difficulty of the District of Columbia to retain able administrators. I can supply a copy of that for the record at the conclusion of this

session.

Mr. ABERNETHY. We don't want to get into the Washington Post here this morning. Would changing the District Government from a Board of three Commissioners whose edicts come as a result of a majority vote to a single Commissioner solve the thing that Mr. Mathias referred to?

Mr. DONOHUE. I haven't seen the morning Post.

Mr. ABERNETHY. Let us leave the Washington Post out of this, and we will leave the Star and the Daily News out, also.

Mr. MATHIAS. Let us not discriminate against the Daily News.

Mr. ABERNETHY. We will leave out all the press. Seriously, do these administrative problems become more easily resolved by shifting the government of the District of Columbia from a three-member Board of Commissioners to a single Commissioner?

Mr. DONOHUE. All I can say is I served as a member of a three-man Board of Commissioners and it was a happy Board and I think we carried out our responsibilities to the District of Columbia to the best of our ability, and I believe in the status quo until we can get something better.

Mr. ABERNETHY. Do you feel you might have done a better job with a strong single Commissioner, or that you did a better job with the advice and counsel of two other members?

Mr. DONOHUE. I have no hesitancy in saying I did better because I had two good men at my side.

Mr. ABERNETHY. You view this idea of bringing an outside man in as a serious problem?

Mr. DONOHUE. You wouldn't want to do it in your own community, would you?

Mr. ABERNETHY. I don't think I would.

Mr. DONOHUE. And I don't like it.

Mr. ABERNETHY. I am not suggesting that the people here are not informed, because I think they are, but do you think they have thought much about the fact that this single Commissioner might be from a couple thousand miles away?

Mr. DONOHUE. You see, the problem here as opposed to 1952, the opposition to the proposed reorganization plan for a Mayor and a City Council in 1952 was led by the Board of Commissioners and resulted in the President's accepting a plan submitted by the Board of Commissioners. In 1967 nobody seems to care. Now, why, I don't know. I think if there were leadership that there would be more people sitting next to me. I am apparently sitting alone but I have sat alone before. Mr. ABERNETHY. Mr. Donohue, one final point. You have expressed your opinion this morning regarding an elected council, an appointed Governor, and maybe sometime in the future an elected Governor or an elected official of some kind for the District. Now, consider the 50 States, having the tremendous interest in the District of Columbia that they have, and with the only real genuine business in the District of Columbia being the Federal Government, and that being the thing that built this city and with the tremendous national investment here in properties and buildings and with the activities carried on by the various agencies of government for and on behalf of the people in all the 50 States, you are not suggesting, as I understand you, that the

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Federal Government should remove itself from all authority or jurisdiction over the management of this federal community?

Mr. DONOHUE. May I read one line from the Act of Congress of 1871: "All acts of the legislature are subject to repeal or modification by the Congress." This, of course, is a recognition that the Congress of the United States can never give up its responsibility as the exclusive legislative authority for the District of Columbia.

Mr. ABERNETHY. And would you add should never give up its responsibility? You said it can never give up its responsibility.

Mr. DONOHUE. Yes, I would say it should never, of course, because the only justification for the existence of the District of Columbia is the convenience of the Federal Government, and I knew that when I came here and surrendered my rights as a citizen of the State of Massachusetts.

Mr. ABERNETHY. Any further questions?

Mr. MULTER. Mr. Donohue, there is nothing in the President's reorganization plan or in this bill that any way takes away the Congressional legislative authority in dealing with the District of Columbia. Even if this bill were passed, the Congress retains full authority to legislate as fully as before it passes.

Mr. DONOHUE. There is nothing you can do with regard to Reorganization Plan No. 3 other than accept or reject it.

Mr. MULTER. But there is nothing in this bill that takes away or attempts to take away the legislative responsibility the Congress has in dealing with the District of Columbia.

Mr. DONOHUE. You said in 1878 we would be governed by three Commissioners. The reorganization plan says we should be governed by a Governor and a nine-man City Council. It is not the same thing. Anyone who would compare an appointed city councilman in the District of Columbia with a appointed city councilman in the City of New York should have his head examined because the powers of the Commissioner would be transferred to the City Council and the powers are so limited that even though there are 432 in number they will have the power to set up how much the District Government would pay for the funeral of an indigent.

