cally fragmented prime sponsors-such as cities which find themselves with substantial manpower target populations within their corporate limits, but lack the job market to absorb those it might make job ready. In a state like ours, this state commitment would mean that failure to cope with root problems in rural areas could no longer be sloughed off as "one of those things" that cannot be helped because of administrative, institutional, and fiscal weaknesses. The shortcomings of men and women who create so many problems by arriving unprepared and desperate in urban areas would no longer be left to slapdash "balance of state" projects. The stumbling block to this system--and we concede it is a big one--is developing the capacity to assemble and carry out a comprehensive state-wide plan. But even recognizing this obstacle, we believe such a system holds more promise than a non-system which brings on the hazards of geographic fragmentation as well as inexpert planning and administration. We believe the state-based system, which North Carolina is working on, offers a better concept of how to solve manpower problems and a quicker way to stimulate the planning and administrative expertise that is needed. This then is what our experience convinces us is an ideal approach-a statebased system that puts every section of the sate into a defined planning-program district and leaves no scraps of geography to the uncertainty of "balance of state" designation . . . a system that is pegged to a central state authority with mutually reinforcing planning and service roles for both state and local levels. . . a system where state and local officials can determine the mix of decategorized programs that fit state and local needs. At the same time, what we feel is ideal may not be ideal for Massachusetts or New York where the political and tax structures are greatly different from ours; and legislation should allow maximum flexibility. PROGRAM DECATEGORIZATION My third plea is that program decategorization should be almost total. Local and state sponsors should be free to use or discard any of the present categorical programs or develop new services so long as those services contribute to the most efficient manpower development process. Especially in the kind of state-based system we advocate-where the statewide plan would direct program attention to all identifiable manpower problemsit makes no sense to decategorize in one breath, then establish special programs for the young, the middle-aged, and the older worker. At best, this sort of "decategorization" is a clumsy way of providing supplementary funds to districts with special problems. At worst, it is an invitation to local planners to shortchange some types of problems because they assume that lingering categorical programs will fill the gap. We understand the concern that some ethnic groups of age groups might fare poorly under some local program sponsors. But we believe that fear is an argument for broad, comprehensive planning, not for mandating of national categorical programs that are unlikely even to fit the needs of their target populations in all states or regions of the nation. PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYMENT We believe that job creation through public service employment should be included on the permissible list of decategorized services that could be included in state and local comprehensive manpower plans. In fact, we believe that any triggering devices for additional manpower funds in periods of high unemployment should apply only to funds for public service job creation. (We would suggest, though, that an arbitrary maximum percentage of manpower funds, say 50 percent, could be used for public service employment; otherwise, the temptation to use manpower money for political patronage purposes might prove irresistible.) However, MDC's experience as monitor of the Emergency Employment Act of 1971 in North Carolina has caused us concern about how best to provide public service employment. We feel that any legislation that merely turns the “emergency act" of 1971 into a permanent risks discrediting the concept of public service employment. It could create the impression that shortcomings of EEA are inherent shortcomings of public service employment. Worse, it could continue in a permanent public service program shortcomings that should be avoided as a result of experience with EEA. Much of the uncertainty about EEA results from the almost frantic way it was first implemented. The State of North Carolina, for example, had to decide in a matter of hours its basic plan for allocating $3 million for "balance of state" jobs. The State took a "democratic" approach. Rather than creating a large number of "state jobs," it channeled the bulk of the balance of state money to the State's seventeen multi-purpose planning regions to be divided among local Employing Agents. But as a result, it initiated a cumbersome process that seriously delayed hiring for balance of state jobs. (Ironically, the timing as well as the speed required in initiating EEA worked against North Carolina. The State's Manpower Council was hot off the legislative drawing board. Its members were still unappointed; so was its planning and administrative staff.) In the absence of any other machinery, the State designated "coordinating organizations"-primarily councils of government-for each region. These coordinators assembled lists from potential employing agents, passed the lists up to the State level, and passed lists as amended by the State back to the local employing agents. Confusion was inevitable since each planning