each application is determined on the basis of the ratio (expressed in percentage) of the number of children in the school district who are relocated to other facilities to the total membership of all schools in the district. Appropriations Section 16 of P.L. 815 and Section 7 of P.L. 874, both authorize the appropriation of funds for each fiscal year in the amounts necessary to carry out the provisions of these sections. While these appropriations are pending, the Commissioner is authorized, under P.L. 815, to use such funds appropriated under any other sections of the act as may be necessary for immediately providing disaster assistance under Section 16. Under P.L. 874, any funds appropriated to the Office of Education and at that time available to the Commissioner may be used for disaster assistance under Section 7. We are advised that the funds temporarily used may not include allotment or formula grant funds. During the years that disaster assistance has been provided, funds used have been those appropriated for Public Laws 815 and 874. No reimbursement for the funds used heretofore has been sought from the Congress. Subsequent to the 1974 Amendments, the Office has been reporting to the Congress funds obligated and expended for disaster aid under the authority contained in Section 7 of P.L. 874. Summary of Major Disaster Assistance Fiscal Years 1966-76 Between August 30, 1965, the effective date of disaster school assistance legislation, and September 30, 1976, 306 major disasters were declared, involving 44 States and 3 territories. School districts in 43 of these States and 2 territories have submitted 2,291 applications under Section 7 of P.L. 874 and 45 project applications under Section 16 of P.L. 815. To date a total of $122,535,733 has been authorized in payments for applications submitted to the Office of Education under Section 7 and $34,988,078 has been reserved under Section 16. During FY 1976, 46 separate major disasters were declared, involving 25 States and 2 territories. A total of 269 applications for assistance under Section 7 of P.L. 874 and no applications for school construction assistance under Section 16 of P.L. 815 were received in FY 1976. A total of $12,000,000 was authorized for payments to school districts during 1976 under Section 7 and $2,614,082 was reserved for applications under Section 16. Pinpoint Disaster Assistance The Comptroller General's opinion issued at the beginning of FY 1976 caused the Office of Education to reexamine its position with respect to implementation of the Pinpoint Disaster program. Final rules concerning the administration of pinpoint disaster aid were published November 17, 1976, and became effective some 30 days later. The Division has received some 265 requests for assistance mainly under Public Law 874. Two-hundred-four (204) of these requests are accompanied by State evaluations and governor's certifications of the need for assistance to fund these applications. Those applications determined eligible for assistance will be ranked in priority order with eligible major disaster applications and approved to the extent that funds are available. Eligible applications not funded initially will continue to compete on a priority basis with others for future funding. Administration of the pinpoint disaster program is obviously just getting underway, but we hope to be able to handle current requests while at the same time accommodating the elimination of any backlog of eligible districts resultinf from the recent policy determinations to fund retroactively. Mr. Chairman this concludes our prepared Statement on the Disaster Assistance Program. We shall be glad to have any questions which you or members of the Subcommittee care to present. Mr. STORMER. I will attempt to summarize the prepared statement by indicating both 874 and 815 public laws authorize major and pinpoint disaster assistance. A major disaster is one declared by the President under the authority of Public Law 93-288 and is of sufficient severity and scope and encompasses a rather large geographic area. Pinpoint disaster, although not referred to as pinpoint disaster in the law, is one which is an isolated instance where a school building is destroyed or severely damaged by a natural phenomenon. Assistance under Public Law 874, Section 7, provides for the minor repair to damaged facilities, the repair or replacement of equipment, materials and supplies which have been damaged or destroyed, the leasing or otherwise providing of temporary school facilities while permanent school facilities are either being repaired or replaced or reconstructed. In addition, operating costs may be provided when there is a loss of revenue due to the destruction by the disaster of tax valuation. In addition, assistance may be rendered to provide for the additional cost that a school district may incur due to the acceptance in the public schools of formerly non-public pupils whose facilities have been damaged or, destroyed and operations terminated. When we consider federal disaster assistance, we also look at the other federal, state and local resources that are available to assist in disaster recovery, including the insurance proceeds and interest earned on such proceeds which can be received due to the fact that recovery takes a longer time than usual. We may provide the assistance to maintain the level of education that was offered in