Personnel and miscellaneous expenses of the Information Division, fiscal year 1942— Continued

44, 630

Services of temporary employees and a portion of the salary of one employee in the Racial Relations Section..

2,600

Total personal services...

NOTE.-The salaries of professional employees has been distributed to the sections in which they devote their time.

Other objects of expenditure, including publication Public Housing, posters, exhibits, printing and binding, and slide and movie films.

T

Budget for the fiscal year 1942.

42, 760

89,990

The Information Division of the United States Housing Authority is now operating with a staff of only 17 persons, of whom 10 are stenographic and clerical employees. It is now operating with the smallest staff and the smallest budget in the history of the Authority. The cost of the work of the Division of Information of the United States Housing Authority is exceptionally small compared to the cost of similar divisions in other agencies of like size. Previous to the beginning of the fiscal year 1941, the staff of this Division numbered approximately 100, whose annual salaries totaled over $200,000. Due to budgetary limitations and the changing needs there has been a constant reduction in the personnel and operations cost of this Division.

The duties of this Division include informing the public of the operations of the public housing program, advising the Administrator and other officials of the Agency on informational matters, and assisting local housing authorities with their local informational problems. The Division maintains an office where newspapermen, representatives of wire services and radio systems, contractors and officials of trade associations, etc., can obtain accurate and up-to-date information on the program, and prepares and disseminates press releases to newspapers and publications requesting them. This Division also acts for the White House in issuing detailed press material relative to Presidential approval of loans. It supplies information to correspondents who daily seek details affecting the projects in their localities. This Division also publishes a monthly magazine, Public Housing, which contains information for the benefit of local housing authorities, libraries, schools and colleges, and individuals and organizations interested in housing. The Division also provides materials and other assistance to schools and colleges and courses in housing and allied fields. The Division maintains a photographic library which is used by many publications, the authors of textbooks, architects, local housing authorities, etc.

The Division prepares and distributes press releases, inexpensive pamphlets, etc., as occasion arises, and provides exhibits for museums, conventions, fairs, etc. Administrative expenses for United States Housing Authority as a whole are reduced by these essential informational service functions, because the preparation of leaflets and other printed matter makes it unnecessary to handle each request for information on an individual, time-consuming basis. Instead of preparing detailed letters answering each request, it is possible through the informational service program to have standard printed or mimeographed material available for replies to requests. Since the public housing program is new in this country, a constant stream of such requests for information is directed to United States Housing Authority. Private citizens and organizations and public officials and agencies feel that their Government should furnish information about the United States Housing Authority program. The amount requested will enable us to meet these requests for information in the most economical manner by supplying standard printed or mimeographed materials. During the current year a slide film on housing has been produced by the Division. These films are used by local housing authorities, colleges and universities, high schools, civic groups,

etc. The Division also prepares speeches and statements for the Administrator and other officials of the Agency.

In the fiscal year 1941 the Division of Information operated on a budget of $125,000, and for the present fiscal year this budget has been reduced to $90,000. The Division has operated carefully within required limitations, and day-by-day budget is maintained, requiring the strictest scrutiny of even ordinary expenditures. Due to the very substantial reduction in the amount available for this Division, it has been necessary to curtail or discontinue many of its former functions; and it has been necessary for those persons still remaining in the employment of the Division to take on added duties and to forego taking all of the annual leave granted to Government employees.

PERSONNEL IN CONNECTION WITH TENANT, LABOR, RACIAL, AND COMMUNITY RELATIONS

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Is the community relations different from the tenant relations?

Mr. KEYSERLING. Community relations deal with the problem of how much contribution we can get from the community toward the servicing of our projects.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. That is not a social endeavor?

