CONFLICT WITH CONGRESS

Mr. FLOOD. I will say this. You are a persistent outfit in your budget at least. You know, the House voted on three separate occasions on this question of education appropriations for 1976. The final bill was $1.3 billion over the budget. Now you propose rescissions just under $1.3 billion, so you are practically wiping out all of the congressional increase over the budget.

Where is the compromise?

Dr. BELL. I suppose if there is one, Mr. Chairman, it is in the programs that we nominate for decrease at this time. They are different ones from the ones that were originally submitted. This will give you a selective opportunity.

Mr. FLOOD. That is about as good as you can do. I would hate to be sitting down there and try to handle a question like that.

Dr. BELL. The point I can't make is that we are coming back here with a compromise someplace in between the President's budget and the total amount.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, your gross increases in the bill were much more than $1.3 billion. They were something like $1.7 billion, and they were balanced by decreases which net out to about $1.3 billion. It is the same thing with our rescissions.

Mr. FLOOD. $1.3 billion is what we have been talking about.

Mr. MILLER. It is the same thing with our rescissions. For example, we accepted all of the money over the budget for emergency school assistance. We have accepted most of the money over the budget for vocational education. We have accepted some of the money for handicapped, some of it for impact aid.

Mr. FLOOD. Keep up and I will break down and cry. If we accept all those proposed rescissions that will mean a reduction of over $700 million below the funding last year for education.

Dr. BELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. FLOOD. I just don't see how in the world this committee could go and ask the House to approve all those rescissions.

Anyhow, you have about 40 line items in here in all of these rescissions and I certainly don't intend to go back point by point over that whole collection of 40, but I do have a couple of questions on some of the major items.

TITLE I RESCISSIONS

For title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education, the justification indicates the States have not spent $1 billion from previous appropriations. Now, for heaven's sake, there surely must be some mighty good reason for that. What is the explanation? Don't the States want the funds?

Dr. BELL. I am sure they want them, and I couldn't make a case that there isn't a need for them because we are serving less than half the children that could be entitled in that regard.

I think it is a matter of the length of time it takes from the time of the appropriations process and as we allocate out to the States, the length of time that it takes them to do their implementing.

Now, as we get into forward funding, and I am sure Congress has provided for this, that is going to be a matter that is going to be taken

care of. I think this represents a backlog of funds in the pipeline where appropriations historically have come toward the end of the fiscal year, so the States haven't had an opportunity to utilize the funds fully.

So I can't make a case on the basis of the Act that there isn't a need for the money, but more on the case that there have been unexpended balances out there related to timing. With the forward funding provisions, that I think will be taken care of in the future.

Mr. FLOOD. Isn't much of this due to all of these uncertainties and all of these delays in the way you operate this title I program?

Dr. BELL. That is what I am told by the local and State education agencies and I think that was the reason why Congress has done what they have done about providing forward funding. Of course, legislation has changed that.

Mr. FLOOD. You know what happened in the fiscal year 1973 appropriation. That was the year of the vetoes and impoundments and court orders and everything else.

Dr. BELL. I was a local school superintendent that year, so I know. Mr. FLOOD. Then you would. You were on a continuing resolution. Dr. BELL. Right.

Mr. FLOOD. For that whole year. Wasn't that the basic cause of these large balances of these unspent funds?

Dr. BELL. I think it dates back to about there as a time when we have seen the balance buildup according to our people in finance. Mrs. Beebe just showed me here a chart that shows these obligated balances at the start of each year and we might, if we may, submit that for the record.

Mr. FLOOD. All right.

Insert in the record a chart showing appropriations, obligations. Dr. BELL. We can give you the total outlays each year.

Mr. FLOOD. Expenditures, unspent balances. That is for title I for each fiscal year since 1972.What about that?

Dr. BELL. Very good. We can do that.

[The information follows:]

OE ESTIMATE OF TITLE I OUTLAYS AGAINST FEDERAL PAYMENTS (S.F. 133)

1 Figures are estimates since data supporting them is either questionable or because they are forecasts for the future.

$326,800
342, 606
309, 212
1 806, 194

$1,597, 443
1,809, 699
1,719, 114
1,874, 353

$1,243, 588
1, 162, 036
1, 150, 846
1, 153, 703

$1,570, 388 1,504, 642 1,460, 058

1 687, 579

1 1,900, 000

1 1, 136, 470

63-250-75--2

HIGHER EDUCATION

Mr. FLOOD. The proposed rescission under higher education for the student aid program totals over $702 million and that would result in a reduction of over a half billion dollars below last year's amount. Tuition costs are going right through the roof, and you want to cut student aid? How do you put that together?

Dr. BELL. We think we have a rationale for that and I would like to ask Mr. Phillips, if he would, our Deputy Commissioner for postsecondary education, to talk to that. That relates to the basic opportunity grant, and student loans, and the rest of it.

Mr. PHILLIPS. Mr. Chairman, as you are undoubtedly aware, we have for some time advocated the highest priority to the basic grant program. While it is true that we are requesting a rescission of significant amounts of money in some of the other student aid programs, we are also prepared to submit a supplemental request to partially offset those rescissions for the amount necessary to fully fund the basic grant program for operations in 1976-77.

Now, the exact amount of such a supplemental remains to be determined because we need to be extremely careful, as I am sure you can understand and appreciate, that we don't request supplemental funds without a sure knowledge of whether or not there might be some carryover funds from this year's operation. We are monitoring that situation very carefully.

Mr. FLOOD. There is nothing unusual about that.

Mr. PHILLIPS. That is right, but we need to wait until we have the results of the November submissions of interim reports from the institutions so that we can make a careful calculation of the amounts that will be obligated for this year, we know exactly whether or not there will be any unobligated balance, and if so, how much that balance might be.

At this point we are guardedly optimistic that we will hit approximately the level at which funds have been made available. In that case the supplemental request would be an amount sufficient to fully fund the basic grant program which could be anywhere from $285 million to $335 million.

Mr. FLoop. I am impressed with that State Department language, "guardedly optimistic."

Mr. PHILLIPS. We forgot to be guardedly last year.

Mr. FLOOD. Just merely optimistic.

Mr. PHILLIPS. Our optimism was not justified in the final analysis. Dr. BELL. I think we should indicate the participation rate thus far is much higher than the previous year.

STUDENT AID PROGRAM

Mr. FLOOD. Your justification here refers to, and let me quote this, "integrated Federal approach to student assistance."

What in the world does that mean?

Mr. PHILLIPS. Mr. Chairman, if I may respond, what we are trying to get at there is the idea of bringing the array of student aid programs, each of which has different statutory specifications and differ