It passed the legislature, was submitted to the people, and became a part of the constitution in April of 1955. Garden City then submitted its $14 million bond issue that they had just passed the same day as the constitutional amendment. This was the first bond issue approved under the new State constitutional amendment.

This shows that Garden City has not relied on Federal aid. As a matter of fact, it could not. We weren't receiving sufficient Federal aid to house our pupils.

There were 2,500 youngsters on half-days at the time this happened. The bonded debt ratio was 12 percent, and so we raised this, and you can see by the chart to the attached letter that we went as high as 22 percent after the constitution was amended.

The people of Garden City have continually voted as soon as they could bond themselves additional money. There is a practical limitation of even the new constitutional amendment. Each time we have had a bond issue, and we have had four of them, we have gone to the maximum limit that the bonding firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone has approved that we could sell, and as I have stated, with approximately $6 million in interest you can see we are paying high interst rates.

We have no fads or frills in our buildings, no swimming pools, no auditoriums, and our secondary schools have only one gym and they are limited in size; only one regulation court in each gym.

The attached chart to the letter submitted shows that the people of Garden City voted these rations on their bond issues: 3.86 to 1, 2.89 to 1, 4.35 to 1, 5.43 to 1, and we just recently had another election in June for another $3,700,000, and the ratio is 5.27 to 1.

The people have been willing to vote all of the taxation that it is possible to vote in order to house their youngsters.

We are very grateful to the Congerss for passing Public Law 815. We certainly are deply appreciative of the Office of Education for the administration of the act. Certainly, if anything, the act should be broadened.

We received money under section 308, which is the 55 percent that you are supposed to get in addition to the 45 percent under section 305 (a) (3) because you have no industry. We have only one small industry that employs 400 people, Electro Mechanical Products. Approximately half of their work is Federal contract work.

The cost of construction of these buildings has been $751 per pupil. When you realize that under 305 (a) (3) the formula is $1,200 for Michigan, you can see that we have really taken care of the Federal funds as well as local bond issue money and gotten classrooms and facilities to house youngsters without any fads or frills. Your money is well spent.

Under Public Law 874 we received approximatley $61,000.

We believe that this law should be expanded so that these youngsters that means about half of our total enrollment was federally connected-should have some sort of support, certainly for several ears. We received money only 2 consecutive years. We hope that you will consider expansion rather than deletion of this law.

Garden City has these people migrating from out of Michigan, ut-State Michigan, and of course within the area. It is centrally ocated for many industries. There are literally hundreds of indus

tries south, north, and east of the city. These industries have Government contracts, like Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Corp., General Motors, and many subsidiary companies.

Chrysler, of course, has missile contracts at the present time. We expect not only the present contracts, but in case of an emergency you will have the legislation there ready to operate for other districts as Garden City under the present laws will not receive considerable amounts of Federal aid in the future because our major growth has been in the past.

We expect to grow from the present 9,800 to about 15,000 pupils. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present the case of Garden City.

Mr. BAILEY. Thank you very much for a presentation of your situation in the Garden City School District.

Do you have any additional comment, Mr. Lesinski?

Mr. LESINSKI. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say this: Mr. O'Leary was quite correct in his statement and that is not only Garden City, but other sections of my district likewise.

Michigan produces 20 percent of the steel of the Nation. It is centered in my district, meaning that the arsenal of democracy, which is Detroit, is actually in my district, and, as Mr. O'Leary pointed out, the area is growing tremendously. In 10 years' time some areas have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled in population, and again, as Garden City has done, other sections are doing the same thing. The people are willing and trying very diligently to pay the taxes to educate their children, but there are times when they just cannot afford to go any further, and I believe that Garden City is not the situation. in all my area, but is typical of many sections of our area.

We have Dearborn, which is a high tax base, but because it has Ford Motor Co. the individual taxpayer does not pay as much. Then we have Inkster, Garden City, Romulus, and so forth, whose tax base is very low and therefore these people really need help.

