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GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS ACT

IMPLEMENTATION: HOW TO ACHIEVE RESULTS

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENT REFORM 

AND OVERSIGHT 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 10 AND 13, 1997

Serial No. 105–31

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT 

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman 

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York 

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois 

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

STEPHEN HORN, California 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia 

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South 

Carolina 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

MICHAEL PAPPAS, New Jersey 

VINCE SNOWBARGER, Kansas 

BOB BARR, Georgia 

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

TOM LANTOS, California 

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia 

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

GARY A. CONDIT, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, 

DC 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

JIM TURNER, Texas 

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine 

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

(Independent) 

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director 

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director 

JUDITH MCCOY, Chief Clerk 

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

THOMAS DAVIS, Virginia 

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida 

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South 

Carolina 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

——— ———

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

J. RUSSELL GEORGE, Staff Director 

ANNA MILLER, Professional Staff Member 

MARK UNCAPHER, Professional Staff Member 

JOHN HYNES, Professional Staff Member 

ANDREA MILLER, Clerk 

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Professional Staff Member 

MARK STEPHENSON, Minority Professional Staff Member 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

March 10, 1997 ................................................................................................. 1

March 13, 1997 ................................................................................................. 83

Statement of: 

Giuliani, Rudolph W., mayor, New York City ................................................ 92

Robinson, Dwight P., Deputy Secretary, Department of Housing and 

Urban Development; John Dyer, Acting Principal Deputy Commissioner, Social Security Administration, accompanied by Carolyn 

Shearin Jones, Director of the Office of Strategic Management; and 

Ron Stewart, Acting Deputy Chief, U.S. Department of Agriculture 

Forest Service ................................................................................................ 42 

Stevens, L. Nye, Director, Federal Management and Workforce Issues, 

General Government Division, U.S. General Accounting Office, accompanied by J. Christopher Mihm, Assistant Director, Federal Management and Workforce Issues, General Government Division, U.S. General Accounting Office .................................................................................. 4

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: 

Dyer, John, Acting Principal Deputy Commissioner, Social Security Administration, prepared statement of ........................................................... 51

Giuliani, Rudolph W., mayor, New York City: 

Charts concerning crime in New York City ............................................ 94

Information concerning the fingerprinting program .............................. 114

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 106

Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 85

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 89

Robinson, Dwight P., Deputy Secretary, Department of Housing and 

Urban Development, prepared statement of .............................................. 44

Stevens, L. Nye, Director, Federal Management and Workforce Issues, 

General Government Division, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 7

Stewart, Ron, Acting Deputy Chief, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service: 

Information concerning timber receipts returned to the Treasury ....... 74

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 60

(1)

GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS 

ACT IMPLEMENTATION: HOW TO ACHIEVE 

RESULTS 

MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1997 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 

311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Horn, Sessions, and Davis of Virginia. 

Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director; Anna Miller and 

John Hynes, professional staff members; Andrea Miller, clerk; and 

David McMillen and Mark Stephenson, minority professional staff 

members. 

Mr. HORN. A quorum being present in a few minutes, the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology will come to order. This morning we are holding an oversight hearing on the implementation of the Results Act, the official 

name being the Government Performance and Results Act, or 

GPRA, as some call it. 

Today, we will examine the status of the consultation process required under the Government Performance and Results Act. 

From now until August, executive branch agencies will be consulting with Congress and other stakeholders on the contents of 

their strategic plans. They will explain how the goals and objectives in the plans have been developed, whether those goals and objectives are consistent with their mission statements, and how they 

plan to measure achievement toward those goals. 

These plans will provide the framework for agency management 

to examine activities throughout the organization, helping to ensure that all activities relate to and promote the agency’s basic 

mission. To Congress this is an opportunity for broad discussions 

about an agency’s overall direction and program priorities. 

Today, the subcommittee is going to examine what the consultation process will actually involve. The General Accounting Office 

will describe what Congress and the agency should expect from the 

consultation process. And I might add that we will ask our friends 

from the General Accounting Office to sit with the panels as they 

follow because I would like your reaction as we go through this. 

2

We will also hear from three agencies, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Social Security Administration, 

and the Forest Service. Representatives from these agencies will 

discuss how they are preparing to consult with their committees of 

jurisdiction and describe their plans for full Government Performance and Results Act implementation. All three of these agencies 

were early pilots of that law. The Department of Housing and 

Urban Development has used performance reporting to monitor the 

success of its programs since fiscal year 1994. The Social Security 

Administration has been reporting on performance for 2 years in 

its accountability report. 

This reporting covers a wide range of measures for disability and 

appeals-related performance outputs and outcomes. The Forest 

Service has been preparing strategic plans every 5 years since 1974 

and preparing an annual report of accomplishments under the Forest and Ranges Lands Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974. 

One of the difficulties in measuring performance in the Federal 

Government is the wide variation among agencies in their means 

of delivery and services to taxpayers. Agencies such as Housing 

and Urban Development are grantmaking organizations, passing 

out funds to States, not-for-profit organizations, local governments, 

and other entities. 

In such cases, non-Federal entities control final delivery to the 

end user. Other agencies, such as the Social Security Administration, provide benefits directly to recipients. Still others, such as the 

Forest Service, provide indirect benefits. The Forest Service protects the natural environment and maintains natural resources so 

that Americans can enjoy their heritage. They also build roads into 

the national forest that permit those that are logging trees to gain 

access to parts of the national forest. 

These differences influence how desired outcomes are measured. 

A grantmaking agency, such as the Department of Housing and 

Urban Development, must design partnership agreements with its 

service providers to ensure that providers measure their performance and outcomes. An agency that provides benefits directly can 

measure outcomes and qualities of service much more directly. 

However, it must deal with competing priorities. Does it satisfy the 

customer at the expense of accuracy? Does it focus on service or 

stewardship? Which comes first, customer service or accountability? 

The Forest Service must pursue goals that come to fruition very 

slowly and cope with multiple stakeholders that have a variety of 

needs. And our question will be, how do you measure success when 

it takes years for a tree to grow? The bottom line is that agencies 

must grapple with these and other difficulties of measuring performance. 

The incentive is that an informed awareness of performance 

brings tangible benefits. Agencies will be able to identify programs 

that are inefficient, underperforming or even obsolete. Congress 

and other stakeholders will benefit from improved performance and 

greater results. 

Another challenge for Congress is how to coordinate the Government Performance and Results Act consultation process. The leadership of the House has established teams coordinated by Representative Burton, the chair of our full committee, Representative 

3

Kasich, chairman of the Budget Committee, and Representative 

Livingston, the chair of the Appropriations Committee and its various subcommittees. 

The teams consist of staff members from different committees. 

They will facilitate discussions and attempt to resolve disagreements over priorities. It is important to understand that the team 

concept is not intended to prevent any Members or staff from seeking consultation from any agency. It is primarily intended as an 

oversight tool to promote a consensus where there are competing 

goals or priorities. Simply, the agency should be consulting with 

stakeholders outside of the Federal Government who will also have 

divergent interests and preferences. 

