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LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE

UNITED STATES SENATE

NINETY-SECOND CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

ROY E. BATCHELOR, OF TENNESSEE, TO BE AN ASSISTANT
DIRECTOR OF THE

OFFICE OF ECONOMIC

(FOR OPERATIONS)

OPPORTUNITY

NOVEMBER 30, 1971

Printed for the use of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare

71-209

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON: 1972

DEPOSITED BY THE

TES OF AMERI A

COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE

HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, JR., New Jersey, Chairman

JENNINGS RANDOLPH, West Virginia
CLAIBORNE PELL, Rhode Island
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
GAYLORD NELSON, Wisconsin
WALTER F. MONDALE, Minnesota
THOMAS F. EAGLETON, Missouri
ALAN CRANSTON, California
HAROLD E. HUGHES, Iowa

ADLAI E. STEVENSON III, Illinois

JACOB K. JAVITS, New York
PETER H. DOMINICK, Colorado
RICHARD S. SCHWEIKER, Pennsylvania
BOB PACKWOOD, Oregon
ROBERT TAFT, JR., Ohio

J. GLENN BEALL, JR., Maryland
ROBERT T. STAFFORD, Vermont

STEWART E. MCCLURE, Staff Director
ROBERT E. NAGLE, General Counsel
ROY H. MILLENSON, Minority Staff Director
EUGENE MITTELMAN, Minority Counsel

(II)

NOMINATION

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1971

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE, Washington, D.C. The committee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 4232, New Senate Office Building, Hon. Harrison A. Williams, Jr. (chairman of the committee), presiding.

Present: Senators Williams, Pell, Kennedy, Cranston, Hughes, Javits, Dominick, Schweiker, Taft, and Stafford.

The CHAIRMAN. The Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare will come to order.

The committee meeting this morning will hear from a nominee who has been named by the President to an office that requires confirmation by the Senate.

We have Mr. Roy E. Batchelor of Tennessee. He has been nominated to be an Assistant Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Senator William Brock of Tennessee has patiently waited to introduce the nominee.

Senator BROCK. I am very grateful to you for letting me present Mr. Batchelor to you, he is an old friend. He was born in Alabama but he has lived in Chattanooga a great part of his life.

My first experience with him, for your information, came about with his association with the first Community Action program, I guess the first one in the country.

He was appointed under the previous administration to head up the Community Action program in Chattanooga. In his first year the program was recognized as the outstanding program in America, and he was recognized nationally as the outstanding Community Action Director in the United States, under the previous administration. He subsequently went on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as a professor of urban studies and then came back into the OEO in 1969 as Southern Director in the Atlanta regional office.

He has compiled an outstanding record there and I commend him very highly to you as an unusual, a talented, and very dedicated per

son.

The CHAIRMAN. We certainly appreciate that statement from you and it is most meaningful with a long association of friendship with Mr. Batchelor, Senator Brock. I am sure that other members of this committee would like to be here at this time but as you observe we are having a conflict with floor activity.

Do you have a statement, Mr. Batchelor?

STATEMENT OF ROY E. BATCHELOR, OF TENNESSEE, TO BE AN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

Mr. BATCHELOR. Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity to appear in connection with your consideration of my nomination as Assistant Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. This is my first appearance before your committee and I have taken the liberty of appending a brief biographic sketch to my statement. (The biographical statement of Mr. Batchelor follows:)

ROY E. BATCHELOR, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY'S REGION IV Roy E. Batchelor, Director of Region IV Office of Economic Opportunity in Atlanta, is the former Director of Urban Affairs at the University of Tennessee. In the Tennessee school system, he has served as a Principal, a Supervisor of Secondary and Special Education and as a Coordinator of Pupil Personnel Services.

He received his Bachelor's degree at Florence State College, Florence, Alabama and his Master's degree from George Peabody College, Nashville, Tennessee. Batchelor served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1945.

From 1965 to 1968, he was Executive Director of the Chattanooga Hamilton County Community Action Program. Batchelor was the organizer and first President of the Tennessee CAP Directors Association and served on the board of regional CAA directors.

