary of the evidence that you have.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

(The statement referred to appears on p. 332.)

ADMINISTRATION OF STUDENT-AID PROGRAM

If the committee does put back this program, may I ask the committee to give us some funds for the administration of the program? Last year you did not give us any administrative funds, and that I constituted a very serious problem for us throughout the year. should like to ask the committee to take that into consideration and to give us funds to administer the program and also to give us authority to expend such funds, which is not in the present act.

Mr. TARVER. What amount of funds would be necessary? Mr. WILLIAMS. Some percentage similar to what we have for the other. That is, it might be 5 percent of whatever was appropriated. I think it would be less than that.

Mr. HARE. You would have to set up an entirely new outfit to administer that?

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, sir; I would not, but I have to have a bureau and field people at our regional levels to supervise this work. I cannot get along without them. I could submit to you what the probable cost of that would be. It probably would not run to 5 percent; it would run nearer to 31⁄2 percent.

ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES, NATIONAL YOUTH ADMINISTRATION

Mr. HARE. The next item is the justification of estimates, "Salaries and expenses," National Youth Administration. They appear on page 99. The justifications will be inserted in the record at this point. Mr. HARE. The appropriation for this item last year was $3,500,000. The estimate for 1944 is $3,314,000, or a decrease of $186,000. Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. TARVER. Pardon me, just a moment. Mr. Chairman, when we inserted yesterday at the beginning of the hearing a similar table, I requested that Mr. Williams amplify the table so as to show the amount appropriated for 1943, the amount estimated for 1944, and, in a third column, the information as to the increase or reduction, as the case may be. This statement shows for personal services an increase of $58,485, but it does not show what the estimate of personal services was for the present fiscal year.

Mr. HARE. So, your suggestion is that that be added to this table? Mr. TARVER. I request, Mr. Williams, that you amplify this table, as you were requested to do yesterday in the case of the other table. Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

(The table requested is as follows:)

Administrative expense-Comparison of estimates for the fiscal years 1943 and 1944 by objective classification of expenditure

Source: Budget and Statistics Section, Division of Finance and Statistics, May 28, 1943.

PERSONAL SERVICES

Mr. WILLIAMS. With regard to these items, if you will turn to page 110, for the "Personal services" item last year we estimated $2,537,400. Our expenditures will be approximately $2,651,900. That means that next year there will be a decrease of $56,015 from actual expenditures this year.

Mr. HARE. There will be an increase of $58,485 over the estimate of last year?

86811-43-pt. 3-26

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is right.

For the Washington office we are asking for the same amount this coming year as was estimated last year. Actual expenditure during this year will be about $10,500 over, in the department here, than was estimated last year.

Mr. HARE. I note that you have for the departmental staff 256 persons with an average annual salary of $2,408.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir. We have here in Washington very little more than the top administrative people. We have a preponderance of people in charge of the work. We have decentralized as much as we can the clerical work, the type of thing that is done by people earning $1,400, $1,600, and $1,800. It is inevitable that your headquarters office goes to the higher rates more so than your general mine run.

Mr. HARE. You have not much turn-over?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We have had a great deal this year. The fact of the matter is that most places around here, especially war agencies, are paying higher and higher all the time, and people are staying with us at less money than they can get elsewhere. That is the truth of it. Mr. HARE. The other agencies say that the people will not stay with them.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I want to say this: It has been one of the great thrills of my work to have our people stay with us, come high water or not. We have lost some very fine people, but we have a great many who have stayed with us under any circumstances.

Mr. HARE. You are now in the Manpower Commission?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir, but it is not so much that type of agency that our people have gone to as it is to some of the others.

Mr. HARE. According to the information we have had, most of them have gone to the Manpower Commission.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Some of ours have, too, but we have not had too many leave.

Mr. HARE. There will be no increase in personnel there this next year?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, this 256 is listed as the same number we had in this year's estimate. I want to be perfectly frank with the committee and say that actually at this time we do not have 256 people. We have quite a number of places that are not filled. We had actually employed as of March 1, 213 people. But I want to ask the committee to respect my desires on the 256, because-and I say this with all the force I can-we do not have a field staff any more; we operate entirely from Washington and the regional offices. What we have in the way of controls and of direction must be at the Washington level. Mr. Lasher and his people need these technical services if they are going to do the job that needs to be done. We also have got the whole procurement function put on us. So, I beg of you not to cut us down to 213 but to give us the money we ask for here, and to permit us to employ up to 256 people as a minimum that we have got to have to do this tremendous job that is on us to do, and be accountable for the expenditure of this money as it should be spent.