While this is a challenging process, it is thoroughly worthwhile 

and we need to get information about it. Experiments undertaken 

by States, local governments, and other countries, have produced 

excellent results. At the end of our session today, we will recess 

this hearing until Thursday, March 13th in order to hear about one 

of those success stories. 

The mayor of New York, the Honorable Rudolph Giuliani, will 

testify on how New York City, and especially the New York City 

Police Department, has been reformed by the same principles that 

are embodied in the Federal Government Performance and Results 

Act. 

We hope that this legislation will result in similar success stories 

at the Federal level. 

Today’s hearing includes several witnesses commenting on the 

implementation of the act. Appearing today are Mr. Nye Stevens, 

Director, Federal Management and Workforce Issues, General Government Division, U.S. General Accounting Office, accompanied by 

Assistant Director Chris Mihm. 

We will hear their expert opinion on how the consultation process is going. Then we will have testimony from a panel of experts, 

who will bring us up-to-date on how their agencies are complying 

with the law. 

Those witnesses will be Dwight Robinson, the Deputy Secretary, 

Department of Housing and Urban Development; John Dyer, Acting Principal Deputy Commissioner of the Social Security Administration; accompanied by Carolyn Shearin Jones, Director of the Office of Strategic Management; and Ron Stewart, Acting Deputy 

Chief, Programs and Legislation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. 

We thank you all for joining us. We look forward to your testimony. 

I would like to ask the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Davis, if he 

would like to make an opening statement? 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I will be very brief. I appreciate you 

holding these hearings. I think the Government Performance and 

Results Act offers great potential and possibilities for enabling Government to work better and more efficiently. As we try to define 

the congressional oversight role in this, I think these hearings are 

going to be very helpful to us. And I would associate myself with 

the remarks expressed by the chairman earlier and look forward to 

today’s hearing. Thank you. 

4

Mr. HORN. I thank the gentleman for his comments. And now, 

as you know, being regular witnesses here, we do swear in all witnesses before their testimony is given. Once they have been sworn 

in, their written statement is put in the record. We would appreciate it if you would summarize the high points of your statement 

and we will move right along. 

As I said earlier, for those who have entered later, that the gentlemen from the General Accounting Office will continue to sit with 

the witnesses and we would appreciate their comments at various 

points, certainly, at the end of the hearing or during the testimony. 

So if you would rise and raise your right hand. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. HORN. The clerk will note that both witnesses have affirmed. 

Please begin, Mr. Stevens. 

STATEMENTS OF L. NYE STEVENS, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL MANAGEMENT AND WORKFORCE ISSUES, GENERAL GOVERNMENT DIVISION, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY J. CHRISTOPHER MIHM, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FEDERAL MANAGEMENT AND WORKFORCE ISSUES, 

GENERAL GOVERNMENT DIVISION, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE 

Mr. STEVENS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

After 31⁄2 years of planning and preparation and pilots and perhaps a few instances of procrastination, we are finally entering 

that stage in the implementation of the Government Performance 

and Results Act where every agency in the executive branch has 

to produce something tangible, a strategic plan that sets forth its 

mission and goals and its strategies for meeting those goals. 

Agency strategic plans are due to be submitted to Congress at 

the end of September of this year, and the law requires that agencies develop them in consultation with Congress and in soliciting 

the views of other stakeholders in the agency’s mission. The consultations are just now beginning to take place. 

Of the 24 largest executive branch agencies, only 4 departments 

and 7 independent agencies have done any consultations at all, and 

most of those were done because congressional committee staff 

called up the agencies and asked them to come rather than at the 

agency’s initiative. 

We interviewed participants in most of those meetings at the request of the House Budget Committee chairman. The participants 

we interviewed on both sides characterized the meeting so far not 

as real consultations on GPRA, but more as briefings or preconsultations or preliminary consultations. 

While both committee staff and agency officials had generally 

positive comments about these meetings, they stressed the point 

that it is going to take time and considerably more experience before a coherent specific set of best practices for these meetings 

emerges. 

Instead, they suggested some general approaches to successful 

consultations that center on the creation of shared expectations between committees and agencies. Because Mr. Chairman, this is 

new ground. The consultations entail a very different working relaVerDate jun 06 2002 15:11 Jul 18, 2002 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 W:\DISC\42636 pfrm15 PsN: 42636
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tionship between the branches of Government that has generally 

prevailed in the past. 

You are familiar with previous executive branch attempts to initiate linking results with resources like PPBS, the Planning Programming Budgeting System under President Johnson, and MBO, 

under the Nixon administration, and the zero-based budgeting initiative. 

One of the principal defects of these, the reasons they failed to 

take hold for the long run, was that they ignored the need for constructive, candid communication and shared goals across the 

branches of Government, a failing that was recognized very well by 

the authors of the Government Performance and Results Act. 

Creating shared expectations was identified as an essential starting point for successful consultations in our interviews. Several of 

the less successful experiences, so far, stem from the failure to define up front what both sides expect to achieve from their discussions. 

With this perspective, the letter of February 25th from the congressional leadership to OMB represents an excellent step forward 

in establishing generic expectations for the content of the strategic 

plans and for the type of topics that the leadership expects will 

often come up in the meetings themselves. All of our interviews 

preceded this letter, of course, and were not informed by the generally comprehensive guidance that it provides. 

At the same time, both committee staff and the agency officials 

we interviewed stress that consultations ultimately must be tailored to individual committees, to their needs, their varying knowledge levels and to the degree of policy agreement or disagreement 

that exists both within Congress and between Congress and the administration on strategic issues. 

The need to anticipate and address differing views of what is to 

be discussed was a recurrent theme in our interviews. In general, 

we found that congressional staff wanted a deeper examination of 

the details of agency’s strategic plans and frequently issues related 

to specific programs than the agencies were predisposed to engage 

in. They wanted more commonly to keep discussions at a higher 

level on missions and strategies rather than specific program 

issues. 

While GPRA does not resolve this difference, recognizing that it 

exists and addressing it directly is most likely to lead to fruitful 

discussions and to avoid miscommunication or talking past each 

other from the outset. 

Another key consideration that emerged is the importance of engaging the right people in these discussions. Almost everyone we 

talked with stressed the importance of having program people from 

the agencies in the consultations, as well as officials with the authority to revise the agency’s strategic plan. 

To be successful, it’s generally recognized that GPRA can’t be a 

staff-driven exercise, but must be the basis for daily operations 

within the agencies, and those with authority over those operations 

need to be involved in the discussions over the plans. 

And similarly, congressional staff that we interviewed noted that 

true consultation can’t take place without eventually engaging 

Members. The fact that a number of committees are planning hearVerDate jun 06 2002 15:11 Jul 18, 2002 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 W:\DISC\42636 pfrm15 PsN: 42636
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ings this spring to provide oversight on agency GPRA efforts is certainly a good sign in that respect. 

And finally, as was recognized in the congressional leadership 

letter, it was clear to everyone involved in the consultations to date 

that they have begun what has to be a long-term iterative process 

that is going to take a good deal of time to bring to completion. As 

one agency official put it, to be useful, the strategic plan must be 

viewed as a dynamic document subject to change and open to criticism by all participants in the process. 

