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TABLE V. INCREASED WORKLOAD COMPARED TO INCREASED STAFF, 1947-68

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The $215,094 increase requested by the Service would provide 29 positions to be distributed among the divisions to meet the increased demands from congressional offices for research assistance and to preserve and improve standards of quality. The Foreign Affairs Division, which has been innundated with inquiries relating to the Vietnamese war and its many ramifications throughout the world (as well as increased requests for research on such problems as the future status of NATO, the effect of De Gaulle's policies, the crises in the Middle East and Cyprus, the complications in U.S. relations wth the Soviet Union and its satellites, etc.), would receive 3 positions: 1 analyst in international development, at GS-13; 1 analyst in international defense at GS-9; and 1 clerk-stenographer at GS-5. The Education and Public Welfare Division, whose subject area has vastly enlarged by reason of the great expansion of related Federal programs in recent years (for example, in such matters of continually intensified congressional concern as social security, medicare, the war on poverty, veterans affairs, crime, narcotics and drugs, gun control, etc.), would receive 3 positions: 2 analysts in public welfare at GS-9 and 1 clerk-stenographer at GS-5.

The Science Policy Research Division, which is regularly receiving more inquiries than can be handled effectively and whose subject area has also been enlarging rapidly because of the wide range of congressional requests in this field (e.g., covering such topics as the future of the space program, technology transfer, weather modification, air pollution, aircraft noise, science and technology for crime control, automatic data processing, development of ocean resources, etc.), would receive 4 positions: 2 research assistants at GS-9; 1 clerkstenographer at GS-5; and 1 reference clerk at GS-4.

The Economics Division, which has had a heavy increase in demand for research on such topics as the impact of wage and price trends, analyses of specific tax proposals, balance of payments problems, consumer protection, the urban crisis, new methods of solving labor-management disputes, etc., would receive 1 analyst in economics at GS-9 and 1 statistical clerk at GS-7.

The new Congressional Reference Division, whose establishment has made possible the divorcement from the subject divisions of most constitutent inquiries and most general reference type inquiries received from Members and committees, and which handled an average of more than 5,000 inquiries each month last year, would receive 3 positions: 1 reference librarian at GS-9, and 2 reference assistants (1 at GS-7, and 1 at GS-5).

The other 14 positions would include a supervisor of the translating unit at GS-12 (the Service provided some 4,000 translations last year with only six budg

eted positions-four translators, two clerks-in the unit, none designated as supervisor; a multilinguist supervisor would ease the translating workload and would provide knowledgeable coordination of the output); one legislative attorney at GS-11 for the American Law Division; two analysts at GS-9 for the Government and General Research Division; one inquiries recorder at GS-8 (the rise in calls from congressional offices during the past year has exceeded physical capabilities of the present staff to record the inquiries); four clerical assistants at GS-3 to GS-5 for the Library Services Division, which is the support organization for the research staff, two of whom would assist in the maintenance and acquisition of the Service's collection of expendable materials and multilith copies of LRS reports (in fiscal 1967 nearly 425,000 pieces had to be processed and stocked by subject and number for easy retrieval and prompt transmittal to congressional offices, a figure so high that the giveaway collection is deteriorating for lack of manpower to maintain its currency), and the other two for typing and sustaining the main clipping files (a large newspaper-like "morgue" of information on current affairs on which the researchers rely to provide the latest, most immediate information need for congressional inquiries); and five support positions (clerkstenographers, supply clerk, mail clerk) at GS-2 to GS-5 to provide essential housekeeping services which have been impaired by the continued rise in work

load.

The present budget request does not include any funding to staff for the expansion of LRS contemplated under the pending Legislative Reorganization Act. Mr. STEED. I might also point out that during the last 2 years, you had a total net staff increase of 58, is that correct?

Mr. JAYSON. That is correct.

Mr. STEED. That brings your total staff up to what?

Mr. JAYSON. 281.

Mr. STEED. 281 at the present time.

Give us a general outline of your problems and your work over there and the need for the increase.

