Mr. JUMP. Yes. The appropriation for this year-1933-has twelve months' pay in it and the furlough deduction is impounded in the treasury. But next year, under the budget estimate there will not be any impounding, because the money will be taken off by Congress in advance. It will be a great relief, I may say, to get rid of the burden of impounding and all of the red tape that ensues therefrom.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Then the estimate for this year is based on salaries for only 11 months.

Mr. JUMP. Eleven months pay, but twelve months work.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Then the furlough plan has been put into effect for your estimates for next year?

Mr. JUMP. Yes, sir.

Mr. BUCHANAN. That is the reason this section is not recommended to be continued?

Mr. JUMP. It is recommended to be continued. But as I understand it, with a modification with reference to impounding the money, since it is already taken out of the estimate. There are other miscellaneous changes proposed, but I have not yet seen the detailed budget. It is our experience that certain sections of the act have proved very vexing and really have saved no money, practically speaking. In the interest of simplicity, they should be left out, in my opinion, and it would be better to concentrate on the more workable provisions which is what I believe the budget estimate will cover.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1932.

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY

STATEMENT OF H. A. NELSON, CHIEF, DIVISION OF OPERATION

Mr. BUCHANAN. I believe the first real item to come up for consideration is the Secretary's office.

Mr. JUMP. Mr. Nelson, chief of the division of operation, will handle that.

SALARIES

Mr. BUCHANAN. The first item is for salaries and reads as follows: For Secretary of Agriculture, $15,000; Assistant Secretary, and for other personal services in the District of Columbia, including $7,294 for extra labor and emergency employments, and for personal services in the field, $782,547; in all, $731,347: Provided, That in addition thereto, this appropriation may be reimbursed for the cost of such additional employments as may be necessary for cleaning, in whole or in part, of buildings of the Department of Agriculture in the city of Washington, from the appropriations made for the bureaus or offices for which such service is performed: Provided further, That the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to contract for stenographic reporting services, and the appropriations made in this act shall be available for such purposes: Provided further, That the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to expend from appropriations available for the purchase of lands not to exceed $1 for each option to purchase any particular tract or tracts of land: Provided further, That not to exceed $27,500 of the appropriations available for salaries and expenses of officers and employees of the Department of Agriculture permanently stationed in foreign countries may be used for payment of allowances for living quarters, including heat, fuel, and light. as authorized by the act approved June 26, 1930 (U. S. C., Supp. V, title 5, sec. 118a): Provided further, That no part of the funds appropriated by this act shall

be used for the payment of any officer or employee of the Department of Agriculture who, as such officer or employee, or on behalf of the department or any division, commission, or bureau thereof, issues, or causes to be issued, any prediction, oral or written, or forecast with respect to future prices of cotton or the trend of same.

Mr. NELSON. The following statement is submitted for incorporation in the hearings:

There is an apparent decrease of $90,200 in this item, but since $17,920 has been transferred to other appropriations and 3 building guards with salaries aggregating $3,900 have been transferred to this appropriation from another fund with a corresponding reduction in that appropriation, there is an actual decrease of $76,180 in working funds.

The reduction of $90,200 is explained as follows:

(a) A reduction of $5,500, which is made possible by the retirement of the real-estate officer of the department and the consolidation of the duties of this position with other positions.

(b) An apparent increase of $3,900, to cover the salaries of three watchmen transferred from the appropriation for fertilizer investigations, Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, with a corresponding reduction in that appropriation. These building guards are under the supervision of the department's central watch force and in conformity with the general plan of operation their salaries should be transferred to the funds of the Office of the Secretary.

(c) An apparent decrease of $22,400, involving an actual reduction of $4,480 and the transfer of the balance ($17,920) to other departmental appropriations. Language to provide for the development of a centralized supply organization was included in the 1933 appropriation act. The General Accounting Office objected to certain features of the detailed procedure involved. In the Budget for 1934 it is proposed to amend the provision contained in the 1933 appropriation act so as to meet the Comptroller's objections. The plan originally proposed by the department, as presented in the Budget for 1933 and included in the appropriation act, contemplated that the cost of handling charges, as represented in the salaries of additional employees, over and above those now appropriated for in the central supply section, would be reimbursable to the Office of the Secretary as a part of the cost of supplies issued. The plan of the General Accounting Office, which has been included in the Budget for 1934, provides that the cost of supplies furnished to the users will include all items of expense involved in providing such service. In order to put the new plan into effect wihout imposing upon the bureaus of the department an unreasonable and unjustifiable increase in the cost of supplies, the Budget estimate provides for the distribution to other appropriations of $17,920 of the $22,400 now utilized by the Office of the Secretary for furnishing this service, and the remaining $4,480 constitutes an outright reduction, in anticipation of savings which will be effected in connection therewith. The amounts to be distributed, on the basis of their previous participation in the central supply service, and the bureaus concerned are shown in the following list:

With the inauguration of this proposal the cost of the supplies furnished will include not only the net cost of such materials, but also all handling charges: The development of the building program of the department and the consequent bringing together of the personnel into a single group of buildings will permit the centralization of the supply activities on the basis of greater efficiency of operation and general improvement in the service available to all branches of the department. To avoid embarrassment to the work this consolidation will be accomplished gradually as the various units are moved to the new structure and the complete development of the project will not be accomplished until all organizations have been moved to the new building. The flexibility of the procedure as outlined meets with the approval of the General Accounting Office, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Bureau of Efficiency, and should permit the placing of the supply service of the department on a thoroughly economical and effective basis and at the same time assures ability on the part of the central supply section to render service adequate to meet the demands upon it.

CHANGE IN LIMITATION ON FOREIGN QUARTERS ALLOWANCE

The reduction from $55,000 to $27,500 is made in view of the fact that the amounts in the Budget estimates for 1934 under the various bureaus concerned are limited to one-half of the maximum allowable under the "Standardized Regulations to Govern Allowances for Living Quarters, etc." Budget Circular 298.

WORK UNDER THIS APPROPRIATION

This appropriation provides salaries for employees of the office of the Secretary of Agriculture, Assistant Secretary, the director of scientific work, the director of regulatory work (office force paid by Food and Drug Administration), the director of extension work (office force paid by Extension Service), the director of personnel and business administration, the personnel, organization and classification offices, the Budget, finance, disbursing and accounting offices, the offices dealing with purchases, sales and traffic, the division of operation, mails and files, building maintenance and guards forces, telephone and telegraph, post office, etc., and the office of the solicitor. This organization comprises the administration of the scientific, extension, regulatory, personnel and business activities of the department and serves in planning the organization of the work, the expenditure of funds, the contracting for the purchase of materials and equipment, the handling of mails and files, building maintenance, safeguarding the property and buildings of the department, the operation of the telephone and telegraph offices, and the initiation and direction of all phases of legal work involved in the departments' activities.

There is an apparent decrease of $90,200, but as $17,920 has been transferred to other appropriations and $3,900 transferred to this appropriation, there is an actual decrease of $76,180.

A decrease of $5,500 represents the savings accomplished as a result of the retirement of the real estate officer, Mr. Reese. Four existing positions have been merged to form three places with a consequent reduction of $5,500.

An increase of $3,900 involves the transfer of three building guards from the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils with corresponding reduction of the appropriation of that bureau. These men are engaged in guarding the building occupied by the Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory, and this transfer is recommended in anticipation of the consolidation of this unit in the new building.

An apparent decrease of $22,400, involving an actual reduction of $4,480 and the transfer of $17,920 to other appropriations. Last year the department recommended the adoption of language to permit the continuation, and the further development of a central supply organization, but after the close of the hearings representatives of the General Accounting Office appeared before the committee and filed certain objections. Because of the limited time available

for the consideration of the subject the committee decided to favorably recom mend the language suggested by the department, with the understanding that prior to the submission of the 1934 Budget efforts would be made to harmonize the differences. In accordance with this plan the department requested the Bureau of Efficiency to survey the entire supply problem and the recommendations now made represent the concensus of opinion of the representatives of the Bureau of the Budget, the Bureau of Efficiency, the General Accounting Office, and the department. The proposal provides for an immediate reduction of $4,480 and the transfer of the balance of the funds now used to support the organization to the bureaus of the department in accordance with their participation in the supply business during the fiscal year 1932. Space in the Federal warehouse has been allocated to the department and if this plan is approved, it is believed that the department will be provided with a satisfactory and efficient organization, so designed as to be entirely responsive to the demands made by the bureaus and to become a proper adjunct to the centralized procurement agency represented by the General Supply Committee.

