Mr. THOMAS. $31 million came from the Corps of Engineers? Governor PETERSON. That's right, and we will spend five or a little more before we get through, so that will make approximately $36,500,000.

Mr. THOMAS. What is the amount now available as of the first of January of this year?

Governor PETERSON. $3,116,000 as of today.

CALIFORNIA FLOODS

Mr. THOMAS. Have you cleaned up the California situation? Governor PETERSON. No; that California situation is going to cost more money because in part of that area we had a bad break. There was a second period of very high rainfall and some of the temporary work we did following the first one

Mr. THOMAS. This week now

Governor PETERSON. So some of the work that we did following Christmas time has since gone out in the rains last week, so we don't know what the total is going to be.

Mr. THOMAS. What the situation actually amounts to is this, as of today, you have in round figures, $3 million. You are right in your heavy period when most of these floods and disasters happenJanuary, February, March, and April—and no one knows what the situation will be. You may not need $5 million; you may not need ten or twenty-five, but on the other hand you may need fifty. If you do not need it, you are not going to spend the money. It remains appropriated until expended.

Governor PETERSON. That is correct.

Mr. THOMAS. Briefly, that is the situation.

ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS

What about your administrative costs now?

Governor PETERSON. I would like to

Mr. THOMAS. It might be well, Mr. Reporter, to insert pages 2, 4, 5, 10, 11 and 12 in the record at this point.

(The pages referred to are as follows:)

DISASTER RELIEF, EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

The disaster relief program has the following major objectives:

$25, 000, 000

1. Provide a continuing means of assistance by the Federal Government to State and local governments to alleviate suffering and damage resulting from major natural disasters.

2. Provide a coordinated means of immediate assistance when a disaster is imminent.

3. Provide financial assistance for emergency necessary protection needs, public health measures, emergency repair and temporary replacement of essential public facilities, temporary housing, provision of Federal surplus property and funds as required by the nature of the disaster.

BASIS OF ESTIMATE

This supplemental request of $25 million is necessary at this time because the current level of the Disaster Relief Appropriation is insufficient to adequately handle possible future disasters. The recent series of flood disasters which have occurred in the northeastern States have seriously depleted the disaster appropriation and in view of past history, replenishment of the fund is required. Last fiscal year, in the period from December 1, 1954, until June 30, 1955, this administration allocated approximately $5 million for disasters such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, or fires. The balance in the disaster fund as of December 31, 1955, was

approximately $5 million.

In addition to this request for funds, the Corps of Engineers is also requesting funds to replace appropriations used to cope with the flood damage in the northeastern States. Their estimate requests approximately 31.6 million. This administration has agreed with the corps, that should total costs exceed the estimate of 31.6 million, FCDA would reimburse such excess costs from the disaster fund.

To indicate the severity and type of disasters that are administered by this agency, the current situation in Oregon and California can be used as an example. From the total of $5 million previously mentioned, $1 million has already been allocated to California. The last year's experience, previously stated, did not

include a disaster of this dimension during the month of December. Most of the funds allocated were in the period February through June.

The cost of administration of the numerous disasters has increased substantially in the past few years. To handle the many types of widely scattered disasters, this administration has established a permanent disaster office at the national headquarters. In addition to the permanent employees, temporary employees are used during and immediately following a disaster. To illustrate the magnitude of a typical disaster, during the northeastern flood 337 political subdivisions were affected in one State alone. The vast scope of the problem requires personnel to render the required assistance. After the actual on-site operations are completed the temporary staff are released and the regular staff handles the administrative work caused by the disaster. Applications must be reviewed and audited. These may be done from information submitted or may require on-site audits. The requested increase in personnel will enable us to reduce the current backlog of work and process and approve applications with little or no delay. At the regional offices, 7 fulltime engineers and 7 clerks will be employed. These employees are merely a cadre and are augmented by temporary and national headquarters staff during a disaster. The regional Office staffs are deployed to cover a disaster in any part of the United States regardless of regional boundaries; however, for the mop-up operations engineers assigned to the region in which the disaster occurred are utilized.