GENERAL STATEMENT OF DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE SERVICE

Mr. JAYSON. Mr. Chairman, we are requesting an increase of $325,000-plus, of which $215,094 represents the cost of establishing 29 new positions in the Legislative Reference Service. These would bring our total staff up to 310 positions.

The request has its basis in the dialog that we had with the joint committee on the organization of the Congress 3 years ago, in the summer of 1965, and the discussions we had with this committee at our last two budget hearings. The joint committee had completed an intensive review of our operations, our workload, and our problems. At that time-early in 1965-we were facing a rather serious situation. As a result of the steady and rapid increase in our workload during prior years, the changing demands on our service by the members and committees of Congress, the broader scope of our subject coverage responsibility, the rush and short-deadline and individualized requests that were pouring in on us, the increased volume of constituent inquiries as a result of all these factors, the Legislative Reference Service found itself overwhelmed. It was fighting backlogs and arrearages, and the quality of the research was being downgraded in order to meet the demands for quantity.

In response to questions by the joint committee, Dr. Hugh Elsbree. my predecessor as Director of LRS, testified that to provide good quality and timely response for a research workload such as we then had on hand, the service would need a minimum staff of 300 positions. Subsequently, we appeared before the Appropriations Committees.

discussed these same problems, and sought approval to undertake a 2-year program to bring our staff up to a total of 304 positions. This committee, Mr. Chairman, and your colleagues in the other House, were most sympathetic. You acted favorably, but did not go all the way. During the past 2 years our staff was raised to 281 positions, which was most helpful to us, but the trouble is that during the 3 years since we discussed our problems with the joint committee, the Members of Congress have again increased their demands on us, and in a very substantial way.

During calendar year 1964-which was just behind us when we spoke to the joint committee-the service handled some 93,000 information and research requests from the membership. Three years later, during calendar year 1967, the year just past, we were asked to handle over 132,000 inquiries. That is an increase of some 40,000 inquiries over 1964. Our workload went up 43 percent within the short space of

3 years.

I think it is significant to note that three out of four of those 40,000 additional inquiries were member inquiries rather than constituent inquiries. Member inquiries, of course, represent our more substantive workload. In fact, the rise in member inquiries during this 3-year period, 1967 over 1954, was startling. It went up 76 percent.

This suggests that the estimated staff needs that we discussed with the joint committee, and later with this committee, as the basis for our 2-year program to strengthen staff, are no longer valid. The increase in our workload during the past 3 years-an increase over which we have very little control-has changed the picture sharply.

I will not say that conditions have not improved over the past 3 years, because we feel that they have. For one thing, we have been able to establish our new Congressional Reference Division in which we now concentrate over 75 percent of all constituent inquiries plus a good many fast reference type Member inquiries. For another, we have been able to cut into our arrearages somewhat. In November 1965, for example, we had over 700 inquiries on hand that were 1 month old or older. We have cut that figure to less than half. Today it is down to about 300. And certainly the larger staff that we now have, as compared to 1965, has enabled us to handle the 40,000 additional inquiries that we received since then.

We have expanded and improved the coverage of our "Bill Digest." We have made a start toward automation. And we have done other things to make the organization more helpful to the Members.

But, overall, we find that the advantages we had hoped to gain through our 2-year program--and, of course, the primary objectives were better quality and timeliness of response in our research work, and to have enough researchers available to take care of urgent and serious requests the anticipated advantages became unattainable because of the sharp rise in our workload during these past 3 years. We had thought, for instance, that by routing the mass of constituent inquiries away from our subject divisions, our researchers would have that much more time available to work on their legislative inquiries. But the increase in member inquiries simply replaced the constituent inquiries in the subject divisions.

I have no doubt that this new increase in workload is only a reflection of the increase in workload in the members' own offices in recent

years, but I should point out that right now, or at least as of the end of March, our current workload is even further ahead of last year. Right now the fiscal 1968 figures show that we are some 15 percent ahead of last year, fiscal 1967.

This, Mr. Chairman, is part of the background to our 1969 budget request.

