all of these other programs. We sincerely want to have the opportunity to train these people. We hope OEO will see fit to break away from this system of prime contracts and engage in more local contracts. We thing it offers a greater possibility of the program having local acceptance. Now there are numerous technical points on statutory language which I could skip over and with leave of the Chair I would like permission to consult with the committee counsel on this point. Senator CLARK. Yes; you may do that. Mr. FULTON. They basically pertain to the language in the measure which refers to the utilization of public and private nonprofit corporations. There are many instances when proprietary taxpaying corporations should have an opportunity to contribute their services to work out programs and carry on training as they do now in other programs. We also are quite encouraged to see the greater participation of the U.S. Employment Service in the various amending proposals. In all of the three examples we cite, exhibits B-1, B-2, and B-3, you will see that there was cooperation with the USES. And also exhibit C, which is a very heart-warming vocational rehabilitation story that took place in a private business school in St. Petersburg, Fla., through the cooperation of the Florida State Employment Service. Unhappily there seems to be in the minds of many well-meaning people an inability to distinguish between "people" programs and "institutional" programs. We feel that the OEO is running a "people" program. They are not interested in building bricks and mortar and new dormitories and things like that. OEO is a "people" program and we hope in helping people they will want to use all facilities of the community. I would also comment that section 103(b) was taken from the 1963 language of the MDTA which has since been, by this committee, amended in the 1965 amendments. It might be appropriate for the committee to update section 103(b) in line with the current version of section 231 of the MDTA. Another disappointment has been participation in community action programs. An excellent junior college in Boston, the Cambridge School of Business, was requested by the Boston CAP to come in and help them. Then at the last minute it was discovered that the school, even though it is an accredited junior college, was proprietary in form and therefore under the language of the act was ineligible to participate in the CAP program. This same problem arises in section 209 (e) (3) of the OEO Act which uses the narrow definition of an "educational institution" as defined in the HEFA of 1963. A much broader definition was approved only this week by the Senate in the FECA amendments of H.R. 10721. We hope this definition can be corrected in the OEO Act by using the FECA definition. Senator CLARK. What you would like us to do is to change the act so as to make it permissive for OEO to contract with proprietary enterprises in carrying on their activities. Is that right? Mr. FULTON. That is correct, sir. And using the language of the 1965 MDTA, Public Law 89-115, and section 102 (6) which also per mits "contracts with other private organizations." This is some excellent language which has developed as a precedent. The loan moratorium for students with the guaranteed student loan fund who become VISTA volunteers is a good idea. Unfortunately it only amends section 427 of the Higher Education Act of 1965. It does not make any reference to students who are attending business, trade, and technical schools, under the National Vocational Student Loan Act. We ask the committee to add the same language to section 8 of Public Law 89-287. We hope this technical omission can be taken care of. We do feel that there are some interesting possibilities in Senator Javits' proposal. At least it does provide some new avenues worthy of exploration. Senator CLARK. Would you not use that proposal as a substitute for OEO? Mr. FULTON. No, sir; Iwould not substitute it. But let's not overlook it if it can be ancillary, auxiliary, or helpful. I think possibly it is in line with a very interesting paragraph written back in 1960 by the now secretary of HEW, the Honorable John W. Gardner, when he wrote his "Goals for Americans," on page 88 All of the organizational arrangements, all the methods, the procedures that characterize American education today were originally devised to help us accomplish our purpose. If they no longer help us we must revise them. arrangements and methods must serve us and not control us. The If the Javits proposal can help to bring in local community participation of all types, fine, we would like to see it. Senator CLARK. Do you want to ask a question, Mr. Kurzman? Senator CLARK. Yes; please go ahead. Mr. KURZMAN. Mr. Fulton, would you anticipate an interest in the industry which you represent in investing in or contracting with a corporation of the type that Senator Javits is proposing? Mr. FULTON. I would anticipate that some imaginative individuals, administrators in business schools and junior colleges, might be