October 10, we had Government funds, we felt a responsibility for those Government funds, let's get the show on the road.

I can testify to specific instances which hobbled the partnership from the beginning. Some time in November, the national partnership-I specifically had people lined up to take on responsibilitieswas instructed by the administrator not to discuss partnership matters with the deputy overseeing the grant and to contact only a designated subordinate.

In the same period, preliminary efforts to recruit key, full-time staff, vice presidents for communications, developing local partnerships and programs came to a standstill at the request, presumably, of the prospective chairman who was "coming aboard any day.

In other words, they were running prospective, don't do anything on communications, the ultimate success of the partnership, you are getting seed money from the Government, seed money of a million dollars-my understanding was presumably there would be another million dollars if progress had been made at the end of the grant period and in this interim year and a half period, this private/public organization would match those funds and private fundraising and replicate and duplicate and proceed much further than the original schedule.

Mr. KEKER. Again, no permanent leadership coming on for the remainder of the year. In February, spending freeze was ordered by OJJDP on all new hiring, and pending a preparation of a revised implementation plan, and approval of the trustees.

Again, a freeze, submit a revised implementation plan, don't do anything, don't form local partnerships, until we do the revised plan yet approved by the Board of Trustees.

The original grant also had a plan to hire these people to move on, form local partnerships, and I never did figure out why the hell you had to stop doing what you were doing on your original program while you reviewed the thing and stopped and gone through all these administrative things, and then proceed.

This happened twice in the period of 3 or 4 months again, so eventually why the partnership failed, it did not show much progress, fell back on its original plan, this, that and the other, stop and go.

What do you expect?

More stops than go on the spending freeze, which was lifted in March. Full-time presence for communications and local partnerships were finally hired 6 months after launch, many standing in the wings.

It was not until March that any significant effort could be made to move forward. Within a few weeks rapid progress in developing local partnerships was being made.

In that few weeks, 8 weeks, there were 10 local partnerships well on the way to being formed throughout the country. Another 10 that were in the stages of negotiation, these things take time.

You are going to form the local partnership in the city of Chicago, a lot of people you have to talk to, and it doesn't happen in a week or a day. This was a long-term commitment, there has been $750,000 spent as of the end of June, fully a third of that went to startup costs.

You had a private corporation, no space, no typewriters, no commitment, so in effect it is the same thing you would have in establishing a school or a manufacturing plant or any kind of program, you have certain startup costs.

My estimate would be that fully a third or more of that money that was expended by the partnership were startup costs that should be viewed as amortization over a period of 3 to 5 years.

In other words, they were basic to the startup of the organization, and in the second 6 months or the following year, whatever funds were being raised would go towards the formulation of local partnerships.

In May, the Administrator of OJJDP resigned, and the successor informs the grant was being reviewed. A week later, the decision was not enough progress was being made.

The testimony I am making here is not the complete story on the demise of the national partnership, and there were other factors contributing to it.

Overall, they got off to a bad start, did not have the necessary leadership, and within our partnership, a great opportunity has been lost, and I would hope that down the road another agency, some kind of national coalition has to be formed, funded, whether it is public, private or public-private, but one of the avenues, if the committee is interested in this whole area, is that the rhetoric and hand-wringing and all the other things that are going on presently, and in the past, it is not going to show much improvement until you do the dirty work in the trenches, and that is what this partnership was set up to do.

The discussion here is drug abuse, that has been raised, the great thing that is going to disable this country, and even today as we sit here, alcohol abuse among children, our families in our society, is a much greater danger than drug abuse presently.

I think that there are others here that can testify. We are not even talking about the alcohol abuse that goes on in this country. Mr. KILDEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Keker.

[The prepared statement of Samuel J. Keker follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SAMUEL J. KEKER, FORMER ACTING PRESIDENT, NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP TO PREVENT DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE

My thanks to Chairman Kildee for his invitation to testify before the Sub-Committee regarding the grant to the National Partnership to Prevent Drug and Alcohol Abuse Among Youth. (The NP) The committee is to be commended for undertaking an inquiry into this particular aspect in the conduct of the public business.

I cannot speak on behalf of the National Partnership Board of Trustees but I am pleased to offer some observations drawn from my own experience. Although my professional career has been mainly in the private sector, I have served on several public commissions and task forces. I retired from U.S. New & World Report in early 1984 as Chairman of the Board. I presently serve as Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Maryland Department of Human Resources.

My association with the NP covers the period July 1985 to July 1, 1986 and falls in two distinct periods. In July 1985 I was recruited by the National Executive Service Corps, acting in behalf of the Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Delinquency, as a consultant to plan and help execute the mission of the soon to be launched National Partnership. The non-profit corporation was formally organized and launched in October 1985. It was launched with a designated president and chief operating officer, no full-time staff, and with a chairman and chief executive officer still to be elected presumably in a matter of weeks. An interim chairman was elected in January 1986.

My initial committment was short term and limited. My responsibility was to recruit permanent staff for the communications and public affairs division and to act in a volunteer consultant capacity until the NP was off and operating. I reported to the president and served at his direction and pleasure. In mid March the president resigned.