That is a summary of our statement, Mr. Chairman; Mr. Mihm 

and I can respond to any questions you have on it, or other aspects 

of GPRA. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stevens follows:]

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Mr. HORN. I appreciate having that summary and your more 

thorough and complete written document was submitted. As I said, 

that will be part of the record. And besides the questions Members 

of the panel have, we may well be sending you some written questions in the interest of time. 

I now yield to our distinguished vice chairman to begin the questioning, Mr. Sessions of Texas. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. Mr. Stevens, 

Mr. Mihm, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us 

today. 

As a person who is concerned about the discussion that you just 

enlightened us on, and that is GPRA, and how the agencies are 

looking at this, I heard you say that they are just now looking at 

a response and a mechanism and putting in place those mechanisms to respond to this. Is that what you are saying? 

Mr. STEVENS. As far as implementation of GPRA as a whole is 

concerned, there is a great degree of variability. Some agencies 

have been engaged in pilot programs for a number of years. 

What I was referring specifically to was the consultation process 

with Congress. That is only just beginning, and there have only 

been a few very sporadic consultations really done at the instigation of Congress rather than the agencies itself. 

Mr. SESSIONS. We are, I believe, trying to look at how important 

this is on a going-forth basis to determine from a perspective of an 

agency what their mission statement is to their authority given in 

laws. 

Do you have any examples of perhaps an agency that has a mission statement or things that they do that are not related to that 

authority that they have been given in statutes? 

Mr. STEVENS. There are some agencies, Mr. Sessions, that do not 

have organic statutes. I am familiar, for example, with the Federal 

Emergency Management Agency, which was established by a reorganization plan in the early 1980’s, and that was a conglomeration 

of program responsibilities collected from a number of departments; 

and to my knowledge, they have never been encapsulated in an 

overall statement of the mission of the agency. They generally had 

to package those responsibilities in a mission statement of their 

own. 

I think the Environmental Protection Agency is in the same boat, 

they never had an organic statute. What they’ve had is a dozen or 

so very important laws they are responsible for carrying out, some 

of which are clearer than others, some of which are in conflict. 

They have had to balance that and GPRA is certainly forcing them 

to do so. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Do you believe that they are responsibly looking 

inward at that themselves when they try to respond, or have you 

had any particular contact with these two agencies? 

Mr. STEVENS. With those two agencies? 

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes. 

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. Mihm had closer contact with both than I 

have. 

Mr. MIHM. In the case of FEMA, we have done some work now 

probably about 11⁄2 years ago looking at how they changed their 

program operations to be more consistent with what they underVerDate jun 06 2002 15:11 Jul 18, 2002 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\42636 pfrm15 PsN: 42636
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stood their mission to be. We did not do a legal scrub to see if it 

was consistent with any statute, though. We looked at generally 

how they are seeking to become more effective within what they 

define and what they understand to be their legal mission. 

In the case of the Environmental Protection Agency, we have 

also done work there and have found similar challenges in that 

they are less concerned with trying to get an overall or overarching 

organic legislation, and are concerned with how do they balance off 

the competing demands that are placed upon them by different legislative requirements. 

And this is the type of issue, Mr. Sessions, that we are seeing 

in agency, after agency, even those that do have organic legislation. 

Over time, as new social and economical problems have arisen, 

we’ve put new responsibilities on agencies without going back and 

doing an examination and seeing if the sum total of what we are 

doing, leads to overall irrationality. 

There is a real need to do this examiniation in agency after agency. We encourage them that this is one of the starting points of 

congressional consultation to go up there and say, this is the sum 

total of the demands that are put on us that we see legislatively. 

Here are the priorities that we are setting. Give us guidance, Congress, on how best to adjust those priorities and balance them off 

against one another. 

Mr. SESSIONS. It’s interesting that your comments relate to 

FEMA. Without trying to pick on FEMA, I saw in last week’s newspaper a discussion about how they are spending millions of dollars 

to save some golf courses that may be in harm’s way either as a 

result of floods or other things. And it seems like that somewhere 

inherent within their either; A, mission statement or that the authority that they have through statutes that they would recognize 

whether they should or should not be spending taxpayer money 

protecting a golf course, which probably is a private asset. Very interesting. 

Let’s get to the larger scheme of things, and that is to the Department of Defense, if we could. Where are they in this process, 

and specifically, responding to the June and then the September 

deadline? 

Mr. MIHM. We recently sent over a series of questions to the Department of Defense and are waiting for the answers back on 

those. And, so, it is going to be somewhat tentative until we get 

those answers back and then do an assessment for you and your 

colleagues up here on the Hill. 

In essence, we have just concluded a pretty high level examination in which we found two things. First, is that they had made 

some pretty good progress in establishing corporate wide goals. 

That’s what they call their strategic goals, and they had a half 

dozen or seven of those that they laid out that would be the overall 

goals for the Department. 

Where they have made less progress and what our questions 

were centered on was how do they link the activities that are done 

on a day-to-day basis by military services and defense agencies to 

the attainment of those strategic goals or corporate goals? They 

really weren’t there yet. And there’s a couple of reports that we’ve 

27

issued just within the last 6 months in which we laid out some real 

concerns. 

First, in the logistics area, we had laid out concerns showing that 

while the Defense Logistics Agency was making some progress in 

its own area of trying to get a handle on the logistics issues, there 

was not a real linkage back up to an overall strategic vision for the 

Department of what do we need and when do we need it and where 

are we going to get it? And I know questions of logistics and excess 

capacity have been a major concern of the Congress generally and 

of members of this subcommittee, in particular. 

Second, we had done a report recently that had looked at the information technology and all the tens of billions of dollars that they 

procure each year in information technology, and technology generally to make sure that that was linked up to a broader vision, 

a broader strategic vision of what are we trying to achieve in the 

Department of Defense. 

The absence of these linkages, or rather the questions about the 

extent to which these linkages exist, what do you spend in working 

on day-to-day; what is that achieving at a corporate level is something that is a real concern for us; and we have probed the Department of Defense on that and are expecting some answers back very 

shortly. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Then, last, I would just ask, Mr. Chairman, and 

then I would yield back to you about the gathering of data and information perhaps in DOD, perhaps because they are the largest 

and perhaps the one that would be more suspect, but do you believe that these agencies have the ability to gather correct, timely, 

and accurate data? 

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. Sessions, certainly few, if any, do now. And 

when Mr. Hinchman testified before the full committee on February 12th, he made this a general point about Government agencies. It certainly applies to DOD perhaps because it is the largest 

of any other, and that is that they do not yet have the kinds of 

data on what their programs cost and what kinds of results they 

can expect from them to be able to fully meet the requirements of 

the Government Performance and Results Act or of the CFO Act, 

the Chief Financial Officers Act. GAO is placing a good deal of 

hope that in tandem those two acts can eventually provoke agencies to provide that data. 

But I also say Congress has its part. Because if Congress does 

not use that data, does not make decisions based upon it, does not 

show that it is willing to look hard at performance, it is ultimately 

not going to get the attention that agencies need to devote to it for 

them to improve those underlying systems. 