PREPARATION OF MATERIAL CONCERNING PROBLEMS OF THE
GREAT SOCIETY

Mr. STEED. Let me outline in a few general words something that I have observed that has been coming into the congressional picture in a very pronounced way lately and I think as time goes on will require an enormous amount of attention. I am talking about the whole situations of the ghettos, the poverty program, the model cities program, all these things that in one form or another, for one reason or another, have been occupying both administrative and legislative

attention.

I have been reading material that goes back and tries to analyze what we have been doing that brought on this situation and the thing that impresses me the most has been that basically the American people have been a migratory sort of people. We migrated from Europe to these shores and then across the Appalachian Mountains to the plains and from there to the west coast, and then we back-migrated and as technogolical advances took over agriculture we moved to the cities, and we are faced with sardine-type human masses and what some people call a megalopolis. Some people think you cannot cope with the crowded cities unless you stop the rural migration that has been feeding this furnace all these years.

I could go on and on but this gives you the general picture, and I think many of the programs proposed to bring relief to this national problem will involve a lot of people. Transportation and all these things are involved.

How do you cope with problems such as this? Do you deal with them on an individual basis or do you try to develop material that would encompass the whole picture?

Mr. JAYSON. At the present time the inquiries we have are spread out among our various divisions because, as you point out, they deal with a whole variety of things. We have the subject of poverty, which would fall in our Education and Public Welfare Division; of transportation, which would fall in our Economics Division, and we have civil liberties, which would fall in our American Law Division and Government Division.

Part of the inquiries we receive are prepared by teams, with researchers from several divisions. The question you raise was put to us by a Member of the other House with a view to discussing whether it would be wise to establish another division in the Service that would be aimed at these urban problems. The Member asked us to make a study of what our urban problems are and how they are handled in government. We prepared a report in which we made an analysis of the types of bills that have been introduced on the subject and which committees they were going to, to show it is a diverse problem covering many. many subjects.

We have housing specialists in LRS, poverty specialists, and specialists in most of the fields you named. We have not reached the point where we feel it is desirable to organize a special unit, but that may be the best way to handle the problem in the future. Presently it is done on a discipline basis, on a subject specialist basis, except where we have to bring together a number of disciplines to prepare a report.

Mr. STEED. It seemed to me the first reaction to this migration problem was back many years ago when they had the first of the so-called consolidated rural schools. This was an outgrowth of the shifting of population. As time has gone on we have added many other things that were actually stimulated by this, though at the time nobody was aware of the basic cause of it.

It seems to me at some point the material or the charts or the diagrams or the treatments that would bring this whole thing into a different focus would have to be forthcoming. The way I describe what I am trying to say is that at some point we will have to take a position where we can see the forest instead of the trees as to the causes and the effects, and maybe from that we can find the cure. Thinking this will be an increasing matter of Government attention, I would guess that in the years ahead your activities will be deeply involved in this because more people will be seeking more information.

Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. JAYSON. I might say that included within the report I mentioned was an analysis of how the executive branch handled this and we found there is little coordination, in the sense that one agency handles all these matters; there is an overlapping, with duplication in some instances. The survey we made in this area is not a very detailed one. It is a preliminary one in an attempt to meet the problem.

Mr. STEED. Mr. Langen and I represent areas that have a great many rural communities and they are interested in their problems from the standpoint, especially, of how they can bring in industry and create more jobs that mechanized agriculture is eliminating. I am sure many chambers of commerce give attention to this. I find that as you talk to people who build and operate factories they are very much interested in this, but apparently they have not been able to get their hands on the type of information that would guide them and help them do a better job of working in this area of rural and small town industrialization. I think there will be a growing demand for useful information. This brings in vocational training. It is hard to think about one phase of it that you do not find yourself mixed up in many phases. I think it illustrates how your workload can grow, snowball, multiply, and finally become a very big chore.

Mr. JAYSON. We do have many problems. For instance, the one you raise as to how a small town once supported by a factor has left entices industry to come back. The town officials will go to their Congressman for help and the Member may come to us. This is not an infrequent request. We have prepared reports, not based on particular townships, but we can tell how other towns have met problems of this type by offering tax advantages, by aiding in the building of additional and more modern plants, and the like. We have specialists in many of the problems. We have specialists in housing, we have specialists in transportation, and we have educational specialists, and they are qualified

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