This USAC chart illustrates one method of grouping functional activities common to local governments.

ATTACHMENT 2

2 Includes $100,000 of direct LEAA grant to this project.

3 Includes $89,000 already obligated; $130,000 in process for remainder of fiscal year 1973. 4 Includes $57,000 already obligated; $34,000 in process for remainder of fiscal year 1973. In process for fiscal year 1973.

Mr. KNISELY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

THE USAC THEORY

Several key concepts behind the USAC program need explaining. First is the concept of integration as applied to data bases and files. As was believed at USAC's inception, the project cities have shown that data in municipal government files consists almost exclusively of information on people, places, and dollars. It is uneconomical to store this identical information at many varied locations throughout the local government; it is also inefficient to collect the information many times.

Through systems analysis it is possible to construct an information system in such a way that information which need not be kept separate for purposes of confidentiality will be collected, stored, manipulated, and released in the most efficient manner possible. All of us who have filled out countless forms all beginning with name, address, telephone number, date of birth, et cetera, know how time consuming it can be. Second, it was believed that the greatest potential for the use of the computer in local government was in the very operations of the municipal departments, not in the preparation of "management" reports. Employees at all levels deal in information; indeed, one study showed that the average social worker spends 60 percent of his time in information handling. We found in Long Beach that one of every four sworn officers on the police force was engaged exclusively in information handling.

If, then, the use of the computer, via terminals and video display tubes, could be extended to the farthest reaches of the organization, much time and effort would be saved over and above the current costs of the well-known "paper-pushing" in such bureaucracies. Obviously, there are some activities of government servants that are too infrequent, or too simple, or too unrelated to other activities to be worth automating. It is the job of the competent systems analyst to computerize those functions which can be cost justified.

Third, it was an original tenet of USAC that much, if not most, of the information needed for managing and planning in the urban environment could be derived from data accumulated during countless transactions at the operational level. A manager could determine who was served, by whom, with what service, and so forth with the data captured during the actual transaction, not from possibly self-serving reports filled in after the fact.

The basic management needs can be met with the integrated, operationally based system. Other information is needed for longer range management and planning as well, and it is as yet undetermined how much of it is available from the systems our cities are building. For example, the impact of suburban growth on the center city will not be adequately revealed by the center city's system, simply because the employees of the center city do not interact appreciably with the residents of the suburbs. This is a question we are still pursuing.

Those who drafted the USAC Request for Proposal, H-2-70, conceptualized municipal government as a total system that could be broken down into four subsystems: public finance, public safety, physical and economic development, and human resource development. Two contracts were awarded for the development of total systems, and one for each of the four subsystems. Each contract went to a city government, which in turn subcontracted with a systems software firm and a local university. The six contracts were as follows:

Total system: Charlotte, N.C., with the System Development Corp. and the University of North Carolina; Wichita Falls, Tex., with Booz, Allen, Hamilton Systems and the University of Kansas.

Public finance: Dayton, Ohio, with Westinghouse Electric Corp., Civil Systems Division, and the University of Dayton.

Public safety: Long Beach, Calif., with Digital Resources, Inc., Mauchly-Wood Inc., and California State College.

Physical and economic development: Reading, Pa., with Sperry Rand UNIVAC, Systems and Computing Technology, and the Franklin Institute Research Laboratories.

Human Resource Development was originally attempted in St. Paul, Minn., with ARIES Corp. and the University of Minnesota. The attached chart is one attempt at representing the complexity of the subsystems and their components' functional activities. That is the third from the end, Mr. Chairman, our so-called wheel chart.

Each city was to go through the classic systems development cycle: analysis, conceptualization, design, development, and implementation. The universities were charged with monitoring and evaluating the above tasks. During the analysis task, it became apparent that the cities were more complex than had been anticipated, and more time and money would be required.

What had been 2- and 3-year contracts became 4- and 5-year efforts. Attached is the funding history of the projects. This program has pro

duced the most exhaustive studies of information flow in American municipal government of which we have knowledge. Similarly, the conceptualization reports lay out in great deal in rationalized structure for information flow and, in some cases, departmental reorganization. All USAC end products are made available to the public through the National Technical Information Service-NTIS-in Springfield, Va. The response to them has been "hellishly good," to quote the Director of NTIS.