Mr. SESSIONS. In other words, we have to pay attention—since 

we have asked the question, we need to pay attention and have the 

willpower to move forward. 

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HORN. I thank the gentleman. I now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Davis, for 10 minutes. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I 

guess the cynics in Government would look at this and go back to 

the Johnson administration’s program planning and budget system, 

28

the Nixon administration’s management MBOs and, as you note 

here, the Carter administration zero-based budgeting, and none of 

these efforts were really successful, but they really didn’t entail 

congressional oversight at the time that is contemplated in this act 

and they weren’t legislative mandates. 

Mr. STEVENS. Those are certainly critical differences, Mr. Chairman. We are preparing a report now that should be out certainly 

by the end of the month, which contrasts GPRA with those previous initiatives, and those are two of the conclusions. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. What are some of the conclusions you 

might come up with? I don’t want to jump the reporting gun on 

this, but it seems to me—those jumped out at me because these are 

legislatively mandated and the culture, it seems to me, in the administrations, Republican and Democrat, but kind of the culture, 

the nature of bureaucracy itself kind of hold the legislative process 

at bay and they tend to do their own thing, kind of resent legislative influence. 

Mr. STEVENS. Certainly, the authors of GPRA recognized that ultimately a much more cooperative approach to management improvement was needed between the two branches, that there needed to be some joint ownership of these programs, and that the failing of those previous programs where they were from one administration, it was their initiative. They kind of sent it up to Congress 

and left it there and they did not followup on it. 

I think another key difference was one Mr. Sessions touched on, 

and that is, there is a recognition now of the need of basic underlying information systems to provide the kind of data that you really need to determine whether your programs are having results or 

not. 

The consultation process, as you mentioned, Mr. Davis, is one of 

the mechanisms within GPRA that is designed to achieve a greater 

degree of consensus over what agencies are doing than we have 

now, and I think it was very farsighted in that respect. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It just seems the nature of Government 

itself, certainly the congressional level, it is very short cyclically. 

You go from 2 years in the House—I mean, I don’t want to give 

any inside secrets, but you have got to look at every 2 years. This 

is what is going to happen at the end of 2 years. And this act really 

provides for a longer term point of view, a longer term setting of 

priorities, and administrations aren’t used to that. They are kind 

of in a 4-year cycle. Congresses are in 2-year or 6-year or whatever 

cycles. And this is a great challenge, I think, to both sides to try 

to get the information, share it together. 

Up here it looks like our greatest challenge is we have a committee structure that jealously guards their turf. And as you noted, 

EPA has, I guess, over 50 different committees claiming some sort 

of jurisdiction over the Environmental Protection Agency. And the 

team approach that the administration is looking at at this point 

isn’t intended to prohibit other congressional Members or staff from 

calling on agencies to consult with them. But do you think this approach is going to be sufficient to resolve disagreements at this 

point? 

Mr. STEVENS. It is certainly necessary, Mr. Davis. And it is not 

an administrative initiative. This was one taken by the congresVerDate jun 06 2002 15:11 Jul 18, 2002 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\42636 pfrm15 PsN: 42636
29

sional leadership itself to establish these crosscutting teams that it 

has just begun to form. 

It is very much a step forward. I think it is recognition that there 

are a number of diverse interests within Congress that need to be 

reconciled is a way of bringing those together. Whether it will in 

itself be sufficient to recognize these, I would have to say in some 

cases, yes, and in many cases it is going to take much more time 

and effort and simply communicating together is not going to resolve the problem itself. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. As I understand, the agencies are going 

to consult not only with Congress, but with stakeholders, constituents. 

Mr. STEVENS. The act does not use the word ‘‘consult’’ with stakeholders. It is to ‘‘solicit’’ the views, I believe, of stakeholders, but ‘‘consult’’ with Congress. But that is a stronger requirement with 

regard to Congress. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. ‘‘Consult’’ is stronger than ‘‘solicit’’ the 

views? 

Mr. STEVENS. I believe it is, yes. We certainly interpret it to be 

stronger. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I assume they can solicit views from the 

various stakeholders. But at the end of the day, you have competing stakeholders, competing views, sometimes competing constituencies at this end of Pennsylvania Avenue, with the other end 

of Pennsylvania Avenue, with how the priorities are going to be 

shared. How does this sort out? 

Mr. STEVENS. It will not be the same for each agency. I think 

some of the pilots that we found are fairly noncontroversial. If the 

Bureau of the Mint, for example, will do its job, if it puts out a certain number of coins at a certain level of efficiency, they have a 

less controversial task than the Environmental Protection Agency, 

for example. And I think there are going to be as many as there 

are agencies. And in some, the Department of Housing and Urban 

Development, for example, which is one you will be hearing from 

later today, I think they have a much more difficult job of bringing 

their diverse interest constituents together than some other agencies. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Limited budgets challenge them even 

more. In the old days you tried to give something to everybody, and 

nowadays that is becoming increasingly more difficult. 

Mr. STEVENS. And it makes it more contentious, too. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. How is this being regarded at the Federal level in the agencies? Is this viewed as just another initiative 

and we will deal with it as we have to, or is it really being taken 

seriously as a real opportunity to maybe get some of these agencies 

back on their feet and restore not just some integrity, but prestige 

to the process of what they are doing? 

Mr. STEVENS. I would have to say, and we have looked very carefully at this that at the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, there has been an absolutely wholehearted commitment to the 

Government Performance and Results Act because it helps them 

manage the Government as well. Within the agencies themselves, 

they will admit that there are some agencies that paid very little 

attention to this. They figured that’s something that is coming 

30

down the road in 1998, nothing we really have to worry about now. 

They are now finally beginning to realize that it is real. And some 

still have not engaged the program people, the leadership of the 

agency. They regard it as a staff-driven exercise to be dealt with 

by the congressional relations people. There are some of those. 

To characterize the Government’s reaction as a whole, we have 

a statutory reporting mandate that is due in June, and I guess we 

are struggling right now with how to do that, with what the result 

will be. And I can’t say we have resolved it yet so that I could reveal the bottom line right here. I really don’t know what it is. I 

think there is a very mixed bag so far. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. The agencies generally have a mission 

statement or perceived mission—I haven’t seen it so far. 

Mr. STEVENS. Well, they are expected to. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I wonder, can you think of an example 

of what might have a mission statement or statements that are not 

directly related to their authorizing statutes or there are situations 

where the agency’s statement wouldn’t be consistent with legislative authority? Or will we find that out as we go through this? 

Mr. STEVENS. I think that is in part a legal judgment. It is in 

part a political judgment because these are at a pretty high level 

of abstraction. 

I mentioned to Mr. Sessions that there are a couple of agencies 

that don’t even have organic or authorizing statutes, the Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Emergency Management 

Agency being examples. 

