primary responsibility for the initial investigation to suddenly turn over the results of those investigations with very serious problems of formality to the Justice Department. Is that correct?

Mr. ALTO. Essentially, that is correct.

Senator ROTH. Will all cases involving criminality be turned over to the strike force or just the most serious ones, and if only the most serious ones what will happen to the others?

Mr. ALTO. The most serious ones will be turned over to the strike force, and when I say serious, I am talking about the most complex ones. The ones that are being developed in the regions that involve pretty much the same things that have been disclosed here in Washington, D.C. with regard to the Public Buildings Service or with regard to the self-service stores are of such a nature that the strike force does not necessarily have to get involved except from the point of view of coordinating and monitoring referrals. I think when the evidence is developed showing criminality on those cases and in similar ones around the country, that those cases can be immediately referred to the U.S. attorney's office in that jurisdiction after touching base with the strike force leader.

In other words, the strike force leader will be notified that evidence has been developed showing this and that in a particular region. Let's just take, for example, Denver, Colo. We would ask counsel on it; the matter could be referred directly to the U.S. attorney or the strike force leader could ask to take a further look at it.

There would be coordination on every case with the strike force leader, but I think his feeling is going to be that those matters which are relatively minor ought to be referred directly to the U.S. attorneys' offices.

Senator ROTH. Now, in the case of the regional offices, the preliminary investigation, will those be pursued under direction and by GSA personnel in those regions or how will you conduct those during their investigation?

Mr. ALTO. Those investigations will be conducted by Bill Clinkscales, Office of Investigations in conjunction with Howard Davia's auditors, and they would be under my advice and counsel. That is true.

Senator ROTH. So GSA continues to be primarily responsible for the overall preliminary investigation until such time as you or your people determine it should be referred either to the strike force or to the U.S. attorney for the regional offices; is that correct?

Mr. ALTO. In substance that is true. I think there will be coordination on a periodic basis; thus all of the cases that we have initiated since the strike force began will be discussed, perhaps on a monthly basis, with the strike force leader and his deputies to determine which cases we all agree are ripe to be presented to a particular prosecutor in a jurisdiction.

Senator ROTH. That again goes to the serious cases where there are major criminal actions taken. But that will not be until, subsequently, the GSA under general guidance makes the original or initial findings, if I understand your testimony.

Mr. ALTO. Yes.

Senator ROTH. Yesterday, we had the General Accounting Office before us with a report and in that report they are very critical of the Justice Department of not following through in some of the information brought to their attention.

What certainty do you have that that will be the case here, a strike force is being created, however, the lesser cases are going to be referred directly to the U.S. attorney.

Do you have any reason to believe that the Justice Department and their attorneys will be more active today than perhaps they have in the past years?

Mr. ALTO. My confidence, Senator, is in the commitment of the President of the United States of America and his Attorney General. Senator ROTH. But the basic responsibility of making an investigation is still within GSA, is that correct?

Mr. ALTO. After all of the cases that will be referred are referred and all of the cases that are presently in the U.S. attorney's office, it is going to be up to the GSA investigators to disclose and discover the new areas which need to be investigated; you are correct that it will be our investigators who will be disclosing the new areas that we haven't gone into yet.

One of the reasons for this arrangement is that we have seen areas that are quite suspicious and that we didn't have the manpower to investigate. I had to foreclose going into those areas because we didn't have the manpower to go into them. Once we get the burden of a lot of these cases we have been investigating over into the strike force, I am going to go into those areas.

Senator ROTH. How many investigators do you have working for you and other personnel in this area?

Mr. ALTO. We have a total nationwide of 74 investigators covering 35,000 employees; of course, you are talking about a history of GSÅ where for over 20 years no checks and balances have existed in the agency, so you can see the enormity of the problem.

Now, most of the investigators are spread out over the country in 10 regional offices. Mr. Clinkscales brought 18 of his very best here to Washington.

Senator ROTH. Is that 18 of the 74?

Mr. ALTO. Yes, 18 of the 74 in the field offices were brought to Washington back in early June to work on the major cases under investigation. These investigators didn't see their families until we finally sent them home on Labor Day weekend.