HANDLING OF DEPARTMENTAL SUPPLIES

Mr. BUCHANAN. In connection with the handling of supplies, I thought your surplus supplies were going to be kept in your own building.

Mr. NELSON. Not altogether. They have developed a Federal warehouse and it is connected with the railroad transportation company's lines, and we have been allocated space in that.

Mr. JUMP. The wholesale or bulk supplies we are going to keep in the Federal warehouse, which is down near the railroad tracks and near the general supply committee, but the retail distribution stock, which you have to have in hand to send out to the different offices and laboratories, for current use, will be in our own building. Mr. BUCHANAN. That is what I was talking about. Now, looking to the expense of the central warehouse, won't that involve additional expense to take care of it?

Mr. NELSON. No, sir.

Mr. JUMP. Here is an example of the type of material that will not need to be kept at the department if space is available in the warehouse. In connection with the meat inspection work, they use millions, literally millions of printed, blank forms. Those forms are delivered in here to Washington and then sent out to the field, packed in proper amounts and proper registry, and sent to the various meat inspection stations all over the country. That kind of stuff need not be brought down to the department building, but can be delivered directly to the central warehouse and be processed there and go out from there. But the stuff we actually have to use in Washington will be brought down to the central supply storeroom of the department. We will maintain two supply rooms, in other words-a wholesale supply room and a retail supply room. Many of the departments, I think, plan to utilize space in the central warehouse, which I believe was built pursuant to a bill introduced by Mr. Wood when chairman of this committee.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Who is to take care of that space?

Mr. JUMP. It comes under the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds, of which Colonel Grant is the head.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Does your department have employees down there in the space allocated to the Agricultural Department? Mr. JUMP. It will have.

Mr. BUCHANAN. And will the other departments have employees?

Mr. JUMP. Not so far as I know-presumably only those which have big bulk supplies. Some of the departments have no field service to amount to anything and probably they won't be there; only the departments that have large bulk supplies to go outside, for field use.

Mr. BUCHANAN. The discussion we had here last session revolved around only the little supply station in your own building.

Mr. JUMP. Yes.

Mr. BUCHANAN. For the small things that would be needed, and so forth, and that is what I want to see you have.

Mr. JUMP. It is all we expected to have originally, but the General Supply Committee and the Bureau of Efficiency and, I think, the Comptroller General, and the Budget Bureau, are very anxious that we participate as fully as possible in the use of the central supply warehouse for the entire Government and we have thought it will be beneficial to do so. For instance, here is a case: Take certain articles of which we now keep a rather large stock in the department. When the general supply warehouse gets to going full blast, no department will keep a wholesale stock of those things, but will get them from the General Supply Committee's stock at the main warehouse, and when that time comes we will not stock in our supply room in that building the same things they have in a big general stock. I believe the plan will assure good coordination of the supply business of the Government as a whole.

Mr. BUCHANAN. I was just wondering, Mr. Jump, if it is economy for the Agricultural Department to have space in the General Supply Building and have an employee down there, and also have space in its own building for its departmental service strictly here in Washington, and have employees in that.

Mr. JUMP. I do not think there is any question about it, for the reason we now have a dozen or more supply rooms in the Department, due to the present set-up and the scattered location of the bureaus. Mr. NELSON. No, more than that-18.

Mr. JUMP. And it is largely because the department has been separated in all of these individual buildings.

Mr. BUCHANAN. That is what I wanted to avoid when we tried to get the thing started last year. Of course it was opposed then by certain other departments, but I want to know what is right and what is economical.

Mr. JUMP. We are proposing to do it now the way the General Accounting Office wanted it.

Mr. BUCHANAN. I am not stuck on doing it the way they want it, unless it is the right way.

Mr. JUMP. We are satisfied that the present proposal will work out all right if the bureaus in the department all cooperate. The General Accounting Office has agreed to help us to work out the actual mechanics from an accounting standpoint, and the Bureau of Efficiency is now working on the supply end of it.

Mr. BUCHANAN. How many employees would you have in the Federal warehouse?

Mr. NELSON. Probably, at all times, only a receiving officer-only somebody to receive materials that come in.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Who is going to distribute them and send them

out?