The Department of Energy is one in which its founding departmental philosophy was to respond to an energy crisis. Its actual duties and responsibilities are quite far apart from that right now. In 

fact, I heard at a hearing that former Secretary O’Leary said that 

their real mission was science, and I doubt that that could be found 

in their organic statute. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It could be very interesting. It looks to 

me this is a great opportunity. I was in local government for 15 

years where we were faced with a huge budget deficit in my first 

year. We marched over to the agency and said, what is your mission? And it was interesting how many of them perceived the mission different from what had originally been set out. It just kind 

of evolved and they went off on auto pilot and sometimes somebody 

would come in and check them and if something went wrong they 

would repair it, but most of the time, things moved too quickly out 

in Fairfax and at the Federal level for anybody to check through 

this and take a look at any long-term vision. 

This is a great opportunity if the communications, and I think 

that is going to be the difficult part on the part of the Federal 

Agencies, to communicate with Congress and to try to get closure 

and agreement on some of these areas. If we do that, this is 

unique. This is the first time we have really, to my knowledge, that 

we have had this constructive dialog, between the executive and 

legislative branches. All of these other innovations, as you point 

out, were without legislative mandate. 

Any additional thoughts on that? 

Mr. STEVENS. One of the advantages of having this statute is 

that it doesn’t follow the usual pattern of being an administrative 

31

initiative that the next administration feels it needs to move on 

from, to develop its own management issue. This is a law. This is 

one that Congress has enacted as a regular set of responsibilities, 

and I think that is going to help give it some permanence. 

Mr. MIHM. There will also be the need, Mr. Davis, for agencies 

as they are developing their mission statements, of course, to go 

back to their statutory requirements. What do we have to do, and 

start to sort out what have we just accumulated over time, because 

we like to do or what we think would be nice to do, but as part 

of that to also focus on the results that they were created to 

achieve. 

All too often agencies define their missions in terms of the number of activities they do or they exist in order to do services or 

products and forget that those are merely the means to an end. It’s 

the end that’s important, and once they start focusing on that end, 

that opens up whole new avenues of, gee, are we being as effective 

as we ought to be in delivering the services and products that will 

get us that result. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. HORN. You are quite welcome. Let me ask a few general 

questions, and then we will begin another round of questioning and 

get into more detail. 

One of them is, in the case of Office of Management and Budget, 

have you had an opportunity to look at its strategic plan? 

Mr. STEVENS. No, we have not. We are aware, I believe, that they 

are having an offsite meeting that is meant to be a very seminal 

event in that regard. We haven’t been invited. I would be interested to be, but we really are not aware of it, no. 

Mr. HORN. You have not been invited, I take it? 

Mr. STEVENS. No. 

Mr. HORN. Have they held the meeting yet or is it simultaneous 

with this hearing? 

Mr. MIHM. They held an initial offsite with their senior managers 

probably now 3 or 4 months ago. They had an OMB-wide stand 

down day at the end of February in which they were all to be discussing and thinking about their strategic plans. 

One of the things that has been particularly interesting to us at 

the staff level, that we have been urging OMB to do is that they 

are, of course, subject to the Government Performance and Results 

Act. This is a perfect opportunity for them to show a leadership 

role in congressional consultations by engaging with this committee 

and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to start talking 

about what are our mission, what are our goals, what are the strategies, how are we going to assess our effectiveness, all the other 

requirements of the act. 

To our knowledge, they have not been up here to discuss with 

you or your colleagues exactly those issues. So we, as I said, have 

been urging them in a friendly manner, but also understanding the 

type of reaction we would get with that recommendation. 

Mr. HORN. You anticipated my next question, which is, if you 

had seen them around, I feel like the guy that was in an organization and they changed a lot of things and he said, if the boss calls, 

32

get his name. And if they show up through the door, make sure you 

tell me they are OMB because I will give them the royal treatment. 

So, you might suggest that we are their oversight committee and 

maybe they would like to talk to us once in a while. But anyhow, 

so much for OMB. 

Now, let me ask in terms of the strategic plan and move to the 

measurements. What I am particularly interested in, since we have 

experience, it is global on some of these questions. In other words, 

what has the New Zealand Government done? What has the Australian Government done? You are well familiar with that. What 

has the State of Oregon done? And what I am wondering is, how 

far along are we in devising some realistic measures that really tell 

us when an agency is accomplishing its program goals? 

Are we simply at the goal-setting mission statement strategic vision aspect, or are we down to the nitty-gritty yet? And, if so, how 

do you see those experiments in relation to what we know New 

Zealand, Australia, Oregon have already done? 

Mr. STEVENS. Certainly, those other Governments that you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, are far ahead of us and they have been at 

it a much longer time, measured in decades rather than years. 

In our Executive Guide, with which you are familiar, we chose 

some examples of Federal agencies that have managed to come up 

with some good performance measures. I have teased Mr. Mihm 

here a couple times because they become very familiar. The Coast 

Guard example, their inspection program is one that we’ve used 

over and over and it is a very compelling one. It is the way this 

is meant to work. It is also the best one, and I don’t know that we 

have come up with another one that good since. 

Mr. HORN. Just for the record, even though it’s repetitive of other 

hearings, give us a vision here and a version in a little bird’s eye 

view of how the Coast Guard goes about that matter. 

Mr. STEVENS. The Coast Guard has a ship inspection program 

that measured itself by the number of inspections it carried out 

over the years, the number of deficiencies it found in ships. In 

going through a GPRA-like exercise, and it did precede GPRA, they 

looked at the causes of deaths in the maritime industry and discovered that a large majority of them were not from the condition of 

ships, but were from human error, and they devised a performance 

measure that said if we’re here to minimize the loss of life, that’s 

really how we ought to measure the result of our effort. 

And Chris will help me with the numbers in a minute, but they 

did define their outcome measure as the numbers of deaths in the 

maritime industry per hundred thousand work years, and by working more closely with the shipping industry, by concentrating on 

that human element, on training, on people avoiding mistakes 

within that element, they brought the number down from, I think, 

91 deaths per hundred thousand to 27 per hundred thousand in a 

short period of time. 

They also did it with fewer staff because it takes less manpower 

to do that kind of thing working with the industry than to carry 

out ever increasing numbers of ship inspections and it ultimately 

did better. That’s a beautiful case, but as far as I know, it is still 

unique. 

33

Mr. MIHM. Mr. Horn, what the Coast Guard shows us and there 

are a couple others of FEMA that we have been impressed with, 

and Veterans Health Administration. What these all have in common, and it gets back to the point I was making with Mr. Davis, 

is that the organization stepped back and asked the fundamental 

GPRA question. Why do we exist and thought of that in terms of 

results rather than in terms of, well, we exist because we are a regulatory program. No, we exist because we want to reduce, in the 

case of the Coast Guard, the incidence of deaths and injuries in the 

towing industry. The regulatory approach is just the strategy that 

they had chosen rather than the reason that they existed. 

Mr. HORN. And maybe the tactics they had chosen also. 

Mr. MIHM. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HORN. Well, Mr. Stevens, you anticipated my third question, 

which is the relationship of number of personnel to the results. 

And I was thinking of the downsizing in private industry where 

sometimes the whole mission is improved because they have cut 

out middle layers of people that are simply sending memos to each 

other and really don’t have any role in getting the job down where 

the action is. How are we going to look at that? Do we have any 

good examples now, besides the Coast Guard? 