They have worked diligently. They have worked on weekends and they have worked very long hours.

In addition, Mr. Clinkscales has, in addition to the 18 that I have here, only 10 more investigators here in Washington D.C.; thus we are quite limited. You are talking about the remaining 45 nationwide covering 34,000 employees.

Senator ROTH. Is it correct that 10 of your top investigators are being transferred to the Justice Department strike force?

Mr. ALTO. That is going to be another burden for us, but 10 investigators, who are part of that 18, who have been working on the major cases, and who know those cases, are going to be detached and be working directly for the strike force leader.

Senator ROTH. How many investigators do you think you really need to do the job? If you had your choice

Senator CHILES. Do you want us to get you a calculator and adding machine?

Mr. ALTO. We have asked OMB for supplemental funds so we can hire 30 additional investigators for 1979, which will begin in October,

and then we have asked OMB for an additional 30 investigators for 1980.

Frankly, in my estimation, I think we would need more than the 30 we have asked for, to tell you the truth.

Senator ROTH. I am sorry, I didn't hear you.

Mr. ALTO. I think we need more than the 30 we asked for, but then again it is hard to foresee what the future is going to hold.

In other words, over the next 18 months some remarkable things may be accomplished by this combined effort to the point where we might turn GSA around from being the wounded animal, so to speak, of the Federal Government. It may be a model agency. It all depends on the progress that is made over the next 18 months. I think it can be done; then if that is the case, the 30 new investigators each year might be enough.

Senator ROTH. What will be the followup on those that are guilty of some improper conduct, let me put it that way, but are not referred to either the strike force or the regional offices? How are you handling that? What procedures have been set up with respect to those?

Mr. ALTO. A directive was sent in July to all Regional Administrators by Administrator Solomon stating that he expects all regions to take a firm stand on the disciplining of employees who are involved in fraud, misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance and other violations of procedures of a serious nature.

Most matters should be handled administratively through disciplinary actions. The disciplinary action can range from a letter of admonishment right up on through to removal from Federal service. Senator ROTH. Are there any guidelines contained in those instructions or is it just a blanket directive that they should take appropriate action?

Mr. ALTO. I don't know if I have supplied the subcommittee with that directive. I will be glad to do it if I haven't done it. There are guidelines.

Senator CHILES. The subcommittee would like to have that directive for our files.

There are guidelines there; these also refer to the guidelines that already exist in the code of conduct; reference is also made, of course, to the Civil Service procedural regulations governing the disciplining of employees.

Senator ROTH. Have any procedures been set up for the followthrough, if the Administrator has delegated this responsibility to the regional directors, what procedures have been set up as a follow through? Mr. ALTO. Under the directive that went out from Administrator Solomon, they were to respond monthly to central office with a copy to my office detailing what disciplinary actions they had taken over the past month. Initially, the major basis for considering disciplinary action was to be the investigative and audit reports submitted by Director Clinkscales and the Director of Audits, Mr. Davia.

The reason for that was that we were fearful about an overreaction in building up statistics for the purposes of the subcommittee. We didn't want that. We didn't want a janitor fired for stealing a bar of soap. We wanted those people who were involved in fraud disciplined. We wanted those people involved in fraud, misfeasance, or malfeasance gotten out of public service. That is what we were concerned

with.

We had to make our position clear so there wouldn't be an overreaction and some relatively innocent people hurt. I have seen some examples of that, I am sorry to say.

Senator ROTH. I agree with you. I am very concerned about, No. 1, the innocent people in the Agency that their names are not salted by the whole investigation and I agree that I don't want to see a few people used as scapegoats while others get off.

At the same time, what disciplinary actions have been taken in a general manner as a result of these investigations which now have been going on several months?

Mr. ALTO. Senator, it has been very difficult. I think a statistical survey went to the subcommittee detailing all of the disciplinary actions that have been taken.

Senator ROTH. Is that up to date today?