Mr. MULTER. May I suggest the City of New York and its City Council, which is elected, has only such legislative jurisdiction as is given to it by the State Legislature under the State Constitution, and under this bill and under this bill plan, all we do with the City Council and the Commissioner is to give them that legislative jurisdiction already ceded by the Congress and not one whit more.

Mr. DONOHUE. That is what I say, it would be negligible.

Mr. MULTER. There is nothing in the plan or in this bill that takes away from the President the right to appoint a Special Assistant for District Affairs. Do you suggest we legislate against that?

Mr. DONOHUE. No. That is a choice I think the President should be able to make.

Mr. NELSEN. Reference was made to the substructure of the City Government. It has been suggested to me that there is little coordination of planning and that when a plan has been agreed to, one or several of the outside independent agencies expect a roadblock with the result that execution of a desirable project is stymied for too long. Is it your feeling that the Commissioners could, within their authority, correct

the problem or do you think there are some areas that this committee should clarify by a reorganization?

Mr. DONOHUE. I am sorry I can't give an intelligent answer. It has been 15 years since I have been associated with the District Government and I could only testify on the basis of rumor and that I would not want to do.

Mr. ABERNETIIY. Any further questions?

Thank you very much, Mr. Donohue. You have been very helpful. Mr. DONOHUE. Thank you.

Mr. ABERNETHY. Our next witness is Mr. Merrill J. Collett, President of Executive Management Service, Inc.

Mr. Collett, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF MERRILL J. COLLETT, PRESIDENT, EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT SERVICE, INC., ARLINGTON, VA.

Mr. COLLETT. In response to the invitation of your staff I am happy to testify on the President's reorganization proposal for the District of Columbia Government.

I would like to interject here that I do not consider myself able or an expert on the subject of what procedure or manner this proposal is considered within the Congress.

First, I should like to correct an impression which you may have gained as a result of hearings elsewhere on this subject. Regarding what has been made to appear a mysterious "Collett Report" on the basic structure of the District Government, there is no such report. A year ago the Bureau of the Budget was committed in the President's D.C. Budget Message to assist the District Government in its management and cost reduction program. As a first step, and at the request of Mr. Elmer B. Staats, then Deputy Director, I undertook a reconnaissance of management improvement in the District of Columbia Government. This study resulted in a series of discussion draft memoranda which in no way dealt with the Organic Act and the basic structure of the District.

However, as a result of that reconnaissance, and supplemented by facts gained during subsequent contracts directly with the District Government, I came to the conclusion that a separation of policy and executive functions and the creation of a single executive for the District of Columbia is imperative.

People speak of the Government of the District of Columbia as though it were a city. In reality it combines the functions of a city, county, and State. In 32 years of experience which has taken me into many cities, counties, and States, the Federal Government, and governments in the Caribbean and Latin America, I have never seen a governmental structure so conducive to delays in decisions, to inability to pin responsibility for those decisions, and to indecisiveness in translating those decisions into effective operational reality.

Administratively, the District of Columbia is a District of Chaos. Under the ground rules affecting his term of office any civilian Commissioner deserves public commendation, as an "uncommon man", for willingness to accept this kind of load in the public interest, and any Engineer Commissioner a commendation for hazardous service.

If business men had to run their organizations under the conditions the District of Columbia is run, they would declare bankruptcy early.

Competitors would have been able to preempt favorable marketing sites in the surrounding counties, to sew up new product lines and services, to make price adjustments in meeting market conditions, and to install new technical and administrative devices in cutting costs while these business men had been stalled. Their businesses would have been run by three executives with equal authorities. These three-headed executives would have had to delay company action, after finally reaching decisions, as they awaited initial approval of its plans from an inter-company directorate. Their businesses could not have kept up. And in referring to an inter-company directorate, I have reference to the National Capital Planning Commission.

Regarding the effect of the D.C. structure on delays in policy deci sions, several examples are available.

