Mrs. JENCKES. Some of these people in the emergency agencies may have passed regular civil-service examinations, be on the eligible registers, and yet they have not a civil-service status. Mr. RICHARDSON. That is true, not according to the strict definition, as I understand. The situation about which I speak must undoubtedly be multiplied throughout the whole service. Mr. RANDOLPH. Can some representative of the Civil Service Commission tell us the actual status of these employees? Mr. VIPOND. At the present time our registers contain a great many eligibles who have made ratings almost up to 100 percent, so that we frequently never go below 90 in certifying for a competitive position. In these cases mentioned by Mr. Richardson, I assume that they were appointed without regard to whether they had passed a civil-service examination or not, and while serving in those exempted positions they took civil-service examinations; and although they may have made 90 or 92 percent they are still not within the classified service, they are not within reach. Therefore, if this bill passes in its present form requiring a competitive examination, we would be required to announce to the public throughout the whole country an examination for positions in Washington, another examination for calculating-machine operators. As a result of that examination we would be compelled by law to certify the highest three on the eligible list for the first vacancy and other vacancies, going down the line. If we did not reach as low as 91 percent in the certification, that individual in the General Accounting Office would be displaced by somebody with a higher rating. Mr. CURLEY. I take it you have reference to the appointment in the first instance, where there was no examination, the appointments to emergency agencies. After the employees had been engaged by the emergency agencies they took civil-service examinations, but those examinations have nothing to do with their present appoint ments. Mr. RICHARDSON. A civil-service examination had nothing to do with their appointments. Mr. MAAS. In giving a noncompetitive examination, are the questions comparable to the questions given in the competitive examination? Mr. VIPOND. They are comparable in quality or in degree. They are not always precisely the same, because we endeavor to make our examinations as practical as possible. I will give you an example. The Farm Credit Administration had a number of positions as appraisers classified by Executive order. Appraisers had been appointed theretofore under the old Federal Farm Loan Bureau of the Treasury Department, which was combined with the Farm Credit Administration. They had appraisers employed for several years, and the position of appraiser was brought within the classified service by Executive order. In the Executive order the President directed that the holders of those positions should show qualifications noncompetitively for appointment to the positions. The Department made the statement to us that it wanted persons of good general inelligence for original appointment to the position of appraisers, and we had a preliminary mental test, a general information test, that was not academic in character. Mr. MAAS. How do you rate the factor of experience in noncompetitive examinations?" Mr. VIPOND. In some clerical examinations we give no rating for experience. May I finish my other statement? Mr. MAAS. Certainly. Mr. VIPOND. In addition to that general intelligence test in the examination was the subject of questions concerning appraising duties, actual duties performed in appraising. For open competition they had to pass the general intelligence test before we came to the subject of experience in appraising. In the noncompetitive examination we combined the ratings. A man got credit for appraising experience and for general intelligence. That meant that one might have fallen low in the general intelligence test, but his ability as an appraiser brought up his average in the two subjects and made him eligible. Mr. MAAS. What percentage of those covered in the civil service by Executive order fail to retain their positions under noncompetitive examinations? Do any of them fail? Mr. VIPOND. Yes; some do. I do not know what the percentage is, but there are always some who fall by the wayside. Mr. MAAS. Would it be difficult to provide the committee the percentage of those who failed to qualify noncompetitively, or have failed, when agencies have been brought into the classified service by Executive order? Mr. VIPOND. I shall try to get that information for the committee. I can get it for some of the positions that have been covered in. I can mention one instance wherein I would not have that information. Going back as far as 1910 or 1913, in connection with fourth-class postmasters, I would not have that.' Mr. MAAS. That would not be of particular value. I mean those who have been covered into the classified civil service by Executive order-those employed in emergency agencies, for example. Mr. VIPOND. There are few agencies covered into the classified service as a whole. It is usually positions or groups of positions which are so covered. Mr. MASS. Well, call them groups within agencies if you wish. Get whatever information you can for us about that, please. Mr. VIPOND. I will furnish whatever information I can secure. Mr. MOSER. I do not believe Mr. Maas meant that exactly like it sounds. You said where they are covered in by Executive order. If they are covered into the classified civil service by Executive order, which is commonly known as blanketing, the incumbents are never examined again. Mr. VIPOND. That is true. However, some of the Executive orders covering these positions into the classified civil service provide that the incumbent must pass a noncompetitive civil-service examination. Mr. MOSER. Yes; if that is stipulated in the Executive order. Mr. VIPOND. Yes; that is true. Mr. MAAS. That is where I referred to a noncompetitive examination. Mr. VIPOND. Yes. (Table showing results of noncompetitive examinations :) FARM CREDIT ADMINISTRATION Nominated for classification on noncompetive examination (Executive orders, May 18, 1933, and June 29, 1934).. Passed examination. Failed to pass examination.. Disqualified for miscellaneous reasons. Total. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, CUSTOMS SERVICE Nominated for classification on noncompetitive examination (Executive order, June 21, 1932).. Passed examination.. Failed to pass examination. Disqualified for miscellaneous reasons.. Total..... DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, ALIEN PROPERTY CUSTODIAN Nominated for classification on noncompetitive examination (Executive order May 1, 1934). Passed examination.. Failed to pass examination.. Disqualified for miscellaneous reasons.. Total.. Mr. RANDOLPH. If there are no further questions of Mr. Vipond, let us hear Mr. Richardson further. Mr. RICHARDSON. I thought of another group that may interest gentlemen of the committee. We have a group known as card-punch machine operators. We have 60 of them and they have been in office for about 2 years, and in connection with them we have a probationary period of 1 year. We realize that in order to get the necessary production and to properly grade those people, they need longer than 6 months' training. Otherwise it is unfair to the Government and to the individual. Since we have extended that probationary period to a year we have increased considerably the number of competent card-punch operators. One girl doing that work punched 31,000 cards without an error. Others will average 3,000 or 4,000 cards a day over a year without an error. thousand or more are considered excellent. To throw those employees out of our service would seriously injure our imperative operations. If we had to take 60 new employees and train them for that work, it would be a very serious matter for our office. Three I do not want any of my statements to convey the idea that we favor covering in anybody who is inefficient. We favor only those who have proved their ability to do the work and are capable of advancement. We feel that there should be a noncompetitive examination in the interest of the Government as a whole, that noncompetitive examination to be prescribed by the Civil Service Commission. I realize that if such a bill is to be adopted by the committee, and it is enacted into law, there will be some collaboration between the Civil Service Commission and the Department concerned to learn the needs of the Department and in an effort to get the best possible employees. Mr. MOSER. Do I understand that you are from the General Accounting Office? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes. Mr. MOSER. I would like to ask whether in your experience as a representative of the General Accounting Office you have found a consistent antagonism toward the administration of the affairs of your office? Mr. RICHARDSON. A consistent antagonism toward the administration of the affairs of our office from within the office or from without? Mr. MOSER. As set apart from all other offices we have in the Government. Mr. RICHARDSON. I have not noticed that. Mr. MOSER. Has not the General Accounting Office always been regarded as a thorn in the side of many agencies that want to do certain things that you obstruct? Mr. RICHARDSON. I have not been blind to that, which is natural. That is natural. Mr. MOSER. You have probably been damned more than any other agency in the Government, have you not? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes; I thought you meant an antagonism toward the administration of our office from within the office. I am in the administrative division of the General Accounting Office; but it is natural that any agency functioning as does the General Accounting Office will meet a certain antagonism. Mr. MOSER. Your office is responsible to the Congress only, is it not? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes. Mr. MOSER. And not to any other branch of the Government? Mr. MOSER. And, therefore, in the administration of the affairs of your office you are an obstacle to the accomplishment of certain things that would, perhaps, go beyond the scope of the intent of Congress in the enactment of law. Mr. RICHARDSON. That is the theory. Mr. MOSER. Therefore you are, as I have said, more damned than any other branch of the Government. That is probably the reason you come here and differ from any other witness we have had, in that you put efficiency to the forefront more than any other witness we have had. Mr. RICHARDSON. I have been in the General Accounting Office 17 years, and I think it has a traditional reputation for efficiency. We make mistakes, but efficiency is imbued in all our employees. Mr. TEIGAN. In any civil-service position in the General Accounting Office, I suppose that the general educational qualities of the applicant are taken into consideration; that is to say, they are examined in subjects other than the ones having a direct bearing on the work contemplated? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes. Mr. TEIGAN. Is not that the reason many of those now holding these jobs might lose out in a competitive examination, and yet those who may have a higher rating as a result of examinations would in practice not be so efficient as the employees now in the positions? Mr. RICHARDSON. That would follow, naturally. Suppose we have a clerk with a limited civil-service status, and we order him up for promotion. If he does not pass he does not get the promotion. I recently had the case of a man in the office who has been there 15 years. He is in charge of files and is very efficient in his work. Twice he has unsuccessfully tried to pass a promotional examination. Unquestionably he can do the work very well, but, unfortunately, he cannot pass the examination. This is a colored man. On the other hand, some of the employees who came and are holding excepted positions were appointed at a time when the registers were depleted. For instance, the freight-rate examiners in the office were appointed for a limited period when the registers were depleted. There may be other types that were so appointed. We took them in when the registers were depleted, but they have taken the freight-rate-examiner examination, have made passing marks, and are waiting to be reached on the eligible list. When they are reached we will give them appointments, if we have funds available; but if this act passes they will be dumped out if somebody else makes a higher rating and there are others with higher ratings on the eligible registers. Mr. TEIGAN. Could this colored man to whom you have referred pass a noncompetitive examinaion? Mr. RICHARDSON. No; he failed twice. Mr. MAAS. Most of these people have passed a competitive civilservice examination at some time in order to get a civil-service status, have they not? Mr. RICHARDSON. Not a majority. I was pointing out instances where people have passed Mr. MAAS. How do you appoint people that do not come from the Civil Service Commission eligible registers? Mr. RICHARDSON. The ones I am talking about, we are not taking on any more since December. The others were appointed without regard to civil-service laws and regulations. Mr. MAAS. Were they appointed on recommendations of Congressmen, or where did you get them? Mr. RICHARDSON. We appointed them on account of their ability to perform the work contemplated. I believe that about 95 percent of them came in with endorsements. Mr. RANDOLPH. That is nothing against the applicant. Mr. RICHARDSON. That is true. Mr. MAAS. I have been trying to get at the method employed in making the appointments. I have no objection to it; but that is the way you have been getting them, is it not? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes. Mr. MAAS. It was hard or impossible for anyone without an endorsement to get the job, was it not? Mr. RICHARDSON. I would not say that, if the applicant was absolutely capable and experienced to the extent required. Ability to perform the contemplated duty was the major factor considered. Mr. MAAS. Considering two applicants, everything else being equal, the one with the stronger endorsement got the job, did he not? Mr. RICHARDSON. No; not necessarily, if both had equal ability. |