the school district prior to the disaster. That assistance may be rendered over a period of five fiscal years. The year of the disaster and the year following would render 100 percent assistance. Subsequent years would diminish from 100 percent to 75, 50 and 25 percent. Under Public Law 815, under the provisions of major and pinpoint disaster assistance, it is the purpose of reconstructing a building which has been seriously damaged or destroyed as a result of the disaster. Generally under the major disaster provision the assistance is a grant to the school district to reconstruct the damaged school facilities. Under the pinpoint disaster assistance provision, as previously indicated in comments this morning, assistance is a loan to a school district. There are some 29 states which indicate that they may not accept a loan from the Federal governent, thus rendering the pinpoint disaster assistance under 815 a questionable vehicle for assistance to the local educational agency to recover from such a disaster. Assistance is provided on a priority basis when funds are not sufficient to cover the total scope of the cost of reconstruction. The priority under Section 7 of Public Law 874 is expressed as a ratio or percentage of Federal funds which the commissioner estimates the application is eligible for, compared to the total estimated current operating costs of the district, including the increased costs due to the major disaster. Under the provisions of Public Law 815, Section 16, the priority index, again expressed as a ratio, is a comparison of the number of children in the district who are relocated into other facilities compared to the total membership of all schools within the school district. Appropriations are available to render this assistance under Public Law 874. The money may come (as a result of the amendments of 1974) from any sources that are available to the commissioner at the time of the disaster, and a report is made to the Congress on a 30-day basis of the obligations and expenditures for assistance for both major and pinpoint disaster relief. Under Public Law 815 there is the authority for the commissioner to use from the P.L. 815 appropriation the money necessary to permit grants to be made to local educational agencies and the commissioner has the authority to file with the Congress a request for a supplemental appropriation to replace these monies. A summary of disaster assistance might be helpful. Since the beginning of the authorization in 1965, there have been some 306 major disasters declared in some 44 states and three territories. This has generated some 2200, almost 2300 applications under Section 7 of Public Law 874 and 45 project applications under Section 16 of Public Law 815. To date from 1965 through fiscal year 1976, the assistance rendered under Public Law 874 has been in excess of $122 million. Under Public Law 815 it has been in excess of $34 million. I should speak briefly at this point to the pinpoint disaster authorization. This was granted to the Office of Education by amendments to both P.L. 874 and 815 on January 2, 1968. From that period until the beginning of the fiscal year 1976, the Office of Education did not implement the pinpoint disaster authorization. On July 1st, 1975, the Comptroller General indicated to the Commissioner that there was no authority not to implement pinpoint disaster assistance and subsequently we have prepared regulations to implement these authorizations. To date we have 400 requests for pinpoint disaster assistance, mainly under P.L. 874. 333 of these are accompanied by State evaluations and the Governors' certifications that monies are required in order to provide assistance and to recover from these isolated or pinpoint disasters. The Office of Education currently is in process of implementing pinpoint disaster assistance for those which are currently on file and I might indicate the figure of 400, represents the requests for disaster assistance from July 1, 1975 to the current date. We are in the mode of preparing a notification to local educational agencies that we will accept applications retroactively to reflect assistance for disasters which may have occurred back to January of 1968. We anticipate that by November or December we would have an appraisal of what that backlog really is instead of our estimate. Mr. QUIE. Where do you get your authority to go back to 1968? Mr. STORMER. This has been a debate between the Office of Education and the Office of the Comptroller General and the Department as to whether or not we could arbitrarily set a date. We arbitrarily had set a date of July 1, 1975, the date of the Comptroller General's opinion. We considered that as the beginning date but, according to counsel and GAO, we did not have the authority to set that arbitrary date and we must go back to the date of authorization. Mr. QUIE. I am glad you did. Chairman PERKINS. I should have recognized Dr. William Duncan, Supervising Principal of Highland Falls for his testimony. Without objection, your prepared statement will be inserted in the record. [The prepared statement of Dr. Duncan follows:] HIGHLAND FALLS-FORT MONTGOMERY CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT HIGHLAND FALLS, NEW YORK 10928 DR. WILLIAM F. DUNCAN, SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELEMENTARY, SECONDARY, AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1977 |