Mr. KEYSERLING. None of it is a social endeavor. It is all a business effort to get costs down. We leave the social endeavors to the localities. Our Community Relations Division tries to see how much the community will throw into the support of a project, such as making a park available, or making a building available, which we would otherwise have to build. In the case of tenant relations, the work is directed toward getting the tenants to help keep the projects up. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. I wish you would give us for the fiscal year 1943, the additional information I have heretofore requested. Mr. KEYSERLING. We should be glad to do that. (The information referred to is as follows:)

List of personnel in the tenant selection, community relations, labor relations, and racial relations activities, fiscal year 1943

List of personnel in the tenant selection, community relations, labor relations, and racial relations activities, fiscal year 1943—Continued

(NOTE.-The Tenant Relations Division, as hereinbefore outlined, varies slightly from the organization as outlined to Congress for fiscal year 1942 and on which the limitation of $120,000 was placed. The two organizations are compared below:)

1 Management Supervision was included through error in the justification to Congress of the 1942 estimates. The Operations and Maintenance Division created by the Administrator of the U. S. Housing Authority gave that Division responsibility for the Washington office activities in connection with business administration and technical operations activities. To implement the activities of this Division a Management Supervision Section and a Technical Operations Section were created.

Through misunderstanding of this organizational structure which was being formulated when the 1942 Budget was being considered by the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives on December 17, 1940, the Budget justification before the committee listed the Management Supervision Section as part of the Tenant Relations Division, and consequently, for Budget purposes during the fiscal year 1942 personal services of the Management Supervision Section are being charged against the limitation enacted by the Congress. It is for that reason that this section is included in the above tabulation although organizationally it has always functioned as part of the Operations and Maintenance Division and is so shown in our Budget justifications submitted for the fiscal year 1943.

The personnel in the field performing these activities are part of the regional office staffs and are included in the amounts requested under personal services for the various regions. They operate directly under the regional director and are administratively responsible to him. However, the standards and techniques to guide them in their activities are prescribed by the Washington office.

Conclusion. While the above break-down shows that the expenditures in the Tenant Relations Division proper will be approximately $75,000 for the fiscal year 1943 as against approximately $115,000 for the fiscal year 1942, this difference is explainable entirely on the basis of the fact that the Management Supervision personnel which charged to the Tenant Relations Division for Budget purposes in 1942 (although never properly a part of that Division) will not be so charged in 1943; accordingly, the actual amount to be expended for personnel in the Tenant Relations Division for the fiscal year 1943 will be approximately $75,000 which is the amount actually estimated to be expended for these purposes in the fiscal year 1942. Consequently, any change in the dollar-limitation figure of $120,000 for the fiscal year 1943 down to the actually estimated expenditure for the Tenant Relations Division of $75,000 for that year, would not represent a real change or reduction in the anticipated expenditures for that fiscal year and therefore no change should be made in the total over-all authorization for administrative expenses for that year.

(NOTE. The Labor Relations Division in the Washington office of the United States Housing Administration for 1943, provides for 21 positions for $72,180. There is no labor relations staff as such in the field offices because past experience has indicated that labor relations specialists may be used to better advantage when operating directly from the Washington office. This makes it possible to shift employees with specialized training in certain industrial fields from one region to another as the occasion demands. In this manner a very small staff is able to do a job which would otherwise require larger regional staffs.)

(NOTE. The Racial Relations Division in the Washington office of the United States Housing Authority, in 1943, provides for 11 positions, totaling $28,620. In addition to this staff, there are only four racial relations advisers, $14,900 in the seven regional offices. They are located in those regions only where the problems are such that their services were found to be essential. The racial relations advisers in the regions are included in the amounts requested under personal services for the various regions and are directly responsible for the regional directors. However, the standards and techniques to guide them in their activities are prescribed by the Washington office.)

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1942.

FEDERAL LOAN AGENCY

(See p. 948)

STATEMENTS OF HON. JESSE H. JONES, FEDERAL LOAN ADMINISTRATOR; H. A. MULLIGAN, DEPUTY FEDERAL LOAN ADMINISTRATOR; AND CLAUDE E. HAMILTON, JR., GENERAL COUNSEL, RECONSTRUCTION FINANCE CORPORATION

ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES

Mr. WOODRUM. We will take up the item for the Federal Loan Agency, $250,000, as follows: .

Administrative expenses, Federal Loan Agency: Of the funds available for administrative expenses to the agencies placed under the supervision of the Federal Loan Administrator by section 402 of Reorganization Plan Numbered I under authority of the Reorganization Act of 1939, $250,000 is hereby made available to the Federal Loan Agency for all the general administrative expenses