We pay overtime occasionally, because of special events and emergencies. Of course, there is no way to avoid that; we pay overtime with respect to court time, off duty court time.

But we are not at this time working any substantial number of men at all overtime. We have no ongoing overtime program at this time, have not had, I guess, for nearly a year.

Mr. CABELL. Would you call the year 1971, the fiscal year, a very unusual year?

Chief WILSON. Calendar year 1971 was an unusual year in terms of overtime, Mr. Chairman.

We had a number of demonstrations which ran up a heavy overtime bill.

Mr. CABELL. I note your overtime during that period was very high, almost $4 million. (See p. 28.)

Chief WILSON. I dare say most all of that was for the May Day event, and the demonstrations during that period.

POLICE-COMMUNITY RELATIONS

Mr. CABELL. Just as a general question, I'll ask the same question of the Fire Chief-do you find an improvement in the general public attitude toward your personnel?

If I may clarify that, there was a period here, it was typical all over the country, in which the police and the fire fighters, were heartily abused, were just low men on the totem pole for certain classes of our citizenry.

Have you made an improvement in that situation?

Chief WILSON. Certainly, Mr. Chairman. If you go back to the period, it's hard to define accurately, but in 1966, 1967, 1968, perhaps 1969, there was a great deal of anti-police feeling, very loud, very boisterous, a great deal of it from a wide range of the community.

I don't think, really, in the last two years, at least, that I've heard any anti-police rhetoric that I would take seriously locally. At least substantially less of it is heard even nationally, certainly locally; I quite frankly would be hard pressed to remember the last time I heard anyone speak out against the police in a manner which would concern

me.

Mr. CABELL. That would certainly be my observation. There's a far better general relationship between your personnel and the general public.

I think a lot of the credit goes to your personnel, and their general attitude.

Chief WILSON. I think there have been changes on both sides, Mr. Chairman, for the better.

Mr. CABELL. It's certainly been for the better. I repeat what I said; I think a great deal of that improvement has come about through the improvement in the attitude of the uniformed forces themselves; a much warmer, more human type of association with the general public. I think that is certainly worthy of commendation, it not only saves you trouble, it saves the general public a lot of trouble. Mr. Broyhill, do you have any questions?

PAY NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. BROYHILL. Mr. Watt, you said in your statement that you had reached an agreement with the representatives of the Police and Firemen's Associations.

Mr. WATT. That's correct, yes, sir.

Mr. BROYHILL. And the bill H.R. 12710 includes all the terms of your agreement?

Mr. WATT. Except for the issue of the retroactive pay, which is provided in the Bill, but not part of the agreement.

Mr. BROYHILL. In reading your statement-I apologize for not being here at the time you presented it-you refer to the Pay Board's decision.

In regard to the imposition of the wage and price controls which came into being after you started your negotiation, I have a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding (see p. 42) which was signed by the Chief of the Pay Systems and Labor Relations, and by the officers' representatives in the Police and Firemen's associations. It says the first phase would take effect on January 1, 1972; the second phase on October 1, 1972, unless the pay raise was granted for the classified employees.

In this event, the second phase would take effect July 1, 1972; that's what H.R. 12710 does.

Mr. Watt, my understanding, in reading this statement, is that your objection to that is the lack of money with which to pay it. Or do you think it is not warranted?

Mr. WATT. The problem comes about as a result of the imposition of the economic stabilization actions. The, agreement that was negotiated and agreed to in late calendar 1971, anticipated that we would be in a position as we normally are, to promptly present to this Congress a pay bill which we would initiate, and the Congress would act promptly upon it because it has been, since 1969, that pay increases were granted to fire and police employees, and that a January 1, 1972 effective date was considered to be a prospective date, and not a retroactive date.

Now, what happened was that the impact of the economic stabilization policies forced us, first of all, to go to the Cost of Living Council to state an exemption of the provisions of the wage freeze. That exemption was denied. That took time.