Although the five cities are still in the development and implementation phases, a very large number of other municipalities have expressed a desire to transfer the products of USAC research into their data processing efforts as soon as possible. Public Technology, Inc., will be assisting us in testing transferability during fiscal year 1974.

It became apparent during conceptualization in St. Paul, Minn., that the project would be unable to implement an information system in that city. There were several reasons for this, first among them being that the human resources subsystem is far more complex than had been anticipated by those who established USAC. The human resources system in every community consists of public, private, and voluntary service providers; complicated referral paths; and no organization unity.

Compare the inherent organization-and susceptibility to analysisof a police department, for example, with the lack of organization between and among a locality's United Way charities, the county welfare system, and the city health department. We are convinced that these services can best be made to serve the population of a community via improved information flow. Our efforts in this area are being coordinated closely with the Secretary's Allied Services staff at HEW. We agree that integrating the varied streams of social services for America's disadvantaged must have a high priority, and we further agree with HEW that information technology offers an excellent method for coordinating these services.

The five remaining cities are beginning to show results. You have already received reports on the two total system cities, Charlotte, N.C., and Wichita Falls, Tex., during Dr. Eugene Dial's testimony before this subcommittee. Let me offer several more examples of early success in the USAC program.

Last December, Dayton's fiscal officer stated to the city council that the USAC public finance subsystem had provided him with additional information about accounts payable and receivable in which he had sufficient confidence to lower Dayton's cash reserve from $4 miltion to $2 million, thus producing, at a conservative estimate, revenues of $90,000 per year indefinitely-$2 million saved invested at 412 percent. Please note that Dayton's effective income was raised, not through raised taxes nor through service cutbacks, but through improved information alone.

Another example: during systems analysis in Reading, Pa., the USAC Physical and Economic Development Subsystem staff drew the city council's attention to the fact that Reading had eight offices performing very similar functions: each office sent an inspector to various addresses to examine some aspect of a parcel of real property in the city. These inspectors were concerned with plumbing, electricity, fire, structural soundness, and so forth. The project staff were able to show that the city could save time and money if the eight functions were

combined in one office, which is now Reading's Bureau of Code Services.

At the direction of Assistant Secretary Moskow of HUD, the Office of Policy Development and Research has just completed an objective, third-party evaluation of the USAC program, performed by a Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. team headed by Mr. Sidney Brounstein. We will supply the full report to the committee when it is final. The current concern with privacy, confidentiality, and security in the computer area is certainly justified. However, I also believe in the necessity of automation to maintain even adequate government functioning. Safeguards must be developed to accompany the systems. The problem of privacy and confidentiality was mentioned in our original RFP as a subject of inquiry.

The USAČ project in Wichita Falls, Tex., developed and lobbied for city council passage what became the first municipal ordinance in America which details the rights and responsibilities of the city and the citizen vis-a-vis computer privacy. Charlotte, N.C., will soon pass another. All projects have produced useful papers on the subject, as well as the ordinances mentioned above. Each city must have a data access control plan explicitly detailing their solutions to the privacy problem. I am hoping to add to the staff in the near future a nationally known figure in the field of privacy, who will devote a year or so to the development of privacy standards for municipal information systems. The local, operations-based, integrated information systems I have been describing must eventually provide data to State and national systems which are more statistical in design. The data derived from operations will be more accurate and timely than would statistically generated input. It should also be more meaningful.

At the National Center for Health Statistics, for example, data are now collected on the number of visits made to family planning clinics across the country. NCHS is unable to tell, however, the number of women using the clinics. Surely this is inadequate for program planning and evaluation.

A number of Federal Departments support statewide information. systems, among them HEW, Labor, and Justice, via LEAA. There are also a number of national systems, fed from whatever sources are available. An encouraging sign of rationality in the structuring of such systems is the Federal regional information system now being developed and tested by the Office of Management and BudgetOMB in Boston, Mass., and Dallas, Tex.

The head of this effort is Mr. Thomas Snyder of OMB. The correct interconnection of these many various systems will require close coordination on many fronts. First, the data elements themselves must be standardized; this task is being addressed by the National Bureau of Standards. Also, the development and proliferation of independent systems must be overseen.

America's many thousands of units of government will make rationalizing national systems difficult; our urban problems make it imperative. Many European governments, notably Sweden and Denmark, are progressing rapidly in the same area. International exchange, via Dr. Hans Peter Gassmann's computer utilization group in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-OECD-in Paris can benefit the United States greatly.