district embraced scores of potential employing agents. That confusion has carried over into problems of reporting on EEA as well as in filling balance of state jobs. But our studies in North Carolina indicate that EEA may not be suffering just from the hangover effect of telling program agents on Tuesday to have public service job applications in the mail by Friday to qualify for funds that will be mailed back on the following Monday. What concerns us deeply-in North Carolina where job creation is so needed— are signs that EEA is missing important aims of public service employment. As our current monitoring report (an appendix to this testimony) says: It is not producing creativity in job design in the public sector. . . . More often than not, EEA hires are filling positions that would have had to be added in the following year's budget in any case. . . . . . This may augur well for the ability and desire of the localities to employ former EEA participants permanently, but it does not provide a demonstration of expanding possibilities in the field of public service. The program is not affecting allegedly discriminatory, or simply unnecessary, job qualifications. Generally speaking, hiring qualifications remain the same for EEA participants as they would for anyone else. This is forcing the program either to look for the better-educated unemployed or to reduce the quality of jobs. . The program is in no way involved with the use of public employment as transition to private employment. Any private sector expansion of jobs that ensues will be strictly incidental. ***It would not appear that there will be significant impact from Section 6 funds (for areas of substantial unemployment). Wherever we have seen them used in North Carolina, they have simply been added to Section 5 funds to provide a few more jobs. With further experience, Program Agents may erase the sources of concern our monitoring has turned up in North Carolina. Indeed, already we have isolated examples of excellent, even exciting, initiatives with EEA in our State. But because creative use of public service employment is essential in job-short areas like some sections of North Carolina, we urge great caution in converting the Emergency Employment Act of 1971 into a permanent feature to complement traditional manpower services. Job creation through public service employment is a function apart from the basic manpower development process. And experience with EEA may show that legislative authorization for permanent PSE should stimulate attention to the need for technical assistance so that employing agents-especially those with limited resources-could use PSE for more constructive purposes than financing a few low-level routine jobs that could not be squeezed into this year's local budget. Despite its shortcomings, however, EEA should provide us with the information we need to develop intelligent permanent legislation. I hope Congress will wait until that information is in. PENDING LEGISLATION Our ideas on decentralizing and decategorizing manpower programs leave us at odds with many features of pending manpower bills. But in contrast with the current Manpower Development and Training Act, we see genuine improvements in them. Incentives provided in the Daniels bill and the Esch-Steiger bill to promote planning and program coordination over broader areas are a plus. So is the Daniels bill's addition of the "poor" as a factor in allocating manpower funds. Although we think all allocation formulas will be defective until some way is found to measure and include "underemployment" as a factor in distributing manpower funds, the addition of the word "poor" is absolutely essential. We are intrigued by the Esch-Steiger proposal for phased decentralization. This device has obvious potential for easing the transition to decentralization and decategorization. By forcing decentralized agents or systems to demonstrate their capacity to provide equitable, workable programs, its use could minimize concern that decentralized agents would botch programs because of lack of expertise, discriminate against legitimate target groups, or neglect geographic areas. In this time of transition in manpower planning and program design, some transitional device may, in fact, be the only way to get around natural fears and doubts about any new legislation that goes far enough to do what must be done. Our basic difference with the three measures before this Subcommittee now is that they do not depart enough from the quasi-policy of the recent past. None of the measures would provide an adequate basis for the planned, coordinated system we consider necessary for North Carolina. Even the Manpower Revenue Sharing Act would create fragmented prime sponsorship. In North Carolina, the State plus a dozen local prime sponsors (some of highly dubious capacity) would be free to go more or less separate programmatic ways under revenue sharing. Mr. Daniels' bill would literally dot the landscape of a state like North Carolina with potential prime sponsors. We cannot calculate how many might eventually emerge from the authorization for sponsorship by local governments with populations of 50,000 and up, combinations of units with populations of 100,000 or more, and rural units, regardless of population, with high unemployment and substantial outmigration. Mr. Daniels' requirement that every prime sponsor must prepare a comprehensive plan would discourage some potential sponsors. But it would not discourage the geographic fragmentation that concerns us. Mr. Esch and Mr. Steiger ease concern on the fragmentation score with their higher