Then it became necessary for us to prepare a submission to the Pay Board, which was prepared and submitted in April. That is now before the Pay Board, as I have indicated, and we are hopeful that action upon that request for an exception to the 5.5 guidelines we'll be taking very shortly.

But, had we proceeded in a normal fashion, or had we been able to anticipate--and I don't believe that anybody could-that there would be a wage freeze that would be followed then by the establishment and the controls on wages which now exist. Certainly, then, that would have been recognized in the negotiations, in the memorandum.

Mr. BROYHILL. In your statement, you made a very strong case for this pay adjustment, in the interests of fairness, equity, and competition with police and fire departments in other cities. I think this was a very effective presentation.

Mr. WATT. Thank you, sir. We sought to do that.

FUNDING THE LEGISLATION

Mr. BROYHILL. Yet, you say there's a Board downtown which has been created, and that we haven't gotten through this problem as we should have.

At least you say it that way. I say we should have gotten through with that. Time has passed, time during which we didn't put the increased sales tax into effect. Regardless of this Pay Board downtown, this case which you have so effectively represented is not as meritorious as it would be if we had taken action back in December, when we didn't have the Pay Board downtown.

Am I saying this correctly, Mr. Watt?

Mr. WATT. I think we can say, Mr. Broyhill, that the increase which we proopse is fully justified in December; it was justified in January. We have pursued the requirements, we have followed the requirements that have been imposed upon us, as they have been imposed upon private employers. We're unique in this situation, we do have to submit these proposals to the Pay Board: we have urged the Pay Board to expedite its consideration of our request.

The fact is, however, that we cannot come before this Committee with a recommendation which we are unable to finance. The Chairman of this subcommittee has said previously that the Federal pocket is empty. We believe him.

So, we come before you with a proposal, and with a means of financing that proposal, which is an increase in the sales tax. There is no way that a sales tax increase can be imposed retroactively. There's no way we can derive revenue from the sales tax which would pay salary increases retroactively, a month, three months or six months.

So in order to present to a proposal which is fiscally responsible, we have got to say, and we say it honestly and believe it, that we would urge quick action by the Congress on the pay increase, and that they be made effective virtually immediately, the first pay period following the effective date of the legislation.

Even that will require that we develop some subordinate financing because the enactment of pay increases, change in sales tax rates, currently, hopefully, the same legislation will produce no additional revenue for this city, no dollars in the till, until 60 to 90 days later.

In the meantime, we have committed ourselves and do commit ourselves to paying the increased wages for a period of two and a half to three months. We recognize what we are assuming there in the way of additional financial obligations for which even a sales tax will not provide the funding.

Mr. BROYHILL. I'm not going to quarrel with you regarding your fiscal problem, or your desire of exercising fiscal responsibility. I don't think the District government would ever be chastised by the Congress for practicing that particular policy.

But recognizing that we have this problem, and that we need to resolve it in order to assure good police and fire protection, the failure of the District government, or failure on the part of the Congress, to get at this problem in time past

Mr. CABELL. Will the gentleman yield to me, Mr. Broyhill?

Mr. BROYHILL. Certainly.

Mr. CABELL. I'll put the blame squarely on the laps of the City

government.

77-73672- 8

I'll tell you why. When we completed our revenue bill last year, and gave an authorization for two years, authorization for the ensuing year, to stop this business of saying well, Congress is derelict, they're dilatory in providing the funds and the authorization. We said, okay, here's an authorization for the following year as well.

Included in the authorizations for last year were pay increases for the large portion of the municipal employees, classified employees. This Committee, and also the conference committee when we conferred with the Senate, had the distinct understanding, they said you're going to have to make some adjustments in the police and fire; now, where are you going to get that? You were reported as advising "We'll take care of that with sales tax." The assumption was that that would be enacted by the first of this year. Then you would be building a little backlog. But there hasn't been anything done on that because you have sent us no such proposal. I'm not going to let the monkey go on the back of the Congress this time, because the derelict tactics were with the City government, not with this Committee, not with this Committee of the House which has the job of authorizing the expenditures for these increases.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, there's no problem, as I said, of a monkey on anyone's back. We have in draft form legislation which we would propose to this Committee.

