I do not recall the figures on that particular base, Senator. I do not quite understand how they can get the figures in that detail because, as I am sure you know, we have a lump-sum bid for the entire block of houses, and to break that down for an individual house is extremely difficult.

Now, to make one point, for appropriated fund housing, of course, the authorization limitation that we have is for the building itself. When we built the Capehart housing, of course, we have to include all the offsite utilities, the road, the sewage systems, and so forth, which is not part of the $22,000 that is authorized in the military construction program.

Our entire Capehart program, we have averaged less than $16,000 per house that we have built.

I think that if we had been intending to cut down too much, it would have been quite possible for us to increase substantially the houses that we were going to give or that we were giving to the lower grade people. But, as a general rule, we have given them all that the law allows from the standpoint of the scope, the square footage that we have been authorized for the houses.

Senator CASE. Well, I do not know, of course, how the General Accounting Office got the figures on the individual houses. But since this is a report submitted to Congress, and it is down to such odd amounts as the $35,642, the last three figures are coming down to 642, 349, 175, 57, 904, and so forth, they must have had some specific figures to come out with these.

General MINTON. That would have to be an individual's estimate, Senator.

Senator CASE. They would have to be individual estimates; yes.
General MINTON. It is not part of the bid.

General CURTIN. The point, I think, Senator Case, is that in developing our programs, we have used the space limitations set out in the statutes for the sizes, for the various grades; we have adhered to that across the board in the Capehart program.

We have felt that the average of $16,500 limitation was the dollar or price control.

Now, as General Minton has pointed out, we have stayed well within that, and our bids are lump sum bids.

There is no way, and we have not attempted to try, to break out the bid cost of an individual house.

These costs could be arrived at for the sake of a tabulation such as you have in some mechanical method.

We are not aware, at least I am not aware, of how the General Accounting Office developed those figures, sir.

Senator CASE. The entire table here in this report dealing with Hanscom Field, Forbes, Kingsley Field, Laughlin, Westover, and Charleston, I think, should be inserted in the record, and without objection it will be put in the record. The clerk will bring that to the chairman's attention.

NOTE. These estimates of costs were prepared by the military departments and do not include the costs of refrigerators, ranges and certain on site utility lines which are excluded in the congressional cost limitation when funds are appropriated.

Senator CASE. I might say that, without seeing any figures, I visited one base a little over a year ago, and I was struck by the plush character of the houses built for officers on that base as compared with that available on other bases, and I asked how does this come about? I was told

We only have to

Well, that is what the Capehart program is doing for us. stay within an average cost on overall, and we can save enough on the general run of houses to build officers' quarters like this.

It was cited to me there by the person who was escorting me that that was a virtue of the Capehart program.

But I am sure it was never intended by Congress that the Capehart program should provide an escape from the limitations that existed if appropriated funds were used.

General CURTIN. In terms of the physical size of the house and the net space limitations set down in the law, this is true, Senator.

I would like to comment on the possible inference that the Air Force has used the overall average as an escape. We have secured under the Capehart program some very fine houses and, I think, as a general rule, we are very proud of them.

We have some real good houses for the money we put into them. I think one has to consider that this has been a result of very good designs, we feel, in most cases, but largely of the mass buying practices. These accrue great price advantages to a 400- or a 500-unit housing project as opposed to the prices that you or I would have to pay were we building an individual house.

We have been able to get some very good houses, I would not want to classify them as luxury. We have been attempting to secure houses that we can live with over a long period of time, and houses that we can maintain. These are houses that will be homes, if you will, over the next several years.

Senator CASE. I wish you would put in for these fields or bases that are mentioned in this report, the cost index, if you have one, for that particular locality, as against the general cost index, to find out whether or not in these places where these large overruns were found to exist, if that was due to any specially favorable local building situations.

General MINTON. May we also look at those figures and put in the record our analysis of how they might have been derived and what we think they properly should be, because I feel very strongly that it is one man's opinion that may or may not be quite correct.

Senator CASE. The clerk advises me that the entire report is in the hands of the Department of Defense for comment at this time. General MINTON. We have it. I just do not recall those particular bases.

Senator CASE. These all deal with the Air Force.
General MINTON. We have them.

Senator CASE. That is why I mentioned it.

There is no objection, so far as I am concerned, in having your comment on these individual projects; in fact, I think it would be desirable to have them. But I think the figures themselves, having been presented by the General Accounting Office, have to be regarded by the committee with considerable as based upon some sort of accurate estimate. I do not see how they could give such specific figures as this without giving a reason for using it.

(The following information was subsequently submitted:)

The Dow building cost calculator is published quarterly by the F. W. Dodge Corp. of New York City. This calculator is used for estimating the cost of typical units of construction in any area. The system is based on the cost per cubic foot of typical houses which have been adjusted to the average costs in 150 metropolitan areas. It covers only basic construction costs and does not include costs of excavation foundations and subfoundation work, design fee and builder's overhead and profit.

The Dow calculator gives the cubic-foot cost of various type houses. The cost modifier is then applied and the cost per cubic foot of this typical house is found for the location involved.

The cost multiplier for the same house on the following Air Force bases follows:

Dow cost multipliers

Base

Forbes AFB, Topeka, Kans_.

L. G. Hanscom, Boston, Mass.

Charleston AFB, S.C___

Kingsley AFB, Redding, Calif.-Klamath Falls, Oreg---
Laughlin AFB, Del Rio, Tex---.

