of cities, CAA's other nonprofit organizations, and occasionally states, but barely a mention of counties. At the present time, approximately 1100 counties administer public assistance programs and social services' programs for poor people. It is estimated that almost 70 percent of this nation's public assistance caseloads are locally administered. Only a handful of cities share this responsibility. In my own county alone (Los Angeles County, California) we have budgeted $1.4 billion during this fiscal year for public assistance programs. If welfare reform legislation providing for federal administration of income maintenance programs is enacted, we expect that counties will still have a major role in providing expanded social and human services. In fact, the number of counties administering social services probably will increase in the years to come. Counties also are very heavily involved in health care (mostly for poor people) and environmental health. Our responsibilities in many states include sharing in the cost of providing medicaid assistance. In Los Angeles County, we administer 15 hospitals containing 6,808 beds and we are about to open another 394 bed hospital (Martin Luther King, Jr. General Hospital) costing $31 million. My associates also can cite figures illustrating their counties' heavy involvement in health care. In addition, counties are responsible for a wide range of other human services such as juvenile delinquency services and facilities, correctional and rehabilitation programs, day-care programs, narcotics and drug abuse programs, and nutritional programs including food stamps (counties in California pay the administrative costs). Like cities, our direct involvement in administering federally-assisted manpower and training programs has only been going for a few years in most of our counties. As this Subcommittee is fully aware, most of the federally-assisted manpower and training programs have been administered by CAA's and other private, nonprofit organizations. However, we want to point out that 360 counties were named as program agents under the Emergency Employment Act (compared to only 240 cities). While detailed evaluations of the PEP program have yet to appear, the preliminary evaluations from Department of Labor officials indicate considerable satisfaction with the performance of county program agents. In a back-handed compliment, William Mirengoff, Administrator of PEP, said in Sacramento, California last week that, "counties have performed at least as well as states and cities." Despite misgivings of some Washington wags, there has been no wholesale corruption, nor have there been floundering delays. Acting under an almost unbelievable timetable imposed by the Department of Labor, the program was implemented rapidly. In addition to our traditional responsibilities for administering human service's programs complimentary to manpower programs, we believe Congress should look closely at several other facts. Elected county policy makers are elected from the entire county and are representative of all the citizens in the county, including its municipalities. Elected county officials have to be just as responsive to municipal problems within their county as mayors and city councilors. The broad geographical base of counties often provides a natural labor market. It should be noted that 110 of the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas are single county SMSA's. Even in many multi-county metropolitan areas, the county provides the only realistic political means for matching manpower training programs with suburban job opportunities. Counties have an areawide tax base to finance public services. Congress may decide some day that manpower programs, like other human services programs, should not be financed almost entirely from federal funds. Many cities with their declining tax bases would not be in a position to continue many of these programs. It would seem prudent policy to start now to encourage the entire area, and especially the suburbs, to share in these responsibilities and costs. We believe all of this makes a strong case for giving county governments a strong and visible role in planning, coordinating and administering manpower and public service jobs programs. MANPOWER SPECIAL REVENUE SHARING Last year, the National Association of Counties adopted a policy supporting the Administration's proposed Manpower Special Revenue Sharing proposal with certain amendments. The following position was adopted by NACO and is still the organization's official policy: The National Association of Counties strongly supports the Our major concern with the special manpower revenue sharing proposal is in the distribution of funds. The formula distribution of funds to cities, counties and the balance of states would be determined according to each unit's proportional share of the nation's work force, unemployment and adult poverty, equally weighted, subject to a limitation on the amount of increase any eligible jurisdiction could receive over the level of funding obligated during the three previous fiscal years (1969, 1970, and 1971). The limitation on the amount of increase would be no more than double the average increase for all units combined under the FY 1969-71 base. Since the average increase would be about 25 percent, a limitation of 50 percent over the base would be applied to all units. The We believe there is a fallacy in determining the base for eligible cities. The bill seems to assume that the funds expended during FY 1969-71 within cities under the MDTA and EOA Acts are administered by city governments. city gets credit for all the funds expended by private, nonprofit agencies located within the city. As you will know, neither the city nor the county directly administered most of these manpower programs. In the Los Angeles area, the Economic and Youth Opportunities Agency (CAA) subcontracted part of its manpower funds to both the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles. While Los Angeles County subcontracted for almost six times as much as the city, the special manpower revenue sharing formula would credit the entire amount to the City of Los Angeles. Yet the facts of the three previous years of funding are as follows: Under the formula distribution, Los Angeles County would receive $12.5 Comparing million whereas the City of Los Angeles would receive $40.9 million. populations, 1 million people live in the City limits while 6 million people live outside the City in Los Angeles County. |