Mr. ALTO. I think Senator Chiles' staff has received a copy of that. But I was a little concerned that they might not present the right kind of picture. They were a true representation of disciplinary actions that have been taken since June. But I know the subcommittee was not particularly concerned with people who had been fired because they were AWOL or people who were fired because they were convicted of driving while drunk or that kind of thing.

I had two diligent members of my own staff, who are GSA employees, call the regions to find out the number of individuals who have been disciplined based on fraud, misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance. The result is that approximately 50 persons have been disciplined for those reasons.

So it is down, of course, from the total number that was presented to the subcommittee. There was no attempt to mislead the subcommittee; it is just that I thought your major concern would be in those

areas.

Senator ROTH. Well, Mr. Alto, one of my concerns, and I won't delay the proceedings, but it is the one where this scandal is very broad scale involving many regional offices as well as the home office but we don't have one person in charge, an investigator would have total responsibility for all aspects of the problem and that is not in any way disrespectful of you or anyone else, but I think it would be better from the public perception, if we had one man in charge. I am somewhat of the school in a matter of this scope that Mr. Jaworski in what he said is that it is very hard for any agency to investigate itself and that is very frankly what concerns me here.

You have got continued divided authority. You are, apparently, planning to leave, as I understand, later this year which means somebody new is going to come in and, as you say, that leads to some question as to whether or not we have a sufficient number of investigators so I would hope that the administrator would take a hard look at an independent investigator.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator CHILES. Thank you, Senator Roth.

In our June hearings, we discussed the case of the Honolulu courthouse. Briefly stated, there was bad preliminary work, and it caused the contractor to dig through the coral reef and sort of admit the Pacific Ocean into the basement of the courthouse. The contractor, as I understand, then tried to pump it out and all this was accomplished at the Government's expense.

I understand at this time the GSA construction engineer at the site happened to be a tough honest guy that was not ready to turn the contractor loose in the Government's cash register.

Mr. Alto, Mr. Wilton Shearin's record appeared to be good at the time he went there, was it not? I understand he had rapid promotions to GS-13 and had constantly been cited for outstanding performance. Was he not specifically selected for Honolulu as a result of high praise that he won on a project that he built at Quantico?

Mr. ALTO. Senator, his record was more than good. It was outstanding.

Senator CHILES. Mr. Carroll, I am going to excuse you now so you can go back to your vacation.

Would I be correct in saying that on the Honolulu job, the contractor was incompetent and was falling behind schedule and that Shearin refused to make payment until work was performed?

Mr. ALTO. Essentially, that is correct, Senator. From all I have read, the investigative reports show that, yes.

Senator CHILES. And as a result of that kind of diligent work, what happened to Mr. Shearin?

Mr. ALTO. He was rewarded by being removed as the construction engineer of the project.

Senator CHILES. Was he not told at the time that he went out there that he could come back anytime that he wanted to come back to the Washington area which was really his home base area?

Mr. ALTO. He went out there with the express condition that when his responsibilities under the project were completed, he would return to region 3, which is this region. A letter to that effect is part of the evidence I used in making my judgments.

I understand Mr. Shearin is here. I am going to ask him to come up. [Whereupon, Wilton Shearin, having been first duly sworn, was called as a witness.]

Senator CHILES. In the interest of time, I am running through this really rapidly because we want to determine what happened to someone who tried to do his job and what GSA is doing about that now, and you happen to be a very good case study on that point.

Did they honor the agreement that they gave you that they would allow you to go back to Washington at anytime, back to your home area?

TESTIMONY OF WILTON SHEARIN, CONSTRUCTION ENGINEER Mr. SHEARIN. No, sir.

Senator CHILES. What happened to you as a result of being pulled off that job and not being able to go back? What happened to your family?

Mr. SHEARIN. I am a bachelor, sir, so I don't have a family problem, but instead of coming back to Washington, I was assigned to region 9, San Francisco.

Senator CHILES. What kind of jobs were you given?

Mr. SHEARIN. Well, I went from the engineer in charge of Honolulu, a $29 million job to the engineer in charge of a $600,000 remodeling job in San Francisco.

Incidentally, this is one of the first things that I ever encountered in my life that is difficult to talk about, so I hope you will bear with

me.