Mr. STEVENS. We have done a number of reports on downsizing 

within agencies. It has been an exercise that has so far been carried out more or less in advance of the Government Performance 

and Results Act. And one of the major conclusions we have reached 

is that agencies have not gone about this the right way. They 

haven’t taken the steps of saying, what is our mission, what are 

we trying to accomplish, and what kind of workforce do we need 

to accomplish that? 

Rather, they have taken the resource level—the numbers of people—as an independent variable. They have said, well, we will cut 

it and see what we have left and try to decide where to go from 

there. 

Workforce planning is ultimately a very important tool in this exercise. It is one that if GPRA had been well established at the time 

that the last downsizing took place, we would have expected a 

much more coherent approach to it, but it hasn’t happened yet. 

Mr. HORN. Recently, I had the staff send out a questionnaire on 

quality management, surveying how much activity in that area had 

occurred either in improving the relationships between the management group or just what experiments were underway. 

In terms of some of the agencies you’ve looked at, to what degree 

have they gone through what the private sector has gone through, 

some of the military groups, in terms of the quality management 

idea, of which I would think determining what is our mission, how 

do we carry it out, how do we phase it in and all the rest of it 

ought to be part of that? Have you found some experiments? Is 

there any correlation between those agencies that have done that 

work and what they are doing under the Government Performance 

and Results Act? 

Mr. STEVENS. A number of the pilot agencies had been working 

on results-oriented management for a number of years, and I assume that, but do not know for sure that those emerged from the 

kinds of quality examinations that you’re talking about, TQM or an 

34

adaptation of it. But I’m not—I’m not certain of exactly what program it led to. I know they engaged in this and that it has worked 

and the ones that have had a head start certainly have done better 

than those which are just now beginning, which is the vast majority. 

Mr. HORN. Any comments on that, Mr. Mihm? 

Mr. MIHM. I would just reiterate one of the messages, as you 

know, Mr. Horn, from one of our high risk reports, which is that 

all too often we throw money, especially in technology projects, at 

problems without re-engineering those problems to make sure that 

we are being as efficient as we need to be. That’s been one of the 

major deficiencies that we’ve seen in program after program that’s 

invested, $145 billion over the last 6 years in information technology at the Federal level without fundamentally reassessing first 

why are we even doing this and, second, are we doing this in the 

most efficient way possible. We end up automating things we ought 

not to be doing. That’s a continuing challenge with GPRA implementation as well. 

Mr. HORN. One of the things that always worries me when we 

talk about the measurements is people often take the easiest route. 

They see something that you can add up, count, divide, so forth. 

What’s your reading on the type of measurements that make some 

sense in public agencies that are designed to serve a clientele? I 

mean, granted, we can look at Social Security and say, gee, did you 

get the benefit checks out in time? How many errors did you make? 

So forth and so on. What are some of the other measurements? 

I’ve told the story before that I remember the Department of Justice examination of the National Institute of Corrections was the 

stupidest analysis I had ever seen. That was about 10 years ago. 

Hopefully they have improved. But they simply were talking about 

measurement judgments that related to an agency and they picked 

something they could count, not something that was relevant. So 

how do we deal with that? 

Mr. STEVENS. You’re certainly correct, Mr. Chairman, that measuring of activities or outputs is much more familiar and much easier for agencies. The best example is job training programs where 

there is a tendency among the 163 or so programs that exist in 

Government to measure the number of contacts they have or number of participants in the job training programs and to set goals 

that have ever increasing numbers of those participants. 

But the basic question the GPRA should provoke them to ask is 

the underlying importance of that. And it is not important that 

people be participants in programs just to be participants in programs. It is that they become employable individuals with jobs in 

the private sector and that ought to be the measure. 

It’s much more difficult for an agency to achieve because they 

rarely have the data by which to do this. It has to be done over 

time, probably cooperatively, and it’s just much more difficult. So 

there will still be a tendency, and we are finding this in the initial 

GPRA plans, to measure outputs and activities as opposed to real 

results. 

Mr. HORN. That is an excellent example because, as we would 

agree, I think, what they ought to be measuring is, what happened 

35

to their product 6 months, 1 year, 2 years later. Are they employed, 

are they benefiting in terms of rising up the hierarchy at all? 

Now, one easy way to track them is their Social Security number. 

And is there a need in the law somewhere to assure on that type 

of a measurement survey, if you will, a result survey that we could 

gain the cooperation of the Social Security Administration to reveal 

those data to the other agencies if they are doing that type of management analysis? What do you think, are there any blockages 

there we should worry about? 

Mr. STEVENS. There are restrictions on data sharing, Mr. Chairman. You’ve done some legislative work in looking at some of the 

ways our statistical system is organized. I’m not certain the extent 

to which Social Security is limited to providing that information to 

outsiders. But certainly some agencies are prohibited and there are 

some drawbacks to data sharing. 

We have, as an institution, engaged more heavily than other 

agencies in matching programs, computer matching perhaps, but I 

have to tell you it’s been controversial. There have been some objections to some of our investigative methods that take two lists and 

determine which ones are in both programs. 

Mr. HORN. Is that an objection or worry that they didn’t look too 

well at the end of it? 

Mr. STEVENS. We had some of both. There are people who have 

had principled objections to this and the Privacy Act, which, I believe, is under the jurisdiction of this committee was a legislative 

response to that that perhaps should be re-examined. 

Mr. HORN. I’m sure people have valid reasons as a matter of 

principle, but I’ve often found that many organizations revert to 

principle because they don’t like the result of a study, and I worry 

about that. If we’re going to really be realistic, we need some cooperative relationships with all due respect for the privacy of the individual, but not necessarily the privacy of the agency in the sense 

that we need to know if these things work. With a $5.3 trillion national debt, we can’t afford some of these 

things that are wonderful bits of smoke and mirrors. The question 

is, do they work? If they don’t work, let’s get something that does 

work and how do we measure that? 

With that, I would like to yield to the vice chairman, Mr. Sessions, to continuing the questioning. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Mr. Stevens, I would like to take up what would be considered 

a new line of questions, and that is dealing with the numbers of 

people who are employed in agencies, in other words, what you 

would probably call the workforce. 

I saw last week where the Army is now saying, in order to get 

the number of people that they need, they are going to drop the requirement for high school diploma. I have seen that the—I believe 

it is the INS is offering $25,000 as a buyout to some employees to 

leave the agency. These are unrelated, but they are generally to 

the point of workforce and numbers of people are qualifications, 

what an agency is doing to meet their mission statement. 

Can you speak with me about funding levels, workforce requirements, and that relationship to what we could anticipate in this 

GPRA report that we will get later in the year? Is that addressed? 

36

Is it addressed properly? Are we asking the right questions? Are 

agencies including this as part of not just the mission statement, 

but the workforce requirements? 

Mr. STEVENS. They should be, Mr. Sessions. And certainly, GPRA 

contemplates that they will. An agency’s first step should be to develop its mission, then its strategic way of getting to that mission. 

And it is premature to decide what your strategic way should be, 

which is often hiring a workforce before you have decided what 

that mission is. A workforce is only one way to get to a mission. 