I appreciate this very much, Mr. Chairman. If you have any additional questions you would like to have us check on for you, we would like to help you.

Mr. BAILEY. The chairman is very mindful of the interest of the gentleman from Michigan in the matter of handling this school situation which is extremely burdensome in the area in and around Detroit. We appreciate your comments very much. The committee will take into consideration your problems.

Mr. LESINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it very

much.

Mr. BAILEY. I believe we have a gentleman from the State of Rhode Island.

Mr. Maine, are you ready to come forward and identify yourself to the reporter?

STATEMENT OF LEONARD L. MAINE, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, PORTSMOUTH, R.I.

Mr. MAINE. I am superintendent of schools for Portsmouth, R.I., a central district in the Newport, R.I. Naval Base.

I thank the chairman and this subcommittee for the privilege of representing the 21 federally impacted Rhode Island school districts.

I wish to protest the proposed changes in Public Laws 874 and 815 as are embodied in Secretary Flemming's recommendations relating

to H.R. 7140.

I do concur with the Secretary's position that the time is here for the Federal Government to assume responsibility for more Federal aid to education, particularly with regard to school construction.

I believe the Federal school construction aid should be on a debt service basis rather than aid only for new construction. After a study of Secretary Flemming's testimony, I prepared notes for refutation. I heard all the ground covered by my notes handled very strongly indeed by witnesses before the committee yesterday.

Rhode Island Representative John E. Fogarty has a prepared statement containing details of the Rhode Island situation. Therefore, I wish to aim my remarks at another target.

In his testimony yesterday, Representative Hagen of California inferred that the House did not expect to act on H.R. 7140 this session. If this is so, then present work might background congressional action next year when many of the provisions of this law need to be renewed. I therefore wish to call the attention of this committee to two inequities that exist.

Mr. BAILEY. Before you go into that, may the Chair say that the gentleman from California was speaking for himself alone in that statement and did not predicate his statement on any comments of the subcommittee.

Mr. MAINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I might say that as a superintendent from a district with problems, I worried a little less about the immediate future after I heard that statement.

Mr. BAILEY. Thank you very much for your observation.

Mr. MAINE. I wish to call the attention of the committee to the following:

1. The problems of districts facing diminishing impact under Public Law 874, of which there are two instances.

I might say that Senator Purtell introduced an amendment that may have partially corrected one of these difficulties. A growing district qualifies for funds, but its non-Federal growth is such that its federally connected number, although perhaps the same number of pupils, fluctuates around the over 3 percent necessary to qualify. Another example, a heavily impacted district suffers layoffs from Government work. The children become ineligible. The district suffers doubly. It suffers the loss of pay to workers in the district and it also may suffer the loss of Public Law 874 payments, but the children are still in the district because of Federal impact.

2. Under Public Law 815 it has been possible for a district to meet non-Federal growth requirements and also experience heavy Federal impact without these increases enabling the district to qualify for construction funds. This condition could be a result of uneven increases between cutoff dates connected with the application for funds. Where this happens, local taxpayers bear all the burden for school construction or all of the children of the district suffer for lack of facilities.

Such inequities as I have described could be discovered only as experience with Public Laws 874 and 815 take place.

I might ad lib here and say that I have had the privilege of testifying 9 or 10 times before House and Senate committees. I believe I have followed the development and needed changes in Public Laws 874 and 815 quite closely. I believe the renewal of our laws each 2 years after work by this subcommittee and adjusting the provisions of the laws to changing problems allows the laws to better meet the needs of the federally impacted school districts.

Finally, as representative of the federally impacted school districts of Rhode Island, I wish to express appreciation to this subcommittee for its long and careful attention to the problems faced by a school district in providing adequate schools for defense-connected personnel. Particularly do I refer to the sustained and dedicated services of Chairman Bailey to the boys and girls of these districts.

I have examined administrative reports relating to Public Laws 874 and 815 for evidence that West Virginia benefits in any considerable amount from these laws. I find none.