A native of Haleyville, Alabama, Batchelor now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife, the former Jean McClung. Batchelor has two children, a son and a daughter.

OFFICE OF OPERATIONS

The Office provides executive direction, guidance, and support to OEO regional offices to insure that OEO programs executed or administered through the regions, operate effectively, efficiently, and in a coordinated manner. It is responsible for those activities which closely relate to the operation of the OEO programs in the field, including the provision or coordination of policy and procedural guidance to the regions; planning, analysis, budgeting, and fiscal control over resources allocated to the regions; planning for and provision of training and technical assistance services to the regions; coordination of relations between the regions and State and local governments; monitoring of regional operational activity and problems and evaluation and appraisal of the operations and management effectiveness of regional programs and management.

The Office administers the Urban and Rural Community Action programs which provide assistance to public and private institutions in dealing with poverty. The programs provide financial support for local antipoverty campaigns in urban and rural areas, on Indian reservations, and among migrant workers and other seasonally employed.

The major point of focus at the local level is the Community Action Agency (CAA), composed of public officials, representatives of the poor, and private groups.

The field activities of the Office of Economic Opportunity are carried out through 10 Regional Offices under the direction of Regional Directors who report to the Assistant Director for Operations. The Regional Director plans, directs, coordinates, and implements OEO programs delegated to the regional offices within the framework of policies and guidelines set forth by the Director, OEO, and the Assistant Director for Operations.

Mr. BATCHELOR. I am pleased and honored that President Nixon has nominated me to this position in an agency with a mission that I enthusiastically endorse and wholeheartedly accept. I am honored to be succeeding Phillip V. Sanchez who was recently confirmed as the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity.

During the past year and a half I have been Director of Region IV, Atlanta, Ga. I have been in a position to observe OEO operations make

steady progress in the effective planning and program management which has led to a great improvement in our utilization of resources. In the same period, community action agencies have developed better relationships, not only with the client community, the poor, but also with public and private community organizations. As a result, we have seen more effective coordination which has resulted in programs of greater benefit to the poor.

There are encouraging signs at every level that OEO programs and its research efforts are becoming more effective in the national commitment to eradicate poverty. ŎEO nationally is focusing more directly on sounder concepts of management in the discharge of its congressional mandate on behalf of citizens who have not yet shared in the great dream of American abundance.

Of particular importance is the need to understand the aspirations of the poor, and to involve the poor in the planning and implementation of programs designed to help them help themselves.

The heart of the Office of Economic Opportunity is the system of nearly 1,000 community action agencies covering virtually every State and outlying territory. The Office of Operations, to which I have been nominated to head has responsibility at the headquarters level for these community action agencies, as well as for OEO's Indian and migrant

programs.

As Director of Region IV, I have had an opportunity to work at the grass roots level with the problems, responsibilities and opportunities inherent in the community action program, and I look forward to guiding these vital instruments for the elimination of poverty as Director of Operations at OEO headquarters.

I pledge to you, Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, that I will dedicate myself to discharge the congressional mandate given the Office of Economic Opportunity, and to discharge it in a manner consistent with the great needs of the poor.

I will be pleased to respond, Mr. Chairman, to any questions that you or your committee may have.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. How long have you been Director of Region IV?

Mr. BATCHELOR. I was Director since February of 1969.

The CHAIRMAN. I wonder if I could get a picture of the community action program, and specifically why I receive so many complaints that there just doesn't seem to be a logical flow of funds, that there are stoppages along the way after programs have been approved. Do you run into that?

Mr. BATCHELOR. Yes, I have. I can account for it in part by the way in which community action was started. I think the roots of the problem can be found in the way it was started at the beginning. I think a lot of the slowdown of funding of late has been caused by the fact that we have taken a very long and hard look at the management aspects of programs.

Another slowdown that we are experiencing right now is the lack of a bill in continuing our operations on the face of the continuing resolution. It seems if you look at the history of OEO you must go all the way back to when the act was passed in 1964. We haven't had the

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