Another way is a tax expenditure or is contracting out to third 

party deliveries. 

And agencies tend to have a conviction that because they have 

a certain workforce they have got to keep them. That becomes almost a mission of itself for the agency, yet GPRA makes them go 

back to a step before that and say not what is your workforce 

doing, but why do you even have a workforce? Can your objectives 

and results be attained by a less labor-intensive means? And very 

often that will turn out to be the case. 

The downsizing that has been undertaken in the last 4 years did 

not usually take that step. There wasn’t any workforce planning or 

any decision on what agencies were doing. It targeted older people 

in the workforce partly because their salaries contributed more to 

deficit reduction. But again, that doesn’t make a lot of sense in 

some agencies where experience and knowledge are more important than ever in a smaller environment. 

Mr. MIHM. I would add to that, Mr. Sessions, that one of the 

things that we’re seeing with successful organizations that are implementing GPRA is that they are looking at and understanding 

both halves of the equation. It is a focus on results, and that means 

stopping the focus on a lot of the process controls that have been 

put in place, and particularly with agencies, that agencies are 

going about doing GPRA and focusing managers on results have to 

give them the freedom and authority to achieve those results and 

then hold them accountable for the use of that freedom and authority. 

We, in our Executive Guide, talk about the Corps of Engineers 

which had had requirements for up to five different signatures for 

procurements of less than $25,000 out in the field. Now, these are 

people that are running million-dollar dredging operations and 

they needed five signatures. People in the field thought we had to 

go after GSA or OMB to get relief from this. Actually, it was coming from the Corps of Engineers itself. There was blood under the 

door when that was revealed. And as a result, they have made 

some changes. They are saving $6 million a year and 175 FTEs because they are giving managers authority to achieve results, holding them accountable for those results, and getting out of the business of process controls. 

So once you start focusing on results, it does free up some resources that otherwise would go to a lot of these systems overseers 

that are there to push paper or to run the bureaucracy. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Can either of you give examples or discuss how 

agencies are doing when they do reduce the numbers of employees 

that they have? Is that a one-time shot and they come back and 

hire, or are they replacing higher paid employees for lower paid 

37

employees? Are they playing a game, get them off at the end of the 

year, add them back later? Can you discuss that briefly with us? 

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, Mr. Sessions. We have a number of reports in 

that area, too, which I might share with you. With the downsizing 

program, we find very few games being played. There was an incident in the Department of Energy in which some buyouts were recycled, but they really were fairly small numbers governmentwide. 

But the main problem, I believe, has been a failure to carry out 

workforce planning as part of the downsizing operation. It has generally appealed most—the buyouts that were offered have generally 

appealed most to people who were near retirement age, the more 

senior members of the workforce, and those have been differentially 

beneficiaries or targets, depending on how you view it, of the 

buyout legislation. 

Still, we believe that that has been more beneficial to the Government than the alternative process of reductions-in-force. That 

process is so highbound and so bureaucratic in itself and counterproductive in terms of the results, that that costs the Government 

more than the $25,000 buyouts that were authorized. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Interesting. Well, I’m hopeful that this will also be 

a part of a thought process. And I know there are some agencies 

here today. I hope they get that message also that it is not only 

just mission statement and process and performance with expectations, but also how you’re going to notify your workforce to where 

they’re going to realize what jobs are there. It has a lot to do with 

training needs, what kind of people you need in an agency to where 

it would be a road map for understanding what we need ahead. 

And I guess it goes back to my original statement about the 

Army having to go to get people that don’t have a high school degree. At some point there is bound to be a reason why we did needed that type of person, and we’re reducing our standards, it appears to me. And I hope that we don’t find that we’re getting rid 

of knowledgeable employees with expertise and taking something 

that is less than what it takes to get the job done. 

Mr. STEVENS. Very few agencies right now could prove that to 

you. 

Mr. SESSIONS. And I think they need to be thinking about that 

also. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HORN. You are quite welcome. 

The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Davis, for 10 minutes. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Just to followup on a couple of things. 

I appreciate your testimony. I think you know, in your testimony 

that was submitted for the record, at least, that one of the congressional staff went down, the subcommittee staff met with the agency 

officials and it became confrontational. This is going to happen 

from time to time. I think this is something that’s a learning experience on our side, as well as on the side of——

Mr. STEVENS. It happened before GPRA, Mr. Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Right. In fact, it usually happens. What 

we need to do is tone this down at this point. I noticed the way 

they tried to work around, find the areas we agree. Some of the 

areas like where are you using IT, where can we enhance getting 

more information out, what is the most cost-effective way, those 

38

kind of things are clearly areas we are going to have to work on? 

But you can just see when you get some of the staff, some of which, 

believe it or not, is partisan, together with Schedule C members, 

that you are going to get that confrontation. 

So this is a learning experience for both of us and we need to 

know. We will be learning as we work through this. But at the end 

of the day, even though there may be program disagreements in 

some of these Federal agencies that get pretty politically charged 

from time to time with some elements of the Hill up here, that we 

can still improve the way they are doing it, even though we may 

not agree with what they are doing, but they can do it more effectively. 

That’s going to take, I think, a constant dialog. It is going to take 

constant reports from you and others up here telling us how we are 

doing, and a learning experience. As I said, this is an opportunity, 

that I am not even sure the people who envisioned this act recognized all that it has the possibility to do, if it works right. 

But I think what we are seeing and what I gather you are saying 

is that the discussions between staff up here and agency staff are 

all over the lot at this point and it is just all over the lot. Some 

of them have been very constructive. Some of them have been attitudes. 

Mr. STEVENS. None have really risen to the level of the consultations that GPRA envisages. They have all been characterized as 

really pre-consultation meetings. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. So far. 

Mr. STEVENS. Kind of meetings before the meetings. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. They have been able to learn a lot. 

Where would you say at this point we have made the most headway? Is there any agency you can look at, at this point, and say 

this is really on the right track and is a model, or is it still too 

early to say that? 

Mr. STEVENS. In the consultation process per se. 

Mr. MIHM. If I could answer it by saying, rather than particular 

agencies, it is the agencies that have a clear commission going in, 

the most direct relationship between what they do and the result 

that they are designed to achieve. So agencies such as the Bureau 

of the Mint, presumably the Social Security Administration would 

be another, where it is fairly clear going in what we want them to 

do and that there is not an awful lot of rancor between committees 

or parties up here on the Hill or between the agency and the Hill. 

So those are the ones that have been most successful. 

The ones proving quite difficult are those at the other end of the 

spectrum, where there is the most tenuous or longest-term relationship between the activities they do and some final result. 

Science and research agencies can have a tough time of it. Intergovernmental programs, as you can imagine, have a tough time of 

it. 

What do we really want them to achieve? What are we going to 

hold the Federal Government accountable for in an intergovernmental program? Those are the ones where it is going to take quite 

a bit of time to sort out what their goal is, what their mission is, 

what their measures are and how we are going to assess performance. 

39

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I think you are right. The mission is basically the ballgame. 

Mr. MIHM. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. If you agree on that, then it becomes a 

lot easier to say, how can we do this more effectively? And the discussions can be—they can be heated but they can be more calmer. 

