officials were probed in a 1965 study by the Senate Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations.687 This survey examined the attitudes of middle management on 77 questions touching on the trends, trouble spots, and operations of FederalState-local relations. The Subcommittee found four behavioral themes recurring throughout the replies of the 108 responding bureau and division chiefs:

Functionalism, or the respondents' preoccupation with pro-
tecting and promoting the purposes of their individual
programs, was the most important single conditioner of their
comments. Professionalism, or the deep commitment to the
merit system principle and to the technical and ethical
standards of the specialized group to which they belong,
underlay their answers to nearly all the questions on State
organization and intergovernmental personnel. "Standpattism",
the rigid defense of traditional practices, procedures, and
principles, was reflected in their responses to questions on
Federal aids, financial administration, and metropolitan area
problems. And fourth, marking their replies to all sections
of the questionnaire, was indifference, or "the cavalier dis-
missal of serious questions and topics as being irrelevant or
unimportant."

The Subcommittee saw in these answers by middle management grant-in-aid officials a theory of federalism which identifies three major sources of conflict in contemporary Federal-State-local relations: (1) professionalism at the higher level versus a lesser degree of professionalism at the other levels; (2) professional program administrators versus elected policy-makers at all levels; and (3) administrators of individual aid programs versus intergovernmental reformers.

Because this bureaucratic theory of federalism is an operating precept as well as a descriptive interpretation, the Subcommittee concluded:

It produces its own areas of conflict:

(1) Professional administrators of one aid program versus
the professional administrators of others;

(2) Specialized middle management versus generalized top
management; and

(3) Conservative bureau heads versus innovators seeking
to strengthen other components of the federal system--
the States, our metropolitan communities, and the de-
cision-making process at all levels.69/

Weak direction from the top of the department or agency and the separatist effects of narrow functionalism raise serious obstacles to effective management coordination in any circumstances. The problem has been heightened by the recent rapid growth in number and complexity of grants-in-aid, including the wider use of direct Federal-local relationships and Federal-nongovernmental relationships. An additional premium has been put on coordination by the introduction of new programs that require for their success the "packaging" of many separate programs administered by several existing departments.

"Creative Federalism" Hearings

The hearings on "creative federalism" conducted by the Senate Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations in the fall of 1966 offered some insight into the degree to which major grant-administering departments have sought to establish institutional and operating arrangements to overcome "functionalism" and other obstacles to effective coordination within and among departments.70/ The hearings were generated by two Senate bills. The first, S.3509, was introduced by the Subcommittee Chairman, Senator Muskie, and proposed establishment of a special unit in the Executive Office of the President, called a National Intergovernmental Affairs Council (NIAC). The Council would be chaired by the President and composed of Cabinet officials and agency heads whose activities have a major impact on Federal aid to States and localities and concern intergovernmental relations. It would have an Executive Secretary directly responsible to the President and a "working secretariat" of experts and generalists in program management which would be independent of the agencies and directly responsible to the Executive Secretary. After policy decisions were made, the operating departments would be responsible for carrying them out, but the Executive Secretary would be directly accountable to the President for seeing that the job was done in a timely and effective manner. The hope was that controversies could be resolved between department and agency heads and the Executive Secretary, but appeal could be made to the President if necessary. "The main point," Senator Muskie stated, "is that the President would have a special assistant and an institution through which he could pull the Federal establishment together and direct smoother intergovernmental implementation of Federal aid programs.. 71/

The second proposal on which the hearings focused was Senate Joint Resolution 187, introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, authorizing the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations to investigate and report on the feasibility and design of an information system to help States and localities implement federally assisted programs more effectively. The system was also intended to provide the Congress and the President with a better measure of State and local needs and performance under the grant system.

Three sets of questions posed by Chairman Muskie at the outset of the testimony of the department heads set the stage for the first phase of these hearings:72/

How well are Federal departments coordinating their programs
and services both within their agencies and with other depart-
ments and agencies?

What is the status of both intradepartmental and interdepart-
mental coordination at the regional level?

What are Federal departments and their bureaus and divisions
doing to develop more favorable cooperative relationships
between the Federal Government and State and local leaders?

Oral testimony was received from representatives of six major departments or agencies administering grants-in-aid: HEW, HUD, OEO, Labor, Interior and Commerce. (The Secretary of Agriculture submitted material in writing, commenting on the two bills before the Subcommittee and listing interagency interdepartmental committees in which his Department participated.)

dicated they were aware of and concerned about the problems of coordination

in managing grant programs and all acknowledged that, while they are making constant efforts to deal effectively with the problem, they are far from bringing it fully under control. Interagency agreements were found to be a proliferating vehicle for interdepartmental coordination, particularly among HEW, HUD and OEO and Agriculture.73/ Recent years, however, have been marked by experimentation with new coordination mechanisms: establishment of an assistant director for intergovernmental relations in the new Department of Housing and Urban Development; the model cities approach of giving incentives for melding resources from many different programs and departments in a coordinated attack on the complex problems of individual areas; the urban convener order; the new instruments of OEO, including the community action program, preference provisions, the Assistant Director for Interagency Relations, the information center, checkpoint procedures, numerous advisory councils, the tying together of manpower resources at the Federal level and also at the local level through the Manpower Administration and the President's Committee on Manpower; and the office of intergovernmental relations and the director of field coordination in HEW. Some of the newer devices are as yet unproven--such as the preference provisions in OEO and the urban "convener"--and in any case, no one device of all those used, new and old, makes more than a partial contribution to the enormous problems of overall coordination: within agencies, among agencies, and with other levels of govern

ment.