Mr. Chairman, I hope your experience and the experience of your subcommittee with Public Laws 874 and 815 will give you sufficient strength and competence to lead Congress to provide Federal aid in a general way to the public schools of the country who need it so desperately.

I thank you very much for the privilege of making this statement. Mr. BAILEY. The Chair appreciates your last comment most of all. Mr. MAINE. Thank you, Mr. Bailey.

Mr. BAILEY. I am glad to note that your interest is not only in this particular phase of the school legislation as contained in Public Laws 815 and 874, but you are interested in the general problem facing the Nation of finding adequate housing for our boys and girls regardless of what State they might be located in, and regardless of the Federal impact due to defense activities.

The Chair is of the opinion, Mr. Maine, that so long as our Armed Services Committee comes up every 2 or 3 years with a brandnew program of military construction and creates new bases of impact, it would be quite obvious that this legislation must continue in order to

meet the situation.

I can only speak for myself as a member of this committee, but we have to meet it and the chairman will be extra careful to see to it that the Government does not avoid any of its responsibility in this problem.

Thank you very much, Mr. Maine.

Mr. MAINE. I wonder what challenge to our laws will come next. It seems each year we get things thrown at our legislation that certainly don't hold water when we examine them against the principles that have been established by the work of your subcommittee.

Is it good for us to face these things in order to open up the problems, perhaps for improvement of the laws?

I notice my colleague from Garden City, Mich., mentioned section 305(a) (3) and section 308. I believe, as does he, about improvements in Public Law 815.

Perhaps these challenges give us a chance to renew the interest of Congress in our laws.

Mr. BAILEY At least it keeps you on your toes.

Mr. MAINE. That is right, Mr. Bailey.

Thank you very much.

Mr. BAILEY. Thank you very much.

Mr. Eater, superintendent of schools of Rantoul, Ill., and a school board member accompanies the gentleman.

Come forward and identify yourself.

STATEMENT OF J. W. EATER, SUPERINTENDENT, RANTOUL CITY SCHOOLS; ACCOMPANIED BY RALPH SCOTT, PRESIDENT, BOARD OF EDUCATION, RANTOUL, ILL.

Mr. EATER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce to you Mr. Ralph Scott, president of the board of education of the Rantoul city schools, who has accompanied me to this hearing, and I shall present the testimony.

Mr. BAILEY. Thank you.

Be seated, gentlemen.

May I say to the gentleman, please make your presentation brief because the chairman of the subcommittee is supposed to be before the Rules Committee on an important piece of labor legislation between now and 12 o'clock, so if you will be as brief as possible, I will appreciate it very much.

Mr. EATER. All right.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am J. W. Eater, superintendent of the Rantoul city schools, Rantoul, Ill. The board of education has asked me to express its appreciation for this opportunity to present these facts to your committee.

We are responsible for the elementary schools in the RantoulChanute Air Base community providing facilities and school programs for all public school students in that area.

My testimony is to be considered as opposed to the amendments proposed in H.R. 7140.

Largely, my remarks will pertain to the financial conditions in the Rantoul schools, but reference is also made to the problems of all applicant schools in Illinois.

In 1950, the first year of Public Law 874, 45 applicant schools had a net entitlement of $913,204.17, as compared to 84 applicant schools in 1957-58, with a net entitlement of $2,322,717.

In these 84 applicant districts, there were 12,782 eligible students, or 9.29 percent of the enrollment of all public schools in Illinois. These 84 districts had current expenditures of $40,253,481 and received $2,322,717 Federal funds, or 5.77 percent of their current operating budget.

The number of Federal students represents 15 percent of the total enrollment of these federally affected area schools. Therefore, even though 15 percent of the students in these districts are federally connected the payments under Public Law 874 represent only 5.77 percent of the entire budget of current operating expenses in these schools.

If the amendments to reduce the payments for students whose parents either live on or work on Federal property located within a school district where the children attend school are reduced from 50 percent of the local contribution rate to 40 percent of the local contribution rate and payments for students whose parents work on Federal property located in a district where the students do not attend school are