That is in effect what you are saying to them. You either have to go Somerville, we know you have a different program, but you have to join up here, you have one voice and they are going to negotiate with the State agency.

I am sure you can give us some reassurances on it. Maybe I am putting up a strawman on the thing. I wish you would knock it down if it ought to be knocked down.

Mr. REILLY. Senator, one of our problems with this whole process, very frankly, is determining where along this whole spectrum from possible area wide coverage all the way down to a single settlement house in one neighborhood of one city does the arrow really point in terms of what is the appropriate size for a project? What is a project and what is a neighborhood? We provide in the regulations for a county level as the minimum project size because we fixed on this as an identifiable geographical area which provides an adequate scope for planning.

It can be attacked on the basis of being too big, or that county government is weak. But any other choice also can be attacked on other basis.

In your example you are using Somerville and I have been away from Boston long enough now that it doesn't come back to me what Somerville's population is, but I would guess something like 70,000

or so.

Senator KENNEDY. No; it is about 88,000.

Mr. REILLY. That is another possible level.

One of the witnesses is from Henry Street Settlement House, which is one settlement house in one neighborhood of New York City. Again, we are having difficulty getting a grasp on where along the spectrum we ought to fix on this issue of project size in terms of whether there is any such thing as a critical mass to this sort of process when you view it as more than just a feeding process.

Senator KENNEDY. There are areas in South Boston that are strongly Lithuanian and Polish. Lithuanians are not Polish, and even though they come from similar geographic problems, they have their own sort of problems.

Just putting Boston together, with 800,000 in the inner city and with 3 million in terms of its immediate kinds of the greater Boston area, you have to consider 26 nationalities with 5,000 people or more. Mr. MARTIN. Boston is going to have several projects under that formula, Senator.

Senator KENNEDY. I don't see that. I have confidence that we have a good program up in that State. I think the State should work out these direct grants into various communities that would encourage them. They should be equipped to encourage them through voluntary means to get the various groups together.

If, in a community, they are able to say that if you get together we can give you some extra meals for your senior citizens, and that you are going to do it, that is one reason for it.

If they have strong reasons they don't feel that is necessary, then that is something else.

It does appear that someone has been very interested in this and

very active in the development of legislation just to provide somewhat of a significant roadblock to the kind of local participation and input that we were trying to achieve. Why don't you do it just through the voluntary? Why couldn't you do it that way?

Mr. MARTIN. Are you really suggesting, Senator, that we don't need any guidance with respect to the size of projects or the scope of these projects?

Senator KENNEDY. No. I think there should be different levels for urban and rural sites, perhaps 100 in an urban area and less for rural sites.

I don't know the size of the various pilot programs that were developed on nutrition.

Mr. MARTIN. They range from 40 up to about 3,000. But those were test programs.

Senator KENNEDY. And worked very successfully.

LESS THAN 100 NoT ECONOMICAL

Mr. MARTIN. What our examination shows was that below about 100 they were not economical.

Senator KENNEDY. Sure.

I mean I think that just in terms of needs we must find a way to cover South Boston and rural West Virginia, even if it might cost a little more in rural communities.

Mr. MARTIN. It is important, Senator, but it seems to us we ought to try to get some of the advantages of larger scale operations if we can. Otherwise the pressures may result in massive numbers of very small projects which simply expend funds without reaching all of the older people in the area who need nutrition services.

I think there are some advantages that we ought to try to get if we can, in order to use our money

Senator KENNEDY. Say you have this amount of money. Say it is fully appropriated. What did we figure, 250,000 elderly people? Now, that means it is going to be approximately, if my math is right, and I am not so sure it is, about 12,000, 5 percent. Massachusetts has 5 percent of the population.

We get about 12,000 that would be affected there in Massachusetts. We get a good formula on the percent of elderly. We are a little higher than Iowa.

Mr. MARTIN. Ten percent in the State, but it varies with locations. Senator KENNEDY. I think we are a little higher than that. I know Iowa is number one. I think we are in the top three of four States in terms of percentages.

In any event it is about 12,000. Hopefully this program will grow and cover a great many more.

Twelve thousand would not be so difficult for a single State administrator to develop programs that are going to be targeted into 12,000, working with local groups that are going to make applications up through the State.

They are going to have to carry their burden and he is going to make value judgments whether you develop certain coordination between various groups. You are talking about 12,000 meals.

ADMINISTRATION NEEDS ONLY SMALL ORGANIZATION

I think two or three people could organize that up in this State relatively easily.