A three-headed executive must seek unanimity of agreement if at all possible in order to live together and work out policies which can be executed by related actions of the several Departments and agencies. Especially is this so since, though Commissioners are individually responsible for operations of several Departments, the policies governing the functions and basic organization of each Department are decided by the entire Board. Personalities and other conflicts result in delays. On one occasion the warring between members of the Board of Commissioners resulted in such a stagnation of operations that a President of the United States found it necessary to order the Engineer Commissioner to vote with one of the civilian Commissioners to ensure the conduct of business by the District of Columbia government. Recently, only the deadline itself broke a four-month deadlock in an application for Federal planning funds. The necessity for constant consensus seeking by the same three equals on policies governing administrative operations for which they are individually responsible, the decisions of which they will thus be reminded daily, inevitably results in delaying, even putting off altogether, decisions containing major irritants.

Yet the reality of troika administration requires that the Board organize for policy-making on the basis of consensus operations. Changes of assignment and new assignments among the Board members have to be agreed upon unanimously. Consequently, the Board as a whole is charged with responsibility for reviewing the activities or recommendations of ten special purpose or advisory committees, forms the majority administrative direction of the D.C. Unemployment Compensation Board, and has budgetary review over three local boards. Individually, members of the Board serve on 17 other policymaking boards or commissions, such as the National Capital Housing Authority Board, Zoning Commission, Public Utilities Commission, National Capital Planning Commission, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Board, Joint Board of Traffic, and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. If there were a policy Council, this representation load would be distributed among the members.

Yet, in addition to this kind of load arising from their policy role, the present three-member Board of Commissioners has heavy administrative responsibilities. Each member is expected to exercise administrative direction over from four to ten District departments, offices and boards. Each member reviews the activities or recommendations

of from five to ten special purpose or advisory committees. Each member has budgetary review responsibility over significant agencies or boards, such as the District Courts and the Juvenile Court, the Washington Aqueduct, the Public Service Commission, and the Boards of Education, Libraries, and Recreation.

What is the result? Time demands on the Board of Commissioners are such that its members cannot possibly have the time needed for adequate public discussion and policy-making.

Another example of delays in decisions involves appointments to key positions. Carrying its troika characteristics on policy-making over into administrative actions, the Board of Commissioners as a whole approves every appointment to a position at Grade 14 ($15,106) or above in the District departments and agencies over which it has control. These positions are three and four levels down in the hierarchy. The effect of delays at the top is merely heightened in the lower reaches of the District Government structure by the fact that there is no one single employment system in the District. Five systems are used to select employees and place them on the payroll.

A third example of structure creating delays in decisions involves the program planning process. As of today there is no central policy development staff in the District Government. Even if there were, it would face all of the problems inherent in a tri-headed direction and support which have been faced by the Director, Department of General Administration for the past 15 years. I shall comment more on this later.

Planning for physical plant and facilities in the District of Columbia is considered within the context of the six-year capital program, and follows that procedure.

Coordination of planning for services to the people is largely restricted to programs provided through certain new Federal grants. Rather than guiding program development, social requirements are generally marshalled to support the annual budget request, and follow that procedure.

Because there is no organized and regular coordination of physical and social plans in the District Government and the public hearings and National Capital Planning Commission reviews of physical plans and facilities are unrelated in point of time to the appropriation requests, an added burden is placed on the Congress.

This lack of relationship between planning and operational responsibilities and between civilian and military accountability is demonstrated by the Board assignments themselves. All members of the Board of Commissioners serve on the Zoning Commission and the National Capital Housing Authority Board, both very important functions and therefore sensitive to D.C. residents. The President of the Board acts as Chairman of the Board of the National Capital Housing Authority. The subject of landlord-tenant relations is split, however, the Engineer Commissioner being responsible for housing inspections and the whole Board being responsible for policies on tenant evictions. The Engineer Commissioner is Chairman of the Zoning Commission and is the Board representative on the Public Service Commission. He also represents the District Government on other bodies vitally important to District affairs, such as the National Capital Planning Commission. The sum of this is that the Engineer