Westover AFB, Springfield, Mass‒‒‒

Multiplier

1.180

1.203

.980

1.217

1. 101

1. 187

The Air Force has not considered that the statutory limits on housing contained in Public Law 852 apply to Capehart housing; however, Air Force policy has dictated that the quality of all housing would be uniform. Officer housing has been designed in all cases within statutory area limitations, compliance with all Department of Defense instructions has been maintained, and all houses designed and built in accordance with due concern for economy. In no cases have luxurious or unusually expensive amenities been incorporated in officer housing at the expense of airmen housing; in all cases materials and equipment have been of equal quality consistent with the design and size of the quarters.

In view of the fact that all Capehart projects are bid on a lump-sum basis, there is no way that the Air Force (or any other service or agency) may determine exactly what each of the individual houses cost. Therefore, only an estimated evaluation may be made; i.e., comparison between the architect-engineer

estimates, the FHA estimate of replacement costs and the actual low bid. The Air Force analysis of costs of the houses cited in the report, indicates very little variance with the limitations imposed by Public Law 852. The costs cited in the GAO report have evidently not included consideration of the fact that appurtenances, utilities, and site improvements beyond the 5-foot line of the house as well as certain equipment such as ranges, refrigerators, washers, and dryers, are not chargeable to the cost of a house under the requirements of Public Law 852. The cited costs also do not take into consideration the fact that the contract awards on these projects were from 2 to 14 percent lower than the estimated costs of the FHA and the architect-engineers. Therefore, the cost of the cited houses may be assumed to be of a lesser amount than estimated, by the total percentage that each contract was lower. It should also be established that the architect-engineer cost estimates prepared for the cited houses are at considerable variance with the GAO costs attributed to these houses.

Air Force review of the estimated costs of the houses cited, plus information relating to the actual cost estimating by the project architects, indicates that in many cases the cost breakdowns were based on individual unit pricing rather than on an overall project basis. Thus, many of these estimates do not reflect the lower costs that resulted from the contractors extraordinary buying power on a project with a large number of units.

The Air Force check of the estimated costs of the houses cited, taking into consideration the architects estimate, the FHA replacement cost, the actual low bid and items not chargeable to the cost of a house under the requirements of Public Law 852, has resulted in the following comparison:

NOTE. In line with the congressional cost limitations and common military practice for appropriated fund construction, the Air Force estimated costs listed above do not include the cost of ranges, refrigerators, washers, and dryers; nor do they include construction costs of appurtenances, utilities, and site improvements beyond the 5-foot line.

Senator CASE. I would like to ask you this question: Is there any reason known to you why this commitee should not establish a cost limitation with respect to officer housing constructed under the Capehart Act comparable to the limitations provided in existing law for appropriated fund housing?

General MINTON. It would make it difficult for us to prepare a proposal and get a bid. We have to get five bids. I think, perhaps, for five types of houses, let us say, for general officers, field grade and company grade, just as an example, we have to have some means, but I don't know how we could do to so bid that we would not have five contractors working in the same area on the same group of houses.

Senator CASE. I think the plan on which the proposers of the Capehart project would submit their proposals could incorporate so many houses for general grade, so many for colonels, and so forth.

General MINTON. We do that now.

Senator CASE. And provide that they should not exceed so much.

Obviously, in this one field if you overran the appropriated fund limitations by some $220,000, that either might have resulted in a lower rental charge for units or an improvement in the quality of the general housing.

General MINTON. Well, we do substantially what you are suggesting now, I believe. We ask our architect engineer, we give him certain criteria. The first criteria, of course, are the legal requirements that it must not exceed so much per square foot for individual who was going to occupy the houses, if it is a general officer's house, and so forth.

The second criteria we give them, we want to be certain we get real good substantial housing.

We do not want something that is going to ruin us to try to maintain and operate it for the next 15 or 20 years. We ask him to spread it across the board.

We want to get just as much as we possibly can for the airmen within the square footage limitation we have established by law for him that we possibly can, and with all these limitations we have been giving our architect engineer or average bid has still been substantially less than the maximum-let me rephrase that.

The average amount we spend on our housing with any changes that have been made during the course of construction, has been substantially less than the law allows. It has been less than $16,000.

Senator CASE. Obviously, in a committee hearing without some accountants and engineers or architects, you and I are not going to be able to analyze these figures and determine where the responsibility rests for these figures.

But, by the same but confining ourselves to the general principle involved, obviously with appropriated funds buying just a few officer houses, if you are able to stay within the statutory limits, you ought to be able to do that with Capehart houses where the contractor is building several hundred houses, as you say.

General CURTIN. May I make one distinction, Senator. The Capehart programs differ from the average appropriated fund program in this respect, at least the appropriated fund programs of recent years; the Capehart programs include types of housing across the board for the junior officers, senior officers, and airmen, and the various rank structures that are broken out in the statutes.

As a general rule, as I recall, the appropriated fund housing that has been provided in past years, by either the authorization or appropriation language, a maximum square footage and dollar amount has been set. In other words, it has been a standard plan as opposed to a Capehart project which would involve several plans.

Therefore, if dollar limitations were placed on the Capehart program for each individual type of house, getting back to General Minton's first point, some special type of bookkeeping or bidding procedure, detailed bookkeeping and bidding procedure, would have