population sponsorship. Again, though, the thrust of the bill is toward fragmentation with the provision that any eligible local unit or combination of units shall take precedence over state proposals in their area. Our doubts about general prime sponsorship carry over to provisions for sponsorship of public service employment. Our monitoring experience leads us to believe that public service employment tied exclusively to the "number of unemployed" (as in the Daniels bill) might generate useful temporary employment, but not enough jobs that can move the unemployed and under-employed up from poverty and dependence. Pending bills, especially the Esch-Steiger bill, move toward a broader-based, better-coordinated manpower development system. But we submit that we can and should go further. APPENDIX PROGRESS REPORT ON THE EMERGENCY EMPLOYMENT ACT OF 1971 IN NORTH CAROLINA, JANUARY 25, 1972 1.-FOREWORD The North Carolina Manpower Development Corporation, a non-profit, private corporation involved in developing a manpower delivery system for the State of North Carolina, is monitoring EEA for the State under contract with the Office of Research and Development, Department of Labor, and in cooperation with the National Manpower Planning Task Force. MDC's monitoring is being done at two levels. First, MDC is gathering state-wide statistics and analyzing them. Second, MDC is working in depth in two areas of the StateRobeson County in Eastern North Carolina, and the City of Winston-Salem in the populous central Piedmont. MDC staff actually have visited a number of other cities and have done extensive field work in dozens of North Carolina communities in order to furnish a broader texture for the observations in this report. For purposes of this progress report, all statistics are as of December 31, 1971, unless otherwise indicated. Because of reporting breakdowns, it has not been possible to get accurate state-wide totals of funds expended to date on the program. For this reason, we are holding off on financial reporting until the next progress report. II. CRANKING UP The Emergency Employment Act came to North Carolina in a rush of confusion and misapprehension. One day it was a fact for the future, dimly perceived and poorly understood; on the next day it was here. Officials in charge of administering the act made decisions in a matter of days and sometimes hours. They dished out the money equitably, if frantically, and then sat back and hoped for the best. Other states may have been better prepared for the breakneck pace at which EEA took hold. In North Carolina, the legislature had authorized creation of a State Manpower Council which was to take charge of all manpower programs administered state-wide. But on August 9, when the EEA preliminary guidelines were made known, the Council was only statutorily a fact; its membership had not been named. Responsibility for making decisions on allocating EEA funds devolved to the Department of Administration, the Governor's staff administrative arm. It is interesting to note how the phenomenon of crisis narrowed the base of administrative decision. In July, when it became apparent that some form of public service employment act would become law, the North Carolina Manpower Development Corporation set about to inquire what State and local officials in North Carolina thought public service employment could accomplish.1 At this time there was considerable discussion of creative possibilities of permanent employment in the public sector. In keeping with this broad-gauged approch to planning for public service employment, a task force including representatives of most State agencies was appointed to decide how the State should administer whatever EEA funds fell into its hands. This task force decided that the State should put major emphasis on jobs in the areas of Environmental Quality and Control, Social Service, Correction, Education, and Health. Limitations of time made it impossible, however, for this task force to function seriously. Deadlines for proposals forced real decision-making on the Department of Administration official placed in charge, J. D. Foust, and on the communities themselves. The single crucial decision made with task force approval was to involve the communities of the state totally in determining which EEA jobs to fund. Some $2.7 million of the State's $6.1 million in EEA money was to be divided up among the 21 independent program agents (Chart 1) and administered directly from Atlanta. The State had no control over this money. It was the other part of the allocation-$3.4 million for balance-of-state-that the State administered, and it was decided that this money was to go to the State's newly created 17 planning districts (Chart 2) in accordance with a formula based in part on population and unemployment. "Coordinating organizations" were established in each of the districts to handle business between the State and the local employing agents. A number of State jobs were created in the cities and larger counties, to be administered as part of the balance-of-State allocation. CHART 1 Total section V allocation for North Carolina independent program agents Total for North Carolina__. Total for Balance-of-State__ Total for 19 Independent Program Agents-- $6, 130, 000 3, 435, 366 2,694, 634 1 Results of the survey will be included as an exhibit in MDC's final monitoring report, at which time an effort will be made to assess them against the results of EEA. 2 Two independent program agents-the City of Durham and Wayne County-returned their allocations, and this money was added to the balance-of-State pot. |