Mr. FLEMMING. I assume that those were not vacancies; there were people in those jobs.

Mr. THOMAS. That is right.

Mr. FLEMMING. I do not know anything about that specific situation, but I assume that what happened was that the Navy Department stated to us that, in its judgment, under existing standards, those employees were entitled to a higher grade and, upon investigation, we concurred.

Mr. THOMAS. The Navy Department told us-and I imagine they told you the same thing that these folks were doing a certain job, were not getting enough money for it, and that "we cannot hold them unless we give them some more money." So you just turned around and upgraded them.

Mr. FLEMMING. Was that in the field service or the departmental service?

Mr. THOMAS. In the field.

Mr. FLEMMING. As far as the field is concerned, we do not have any authority to tell a department to move them up or down. We may have rendered an advisory opinion as to whether or not, in our judgment, those jobs properly belonged in another classification.

Mr. THOMAS. I am fairly sure that it was in the field. These people were at naval installations.

Mr. FLEMMING. That would be the field service, and, as far as the field service is concerned, we just do not have the right to say to a department or agency, "Do it this way," or, "Do it that way.' But sometimes-and the Navy is one of those departments-they do come to us and ask for an advisory opinion. It may be that those jobs were allocated too low right from the beginning in terms of the standards that were in existence under the Classification Act. Mr. THOMAS. Well, these were library attendants and when you got through you had upgraded them, and they were doing the same job, the same persons were in the job, at the same installations. I remember at the time that I thought maybe you should have upgraded the $1,620 stenographers who needed an increase in pay more than anybody else.

Mr. FLEMMING. There was a lot of pressure along that line, to upgrade that group also, but

Mr. THOMAS. You were not upgrading them, you were just increasing their salary.

Mr. FLEMMING. If our people did render an advisory opinion on those jobs, I would say that that represented their judgment as to where those jobs belonged in the classification scale, not only during the war period but in the postwar period. As far as the field service is concerned, some departments and agencies have held down the classification of their field jobs and others have gone in the other direction, which produces this competitive situation out in the field service. Of course, what we are trying to do is to get it standardized.

RECLASSIFICATIONS AND PROMOTIONS

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. I wish you would furnish a table for the record that would show, for the last two fiscal years, the number of requests that you have had for reclassification; that is, the number of people affected by requests for reclassification upward; the number that were granted and the number that have been denied or set aside.

Would you have available in the Commission a list of in-grade promotions by department or agency?

Mr. FLEMMING. In-grade promotions themselves? No; where they have made an increase for meritorious reasons, they have to report to us and we report to the Congress once a year on that. But the more or less automatic, within-grade salary advancements are not reported.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Please furnish for the record a table by department and agency showing number and cost of promotion reported to you in each of last two fiscal years.

(The information requested follows:)

Grand total for original classifications, appeals, and reconsiderations, from July 1, 1943, through June 30, 1945