On April 1, 1986 I agreed to assume the responsibility of acting president until a successor could be recruited. I served in this capacity until June 1986 at the direction and pleasure of the interim chairman of the corporation.

I resigned when I learned in mid June that the operations of the NP were again being reviewed by a new administration of OJJDP and that a freeze on all program expenditures was directed pending his review the second in less than three months.

The Partnership was formally launched on October 10, 1985. dissolved in July 1986.

It was

A central question before the committee must surely be how and why a unique public/private effort committed to a long range committment to organize the country at the grass roots level failed in its stated mission.

Admittedly, many factors contributed to the demise of the NP. Some major, some minor, but all of them incident in the start up of any ambitious initiative of a new organization. The Sub-Committee will undoubtedly hear testimony from others in these areas in the course of its inquiries.

I will limit my testimony to one major factor. The major factor, in my judgment, is that the progress and ability of the Partnership to function in a viable way was impaired from the beginning by rapid changes in leadership and direction in the administration of the grant by the Office of Juvenile Delinquency. Whether this stemmed from lack of professionalism on the part of the government administrators, a different agenda from the Partnership, or internecine warfare in various levels of the Justice Department, I can only surmise.

What I can testify to are specific incidents which hobbled the NP in a serious way in accomplishing its basic organizational and programmatic tasks from the very beginning.

For example, sometime in November, the NP was instructed by the Administrator of OJJDP not to discuss partnership matters with the Deputy overseeing the grant and to contact only a designated subordinate.

In this same period, preliminary efforts to recruit key full time staff, vice presidents for communications, developing local partnership and programs came to a stand still at the request, presumably, of the prospective chairman who was "coming aboard any day." These instructions came from the president, but my positive inpression is that OJJDP initiated, or at a minimum concurred in these personnel delays. I do not know if the president resisted these delays.

Just as importantly, and cruical to ultimate success, was the delay in moving ahead with fund raising efforts from the private sector. Again, the fund raising effort was postponed pending the acceptance of the chairmanship by the prospective candidate.

In February a spending freeze was ordered by OJJDP on all new hiring, travel and program development pending the preparation of a revised implementation plan and approval of the trustees. More stop and go the spending freeze was lifted in March a full time vice presidents for communicatons and local partnerships were finally hired six months after launch! It was not until March that any significant effort could be made to move forward externally.

Within a few weeks rapid progress in developing local partnerships was being made.

In May, the administrator of OJJDP resigned. Early in June his successor informed the NP the grant was being reviewed and pending a final decision by the new administrator, another financial freeze was imposed on all activity. After what appears to me to have been a casual and cursory review, the grant was terminated.

Granted, the testimony submitted herewith is not the complete story on the demise of the NP. I reiterate, however, my judgment on the major factor which contributed to its disolution.

Samuel J. Keker

3203 Rulling Road

Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815

(301) 652-1083

Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Butynski.

Mr. BUTYNSKI. I would like to thank you for the invitation to appear and to testify on this important subject of the national partnership before your committee.

I would like to preface my remarks by indicating that my statement represents my personal views as a professional with 17 years' experience in the alcohol and drug field, and the remarks should not be construed as necessarily representing those of the organization for which I work, the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors.

On the assumption that the full written testimony will be entered into the hearing record, I would like to verbally summarize my remarks.

Mr. KILDEE. Yes; we would appreciate it.

Mr. BUTYNSKI. I would like to organize my remarks in four areas, background and need, concept, problems and recommendations for the future.

In terms of background and need, it is clear that alcohol and drug abuse pose severe economic costs to our society overall, but also that drug abuse by youth is closely related to other forms of juvenile delinquency.

There are various statistics cited here, and you may be more familiar with than I am in terms of the relationship between alcohol, drug abuse, and delinquency.

In terms of concept, the idea of the national partnership to prevent drug and alcohol abuse was rather ambitious, but with appropriate support and leadership, a viable concept that had a tremendous positive potential for stimulating public awareness and for creating an ongoing mechanism for sharing information for the public and private sector to work together in combatting alcohol and drug abuse problems among youth.

With regard to the problems encountered by the national partnership, there are a number. I will discuss three areas of problems as I saw them.

One, expectations; two, leadership; and three, communications.

First, in term of expectations, as far as I know, a clear and detailed program of work was never reviewed nor adopted by either the membership of the partnership, nor by the board, prior to submission to the Justice Department.

Thus, five people had different expectations as to what could and should be accomplished.

Second, in terms of leadership, overall, there was considerable prestige, expertise, and competence in terms of honorary_leadership. The First Lady, Senate Majority Leader Dole, House Speaker O'Neill, all lent their names to the partnership.

However, a permanent chairperson was never selected nor elected by the board of directors. Also, most of the initial staff of the partnership did not have either extensive knowledge or direct experience in working on alcohol and drug problems.

In terms of communications, it is evident at this point that insufficient communication occurred among many of the components relating to the national partnership, ranging from the president to the board, between the president, board, and the members, between the president, board, and the alcohol and drug field, et cetera.