This not our bill, incidentally; we have legislation which we would propose to this committee, at such time as we are authorized to submit it, which will provide for the increases for police and fire employees, and the increase in the sales tax in the same legislation.

Mr. BROYHILL. You mean the bill you will propose is different from this, and would meet the objectives as you discussed in your presentation?

Mr. WATT. Yes, sir.

Mr. BROYHILL. It would meet the objective of improving the D.C. police and fire departments' competitive position in regard to those in other large cities, as well as with classified and other government employees?

Mr. WATT. With pay increases which are proposed on this bill

Mr. BROYHILL. Why did you sign this memorandum of understanding with the Police and Fire associations, if their proposals went further than these objectives you're talking about?

Mr. WATT. There's no reference to that memorandum of understanding, sir, to the freeze or the wage controls; they were not part of the bargaining consideration.

Mr. BROYHILL. I'm not trying to press the blame on the Congress or on the City government, but it takes the blame off the shoulders of the police and firemen, who are the victims of this delay, and should not be penalized by our not getting to this legislation.

RETROACTIVITY

There's nothing unusual about retroactivity. We've had retroactive pay bills here time and time again. Apparently your objection to that is the financial problem, not the retroactivity per se.

Mr. WATT. We have no way of financing a retroactive pay bill, Mr. Broybill; therefore we cannot endorse such a pay bill.

Mr. BROYHILL. But there's nothing unusual about retroactive pay for policemen, firemen, schoolteachers, classified employees; we've had such increases time and time again.

I know you have a problem of financing, and it's obvious that something is going to have to be done in that direction. But certainly we can raise the money for retroactive pay, as certainly as we can for prospective pay.

I appreciate your pride in the Pay Board as an official of the District Government, and as a part of this Administration. But, actually, increases in classified Federal employees' pay was not done with the approval of the Pay Board.

Congress acted independently in that regard. The Federal Pay Board could not enact this pay bill; it could merely say they like it or dislike it, that its provisions are in accord with the guidelines or they are not. Congress is going to have to act, so I don't think this Committee should hold back, waiting for the tail to wag the dog, when we didn't wait for any such reason in respect to other pay legislation. After all, this legislation seeks only to keep up with that legislation.

Mr. WATT. The Cost of Living Council has determined that the goverment of the District of Columbia is subject to the conditions of the Economic Stabilization Act; therefore we must go with the guidelines.

Therefore, we cannot come to this Congress with the proposal until it has first been through the Pay Board process. So, we are here testifying upon legislation which has been introduced. It is not our bill, though it is substantially similiar to the bill, except for the effective date of the pay increases, and except for the fact that this bill does not provide within it any means of financing the pay increases.

You will recall the great confusion and in some respects, I suppose, dissension, which has resulted in a number of cases where in good faith collective bargaining in the private sector has been impacted by actions of the Cost of Living Council.

PROPOSED SALES TAX INCREASES

Mr. BROYHILL. Are you recommending an increase in the sales tax at the present time, to pay for this?

Mr. WATT. That's the only means of financing it that we have that we can in good faith propose to this Congress.

Mr. BROYHILL. Are you proposing it now?

Mr. WATT. Yes, sir.

Mr. BROYHILL. How much of an increase?

Mr. WATT. Depending upon the amount of increases granted to employees.

Mr. BROYHILL. You have not figured out the amount of sales tax increase necessary to finance this?

Mr. WATT. If the Pay Board grants the exception for which we have applied, and we are then able to come to you and say, the level of salaries proposed in this legislation which is before is that which we recommend, the cost of the annual basis of phases one and two would be approximately $20 million, in order to raise that would be the 1973 cost, fiscal 1973 cost, with the second phase becoming effective July 1 of 1973.