I may be underestimating the whole kind of problem, but it does not seem to me to present the kind of administrative difficulty that requires a project area.

Mr. MARTIN. I think we understand and we will give that a lot of consideration in trying to work out something.

Senator KENNEDY. I think that I can see where you get a nutrition gift or something, you get a limited number of personnel and you want to try to maximize to insure that a nutrition gift has a responsibility for a certain number of projects to insure that the local group that is developing their meal is going to have these meat requirements of a third of the number of calories that are needed for a day.

So that person has, or should have, a certain required area. You also need other kinds of experts-for example, transportation.

Now, if you are talking about that type of thing, I can see this. I think maybe we are talking about working in heavy areas of responsibility. But I do have some very serious reservations about requiring all these little groups to conform necessarily to the common mean of a community of 250,000. Particularly in a State that has the kind of mix that many of us from the eastern and older parts of the country have.

I have some additional kinds of questions but I would like to submit them in witing to you.

Mr. MARTIN. Certainly.

Senator KENNEDY. We can see where we are.

VARIATION ON AREA PLANS

Mr. REILLY. I have one possible variation on this we might try to discuss. As you know, the administration's Older Americans Act extension proposal has contained in it a provision for area planning agencies on aging. Looking toward the establishment of such agencies-which we believe are truly necessary in terms of bringing together the public and private programs that could serve the elderly, and yet do not do as much as they could-we set up the minimum size for nutrition projects as the county, as a tie-in to the area agencies. Rather than sticking hard and fast to this county level, perhaps the regulations could have a stipulation in them that nutrition grants would be awarded on a flexible basis to local applicants. But, any such grant would have a provision saying that when and if an area planning agency on aging is established, that the funding for that nutrition project would come through that area planning agency.

The thing we are after is to link up the various services. There are community health programs; there are community mental health programs; there are other programs which have money and facilitiesand the elderly are not getting their full share of them.

We think of a single local neighborhood nutrition project-and think about it relying upon voluntary development of services. We really cannot visualize volunteers out of a neighborhood project like that making much of a dent on established service agencies, whether

they be public or private, in terms of bringing those services to the project.

We are reaching to get that kind of linkage through area service networks. If we provide maximum local autonomy in the project to set its local conditions for the nutrition program itself, and yet have it link in with a community service network that we are going to try to develop, maybe we can achieve both ends here.

Senator KENNEDY. In terms of coordination, fine. But in terms of channeling the resources and funneling the funds for it, I just think we have hammered on it.

I think in this way it is obstructing one of the really important aspects of the program-the important consumer participation aspect. I just do not see why it ought to go to State and other planning agencies and then out to that local community. I would much rather take my chances for the development of States and if they wanted to work on that-and hold them accountable.

NEED FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

Part of our whole problem about the disillusionment and lack of confidence in the government is they do not know who is accountable. We see it up here-the growth of White House staff. You do not know who is making foreign policy, whether it is Kissinger or Secretary Rogers. Everything gets spread around.

Everybody ought to be accountable. If it goes well, you pin a medal on them. If not, you do something else.

The people at the State level say, "Gee, we would love to have done it but the planning agency got it all fouled up."

The local people say, "We sent the money on up.

Everybody is knocking the problem around and no one knows where the fault lies.

Then you lose support for the program and then people say, "Senator Percy and Senator Kennedy, why are you supporting that program? We never see that money. They are sending us soybeans and we wanted something else."

I think I would rather hold them accountable. I would rather hold the Governor accountable and the local people. I think that is about as far as you can go.

However, if we set this additional kind of layer in, I think we are removing the responsibility. I think we are dampening the kinds of initiatives that are important. I would say that I think it would be useful that the AoA would provide help and assistance-technical help and assistance. If the local groups wanted to do this voluntarily to make their local programs more efficient, they could say, "You fund our program. We have five communities here and we will do about 1,000 to 2,000 meals. We can do it more efficiently than the others."

Let them compete on that limited amount of money. The State director can make that kind of judgment. He can say, "We can feed more elderly people by going with this program than the other one."

It seems to me that way you would provide that kind of help and assistance they want. If they do not like it, they can get out. If they do, they can stay.

Commissioner, you have been very patient with us. I am sure we understand what our positions are in this. I would like to submit some other questions. You have been kind to stay with us.

The committee is in recess, subject to the call of the Chair.

(Whereupon, at 5:02 p.m., the Select Committee was recessed, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.)