It is believed that this nucleus of disaster personnel augmented by regular civil-defense personnel and part-time employees constitutes the most efficient method of handling natural disasters. Experience has shown that upward to 100 temporary employees may be employed for a single natural disaster. These temporary employees are not estimated in the preceding tables. The amounts shown represent only the going cost of administration.

Current estimates of funds available indicate that 2 percent administrative allowance in the law will not be sufficient for the long-range permanent staff that must be established. Therefore, there is included with this estimate, a provision to change the present administrative expense authorization to 4 percent.

Mr. THOMAS. You want to step up employment from 10 to 30 positions?

Governor PETERSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. At a cost of $218,027, which is an increase of $138,461 for salaries and your other objects. You mean to say your other objects will remain the same here?

Governor PETERSON. No.

OTHER OBJECTS OF EXPENSE

Mr. THOMAS. Your travel will increase from $35,000 to $60,000 or an increase of $25,000.

Communications services will increase $10,000 to $40,000.

Your other contractural services jump to $5,000 which is an increase of $2,000.

Supplies and materials increased $2,000 which will bring the total to $3,000.

So your increase in other objects will be $39,000.

Governor PETERSON. May I make just one comment there, Mr. Chairman? We have attempted to handle this disaster work by using our regular personnel and of course we use our regular communications facilities because this is excellent training for civil defense. It gives real meaning to our program in peacetime.

However, we find this, that these disasters have come so thick and so fast and have been so extensive in their results that in an attempt to absorb this work with our regular personnel, we have neglected some of our other work and, in fact, we have not had enough personnel to do the job with the expedition that would be desirable. I am thinking now of auditing, checking vouchers, and that sort of thing. We need engineers out in the field. So this, I think, is a rather reasonable increase that we are requesting from 2 percent to 4 percent, to permit us to cover these items of expenditure that you have enumerated for the record.

We want to continue to do this just as far as we can with our immediate regular personnel because of the training features.

Mr. THOMAS. Where are these people domiciled, in your main office?

Governor PETERSON. Some of them are in the Battle Creek office and others are in the regional offices. We have seven regional offices

and are spreading these people between those regional offices and

our

Mr. THOMAS. We are going to your regional office in your regular budget. But when did you set up those regional offices?

Governor PETERSON. We have had regional offices since 1951. This implementation for purposes of handling national disasters has grown since last year.

EXPENDITURES BY THE RED CROSS IN NORTHEASTERN FLOOD AREA

Mr. EVINS. Governor Peterson, in order that we may have for the record the full picture, you have indicated $31 million expended by the Corps of Engineers and $5 million expended from the disaster relief fund, a total of $36 million in the East. How much was expended by the American Red Cross in this area, if you have that figure?

Governor PETERSON. I will correct it for the record but I think it was in the neighborhood of $16 million.

(Red Cross, $17,780,108.)

Mr. EVINS. $16 million additional?

How much in addition has been expended by local people-local governments?

Governor PETERSON. I have seen no

EXPENDITURES OF STATE GOVERNMENTS

Mr. EVINS. State and municipal government expenditures and others?

Governor PETERSON. I believe the State of Connecticut raised something like $30 million. In Massachusetts, the Governor called and arranged for a rather large fund immediately during the disaster and it was $55 million. Every State has put a considerable amount of money into this activity. Of course, some of them feel that the loss they suffered, which run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, constitute in a sense, a contribution to the matter.

Mr. EVINS. Roughly, $85 million have been expended that we can account for at this time?

Governor PETERSON. In those two States; yes.

BASIS FOR BUDGET ESTIMATE

Mr. PHILLIPS. Mr. Peterson, I don't think there is any resistance on the part of the committee to the objective, but I question whether the figure is realistic. What is the most that has ever been spent in any one year on disaster relief? Do you know that? Take your own figures here. You show twelve or a little over twelve and one-eighth million dollars as the most spent.

Governor PETERSON. In 1955, we allocated about $12 million. Mr. STARR. On page 12 the exact figure is stated-$12,155,344. Mr. PHILLIPS. My point is that here you have about $7 million which is an unusual circumstance, I would say, and you had-or was that the hurricane? I guess that was the hurricane, and you had about $2 million for California, total. There is less than $10 million. I mean that with the Congress coming back here not less often than once every year, being away for 5 months, don't you think that $25