interested in such a quasi-public corporation if no more than out of a matter of social responsibility. I think it has some interesting possibilities. I noticed, for example, in one section of the proposal it calls for counseling of small businesses. This same point was brought up back in 1962 in hearings on the Senate Small Business Committee on Business Failures. The report of the Select Subcommittee on Small Business cited in Mr. Myers' statement and the SBA was quite complimentary on the role of management training programs which the private business schools had carried out in conjunction with the SBA. As I read the OEO now, section 114(c) would prohibit business corporations from counseling with trainees who might want to go into business. It might be possible either through a new title 9 or by incorporating some sections of Mr. Javits' proposal to open the OEŎ to greater participation and acceptance at the local level. In summary, Senator, we feel that education for office occupations, that is, white-collar jobs, offers one of the most efficient, expeditious, and economically feasible avenues of access to the so-called middle class ethic for any individual identified with the handicaps of any disadvantaged group. For more than 45 years the business schools of this country have been successfully training the physically handicapped in cooperation with the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration. The same success has been achieved for the unemployed and the underemployed in MDTA programs carried out under contract in private business schools. The same opportunities should be available to those eligible for OEO programs. We sincerely hope that this committee will spur the OEO to similarly utilize local independent business schools to carry out some of its programs for the disadvantaged and the handicapped. This can be done by making the language of the measure more flexible and through recommendations in the committee report. We want to see results, Senator and Mr. Kurzman. Senator CLARK. Thank you very much. Mr. Kurzman, will you call your next witness? Mr. KURZMAN. Mr. Seigle and the panel representing the Crusade for Opportunity, Syracuse, N.Y. Senator CLARK. Mr. Seigle, we are happy to welcome your panel of witnesses called at the request of Senator Javits. Would you please introduce your colleagues? STATEMENT OF ALFRED R. SEIGLE, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, CRUSADE FOR OPPORTUNITY; REV. CHARLES FAHEY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, CATHOLIC CHARITIES, SYRACUSE, N.Y.; MRS. LAURA REED, CHAIRMAN, WESTSIDE NEIGHBORHOOD BOARD; MISS EVELYN PRICE, CHAIRMAN, EASTSIDE NEIGHBORHOOD BOARD; REV. LOUIS WALKER, CHAIRMAN, TALLMAN NEIGHBORHOOD BOARD; AND MRS. MINNA BUCK, ACTING DIRECTOR, CRUSADE FOR OPPORTUNITY; COMPRISING A PANEL Mr. SEIGLE. Yes. On the far left is Mrs. Minna Buck, acting director of Crusade for Opportunity. Next to me is Evelyn Price, chairman of our Eastside Neighborhood Board. To the right of me is Reverend Walker who is the chairman of our Tallman Neighborhood Board, next to him is Mrs. Laura Reed, chairman of our Westside Neighborhood Board and at the end is Father Charles Fahey, member of our board of directors who is the chairman of our administration committee as well as the assistant director of Catholic Charities in the city of Syracuse. Senator CLARK. We are happy to welcome you here. Do you have a prepared statement? Mr. SEIGLE. Yes, I do. Senator CLARK. That statement will be printed in full in the record at the end of your testimony. I will ask you to summarize it as briefly as you can and to call on your colleagues for any comments they may have. Mr. SEIGLE. I am here representing the Crusade for opportunity in Syracuse and Onondaga County. It is a private nonprofit membership corporation serving as a community action agency for Syracuse and Onondaga County in the State of New York. Our membership, board of directors, and neighborhood boards serve as nonpaid volunteers. We are a community action program in the truest sense of the word. We have mobilized a community effort against poverty, unifying our resources in a direct attack on the problems which plague such a significant proportion of our community. Senator CLARK. How is your board of directors selected? Mr. SEIGLE. Our board of directors is selected by a vote of the membership, itself. Senator Clark. It is self-perpetuating, in other words? Mr. SEIGLE. Yes, sir. Senator CLARK. You did not hold an election? Mr. SEIGLE. We held an election for the neighborhood boards. There are 30 members on each. There are three neighborhood boards. Each sends for delegates to the crusade board itself. These delegates represent approximately 37 percent of our total board membership. Senator CLARK. Were your neighborhood board elections reasonably satisfactory in terms of participation by those eligible to vote? I ask because we have had some trouble in Philadelphia. Mr. SEIGLE. I think they were on the basis of comparative figures we saw. It might be of interest to