Mr. HARE. I do not mean to make any implications, but I have been impressed with the idea that in some of the agencies appearing before the committee it has been possible to reduce the personnel by upgrading or increasing salaries to some extent and thus being able to continue the work.

Mr. WILLIAMS. In fiscal year 1943, we reduced our administrative personnel from 2,100 plus down to 882. That is how large a reduction we made in our administrative personnel during the current fiscal year. It has got to the point where it is below the danger mark. We cannot by increasing anybody's status get this work done, and I should certainly recommend most strenuously against any such procedure in our organization.

Mr. TARVER. I am wondering, Mr. Williams, whether or not in estimating these increases and decreases for the next fiscal year as compared with the estimate for the present fiscal year, we should also have information as to your actual expenditures for this fiscal year, as in connection with another item that preceded this.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. TARVER. Has there been any substantial overexpenditure beyond the estimates for the present fiscal year in any of these items?

Mr. WILLIAMS. As I said to the committee a moment ago, there is an overexpenditure on the personal services of $114,500 in the item of $2,651,900 that is to be expended against an estimate of $2,537,400. Mr. HARE. Do you have an idea as to how much of that was due to overtime, if any?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We have overtime here. That shows $209,000 overtime. So, we actually had to curtail expenditures $94,500 to meet that.

Mr. TARVER. In connection with the amplification of the total, will you also show in another column the actual expenditure for 1943?

(The table referred to is as follows:)

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir. You will be happy to know, I am sure, that in the expenditure for travel we will show a decrease in administrative travel. We estimated $314,921; we shall expend $271,591. I shall put that in.

TRANSPORTATION OF THINGS

Mr. HARE. Do you show a decrease in "Transportation of things?" Mr. WILLIAMS. In "Transportation of things" we ask for $36,000. Actually this year we shall spend only $11,794 against an estimated expenditure of $45,000 for fiscal year 1943.

COMMUNICATION SERVICES

In "Communication services" we show an overexpenditure of $11,939. That is entirely in the field. Our departmental expendi tures were $21,634, and the field expenditures were $65,305.

RENTS AND UTILITY SERVICES

For "Rents and utility services" we show an overexpenditure of $19,980. We asked for $90,000 and will spend $109,980. Next year we are asking for $110,000.

OTHER CONTRACTUAL SERVICES

For "Other contractual services" we show an overexpenditure of about $5,897. We estimated $14,000. We shall spend $19,897. Next year we ask for $36,330.

Mr. HARE. That is a very big increase for that little item. It is almost a 100-percent increase from $19,000 to $36.000.

Mr. NORTHROP. We have an estimate of duplicating service cost of $16.000. Then we have an item of $7,000 to cover the cost of investigations made by the Federal Works Agency office. We have entered into an arrangement with the Federal Works Agency to perform our investigating services in cases of alleged irregularities. Mr. HARE. What is included in your investigations?

Mr. NORTHROP. Any cases in conjunction with project operations or administrative operations, where it is alleged that fraud or other irregularity has occurred. That complaint is referred to the Federal Works Agency for investigation. We do not try to maintain an investigative service of our own. The Federal Works Agency took over the investigative service of the Works Progress Administration, which we had previously used for that purpose. But under the arrangement, when the Federal Works Agency took it over, our rate of charge for each individual case increased considerably on the basis of their computations over that which the Works Progress Administration had used.

Mr. HARE. It would be better for you to do the work yourself? Mr. NORTHROP. I do not think so. When you consider that these cases occur all other the country, we could not by any manner or means employ investigators to cover our cases as economically as we can have them investigated by the Federal Works Agency.

Mr. WILLIAMS. One man here in Washington together with a secretary would probably cost that much.

I should like to make one further explanation with reference to the number of persons to be employed. We strained in every way we could to the point of actually not employing people, not replacing people, and we actually reduced the number of people by dismissals after this overtime bill was passed in order to come within the funds we had so that we would not have to appear and ask for a deficiency appropriation. If I was mistaken in doing that, I was mistaken; but that is the policy we followed.

PRINTING AND BINDING

Mr. HARE. We come now to the subject of "Printing and binding." The justification will be inserted in the record at this point.