After hearing testimony of representatives of HUD, OEO, and Labor, Senator Muskie summed up his reactions:74/

It has become clear that there is a problem of proliferating
programming and planning in these areas. It is even clearer
that the problem of any meaningful coordination of these pro-
grams increases as we reach State and local levels. But the
one thing that has struck me by the testimony is the weak--
and in some instances, hopeless--way these agencies are cop-
ing with the matter of intergovernmental coordination.

Interagency committees and councils are formed, but there are
few meetings, generally attended by subordinates. Interagency
agreements or treaties are made, but the ones we have been look-
ing at are more directed to keeping one agency out of another's
function than to putting the functions together in an effective
package.

Responsibility for intradepartmental and interdepartmental co-
ordination and intergovernmental contacts has been delegated
down the line to subordinate policy officials.

At the higher level, Cabinet officers are being given "con-
vener" powers to convene meetings with other Cabinet officials
of equal, if not greater rank, to develop coordinating polic-
ies. But there is no working secretariat either to develop
the agenda or to monitor the implementation and effectiveness
of the policy, if any policy comes out of such meeting.*

* For the views of State and local officials on the problems of management in the Federal grant-administering agencies, expressed at the "Creative Federalism" hearings and elsewhere, see below, "The Impact of Grant Programs on State and Local Governmental Organization and Administration."

Headquarters-Field Office Relationships

Confusion and complexity in the field office structures of grant-administering agencies and the inadequate decentralization of authority to regional offices were described earlier, and their negative effect on coordinated administration was underscored.

Effective machinery to overcome problems of field coordination created by differences in delegations of authority and field structure does not exist at regional and other levels although efforts have been made to provide it. During World War II, the Bureau of the Budget established four field offices to (1) advise Federal field officials in achieving better coordination and interagency relations in the field; (2) consult with State and local officials on Federal programs; (3) suggest improvement in using equipment and supplies; and (4) make administrative studies and recommendations for more efficiency, and report to headquarters problems requiring study, action, or policy guidance.15/ Due to meager appropriations, however, staff facilities available in each field office were limited and plans to set up additional offices were never implemented. In 1953 the Congress denied funds for the field offices and they were terminated. Apparently some members of Congress were suspicious of the role of the staff arm of the President reaching into cities outside of Washington.

One observer summarized the major innovations of the Bureau's field

offices as follows:76/

[The] direct and personal representation of the Executive
Office of the President; well-serviced communication lines
between Washington and the field; and a strong assurance
to Federal field offices that the Bureau would not attempt
to interfere with the normal relationships within depart-
ments and agencies. The lack of support for the offices in
Congress can be seen as an indication of their success. .

On November 10, 1961, President Kennedy issued a memorandum establishing Federal Executive Boards comprising field representatives from executive departments and designating the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission to be responsible for overseeing their creation and operations.77/ The Boards operate within four general categories of activities:

1.

2.

3.

4.

Provision of a forum for interchange of information
about programs and management methods and problems
between Washington and the field and among field ele-
ments in the area.

Coordinated approaches to development and operation
of programs which have common characteristics.

Liaison relationship with State and local officials
to contribute to understanding and support of the
roles and purposes of their respective governmental
jurisdictions and aid in resolving problems.

Referral of problems that cannot be solved locally
to the national level for attention.

FEB's are functioning in 15 major centers of Federal activity, such as New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Delaware, Fort Worth and San Francisco. Each member of the Boards is designated by the head of the department or agency he represents. A typical board includes 40 to 100 members and operates through a policy committee elected from the membership and a number of working committees. The chairmanship tends to rotate from agency to agency. A survey of activities of Federal Executive Boards in 1965 found that group activity items reported by nine or more Boards included charitable fund-raising and government bond drives, cooperative personnel and training programs, coordinated public information programs, equal opportunity programs, and management improvement studies.78/

A private survey in early 1966 summed up the record of the Federal Executive Boards as follows:797

The Federal Executive Boards experience has made several
major contributions to the development of effective patterns
of coordination: White House support for coordination of
Federal field activities . . .; preservation of high pres-
tige in the membership of the Boards; improved communication
between Washington and the field; and support and servicing
by a neutral agency--the Civil Service Commission.

The FEB's also have developed a number of problems: member-
ship on committees tends to be based on the individual qual-
ifications of the member designated rather than on the broad
program responsibilities of the agency he represents; it has
been difficult to encourage the informal power structure of
regional office officials (the "dean of Federal officials")
to take an active leadership role in the work of the Boards;
the performance of the Boards has been very uneven both geo-
graphically and functionally; the Boards have been limited
in their operations to the city in which they are located
and cannot attempt to cover the States encompassed in the
varying regional patterns represented; and few of the Boards
have moved effectively into substantive problems of inter-
program coordination.

Washington-level support for the Boards has been good.
(Emphasis added.)

The shortcomings of the FEB's in interprogram coordination have been attributed to their unwieldy size; the rotating chairmanship; the fact that the chairman is just one among equals and that the Board becomes just another interagency committee without leadership force; and the lack of staff to develop agendas and provide follow-through. It has been proposed that Bureau of the Budget field offices, if established, might provide staffing.

Improved field coordination of the programs of one department--HUD--is the aim of the metropolitan expediter authorized by Section 203 of the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966.80/ The Secretary of HUD is authorized to appoint such expediters on request of local officials. Their function is to provide information, data, and assistance to local authorities, private individuals, and others within the metropolitan area and to Federal field personnel with respect to HUD programs and related programs of other Federal departments. They do not, however, take the place of the regional office in