you to know that we had an election in the area just recently in our county where there was a $34 million school budget and only 1,100 people voted which is a lot less than voted in our neighborhood board elections. We have given highest priority to making the maximum feasible participation of the residents of the areas served a real and meaningful actuality, and not merely a game of numbers. I am proud to be here today with representatives of our three neighborhood boards and I hope they will have the opportunity to speak later and share their concerns -which are our concerns and your concerns-with you. Senator CLARK. What is your estimate of the number of people who would qualify under the definition of poor in the area which you serve in Syracuse? Mr. SEIGLE. I don't know those facts. Senator CLARK. Could you perhaps obtain them for the record? Without objection, it will be printed in the record at the conclusion of Mr. Seigle's testimony. (The Seigle document on Syracuse referred to follows at end.) Mr. SEIGLE. As a result of the increasing participation of neighborhood groups in the antipoverty program, we in Syracuse have all learned a great deal from each other about how to plan to meet community needs. The Economic Opportunity Act has given us the chance to try out new ways of planning to combat the vexing problems which occur in every community in this Nation. We are here today because we are greatly concerned about the increase in suggested allocations for what we in Syracuse come to call prepackaged programs at the expense of a decrease in the amount of funds to be available to community action agencies for locally planned programs. The stated goal of this legislation is to involve the low-income segments of our population to the maximum extent possible in the development, conduct, and administration of the programs. If this program is to have a major impact on the problems of poverty and dependency, then this goal must be of prime importance. But these suggested allocations are not consistent with the goal, for they will severely hamper the efforts of Syracuse and every other community to continue independent, local planning responsive to the local needs of the community and most particularly responsive to the people for whom this legislation is designed. We recognize the common problems giving rise to such national programs as Operation Headstart, but if a community action program is to be meaningful, the community must not be penalized if its priorities are now always the same as the national emphasis. A local community should, of course, be free to draw from these prepackaged programs in line with the needs of the individual community, but it is imperative that local communities have the flexibility of planning and determining local priorities without being financially restricted if there should be local needs more pressing than those met by these prepackaged components. Most importantly, if neighborhood residents are to be encouraged to participate in the planning of programs it is essential that the Office of Economic Opportunity be in a position to respond to their expressed needs. If the Office is not, because of a cutback in discretionary funds, then the concept of maximum feasible participation may turn out to be a massive hoax. Senator CLARK. I take it that your group is opposed to the cuts made by the House committee in title II of the bill? Mr. SEIGLE. We are, sir. We feel we are in the process of developing new and successful methods of planning for a united attack on problems. We realize there is still far to go, but in the short time of our existence, the competence and responsibility shown by the residents of the areas we are serving has had such an impact on the community that other agencies-which may have never before thought to attempt this concept of communitywide planning-now call on Crusade Neighborhood Boards and other neighborhood groups to participate in decisionmaking capacities. In a program so new and so large as this Nation's antipoverty effort there are bound to be mistakes in some areas by the experimental nature of many of the components. But giving local communities and neighborhood organiaztions the flexibility to determine their own priorities is no mistake. The great chance for the Nation's success in this endeavor is to involve as many people as possible in as many communities as possible so we can all benefit from our diverse experience. I would also like to discuss briefly one further section of the proposed House legislation-that amendment to section 205 of the Economic Opportunity Act which would limit to $12,500 the Federal contribution toward the salary of an employee of a community action agency. We in Syracuse are well aware of the ramifications of such limitations, for we are currently in the process of choosing a new executive officer, director for our agency. There is no doubt in my mind that we would not be able to find any person qualified to administer such a complex program as ours, if such Fedeal limitations are approved. We |