One of the things that I found happens is you have got a lot of 

good people sometimes out in agencies and they are working hard 

but they are performing tasks that really don’t need to be performed when you take over what your final objective is. They are 

working under regulations that really didn’t need to be written. 

They are filling out forms that don’t need to be printed. And those 

are the kind of things that I think, working together, both sides 

can start taking a look anew at that instead of fighting over the 

mission statement. I think that’s a good point. 

I think I will stop on that, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. HORN. Thank you. 

Let me ask a couple of followup questions here. Are there any 

more, by the way? 

We have got advisory boards and committees and a lot of Government programs. I don’t know what the current number is. At 

one time, I think it was around 1,000 and then we had a cutback. 

Do you have those figures off the top of your head? 

Mr. STEVENS. Advisory committees to Federal programs? 

Mr. HORN. Advisory committees, yes. 

Mr. STEVENS. I don’t have a current number but it is usually 

numbered in the low four figures, about a thousand. 

Mr. HORN. I have been on several of them in my previous incarnations, and some of them have been excellent, where you get a 

real cross-section of people that are both professionals and nonprofessionals, that can raise the why question, why are we doing 

this, and get somewhere with it. I found them very useful. 

To what extent do you know that those advisory committees, 

their advice is being taken into account on this, because that’s a 

built-in way? 

Now, some of them are strictly tools of the particular agency, and 

that’s another worry when you don’t have that outside critic, if you 

will, on those advisory committees. Do you see any evidence of use 

of these committees at all in your wandering around the executive 

branch? 

Mr. STEVENS. We really haven’t checked that, Mr. Chairman. I 

think it is an excellent means to get the views of outside stakeholders. That’s really why these committees are formed, to bring diverse viewpoints of people who aren’t directly engaged in the workforce of the agency but have knowledge and perspectives that they 

can bring to bear. 

I would think that an agency head, who was faced with developing a strategic plan, and performance indicators, would find the 

first place he would turn would be that outside advisory committee, 

which presumably is people who are wise. And it’s generally almost 

free; if not free, they usually have to pay travel expenses and it 

would be an excellent place to turn. 

40

I know that the General Accounting Office had a couple of advisory committees that Mr. Bowsher put together and he gathered 

them regularly. I can testify that he certainly took their advice seriously, and when matters of overall priority and strategy were at 

issue, they gave very helpful advice. It was very useful. 

Mr. HORN. Just to give you an example of one advisory committee that I saw worked very well, the law happened to be developed by a really first-rate gentleman in both understanding Capitol 

Hill, understanding the problems of the Bureau of Prisons and a 

very distinguished lawyer, the late Robert Cutac. He happened to 

draft the law that led to the National Institute of Corrections. He 

did 90 percent of the work. I did about 10 percent of the work, as 

I recall, and then it was enacted. 

We didn’t even have a hearing on it. The Senate just put it in, 

rolled through, and we were established. The idea was that of the 

Chief Justice of the United States, Mr. Burger, that we ought to 

do something about State corrections, and we built into that advisory committee assistant secretaries from other agencies. 

And I rapidly realized, as one of the founding members, who had 

helped draft the law, that a lot of these assistant secretaries had 

never talked to each other; I mean, Assistant Secretary of then 

HEW on the youth side, along with the Director of the Bureau of 

Corrections, along with the Legal Center and so forth. 

We just added them all in and they showed up. And a lot of good 

things came out of that in what we tried to do in stimulating reform at the State level, which was eons behind what the Federal 

Government had done in corrections, because we had had a fairly 

high level of professional service in the Bureau of Prisons for the 

last 50 years, and it was just getting them together at the State 

level to pay for the coffee and say, hey, why don’t you guys meet 

once in a while and spend a couple of days thinking about it? Because in that field you have the policemen on the beat blaming the 

judge; the judge blaming the DA. All of them are blaming the prison, the jail administration and so forth. We started getting those 

people, the sheriffs, the police chiefs, all in the same room and 

some good results happened. 

So what we need is to look at some of those in terms of the stimulus they can do to improve a program. And actually the way we 

wrote the law, the advisory committee recommended the Director 

to the Attorney General. Now, the Attorney General is free to say, 

I don’t like your three recommendations, but they never did, and 

they picked one of the three that we had looked at. 

So I found that a useful advisory committee, others that will go 

nameless, I found a non-useful advisory committee for the reason 

that they were sort of the agency pets that were just to come up 

and lobby Members of Congress for more resources without any 

great reason why. 

I also am reminded of our friend, Rufus Miles, that a lot of you 

know, that Miles’ law: That where you stand depends on where you 

sit. 

And I think of one of my colleagues on Capitol Hill in the 1960’s, 

who was always denouncing what was going on in the executive 

branch until he was made Associate Director of the Bureau of the 

Budget, as it was called at that time, and then when I visited him 

41

he denounced everything we were doing in the legislative branch. 

The conversion must have been only one shot in the arm of something, as he crossed the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. 

And I just wonder, on those attitudes there, what do you detect 

as you go around? Is there a willingness to carry out this law or 

is it just doing the minimal to try and get past the guideposts 

under the law? 

What kind of sense do you get? Is there some enthusiasm that 

this is going to help them run a better program or are some sort 

of still saying, well, I will put it off until a week before the deadline? 

Mr. STEVENS. There are examples of both, Mr. Chairman. But I 

have to say that we have been impressed by the efforts of the Office of Management and Budget for the past couple of years in 

bringing home to agencies the expectation that their programs will 

be measured to a greater extent on results than has been true in 

the past. 

Alice Rivlin and John Koskinen, when we looked at OMB’s internal management operation, the OMB 2000 reorganization, which 

you are familiar with. We found that their personal attention to 

this was extremely important in keeping that institution committed 

to it. 

A second group that has also been very supportive, influential, 

and I think has helped generate the expectation that agencies will 

take this seriously, is the GPRA Committee of the Chief Financial 

Officers Organization, and we have worked very closely with them. 

And from what I have seen of their literature, Chris Mihm has attended their meetings, that has been an excellent forum of the kind 

you were just referring to when you are talking about outside of 

these advisory committees, that has been an excellent forum for 

people throughout the executive branch to learn best practices, expectations and to really become alert to the fact that this is going 

to be a requirement on all of them in the future. 

Mr. MIHM. I think for a number of agencies, Mr. Chairman, there 

is a bit of a wait-and-see attitude, is that we have had a lot of interest and a lot of talking and evangelizing for GPRA over the last 

couple of years. It is now time for it really to be implemented. 

There is a wait and see, of let’s see if Congress is really going 

to get on board with this. In that regard, the statement of the majority leader at the full committee hearing last month, a letter from 

the congressional leadership that went over to OMB Director 

Raines, hearings such as these that you have had over the last couple of years, send unmistakable signals to agencies that Congress 

is interested, first, in the implementation of the act and, second, for 

a new type of relationship. 

As we think about consultations, it is not the old way where we 

just drop off a draft, something stamped draft, and say get back to 

us in 10 days if you have any comments, but really working together to try and reach some common understanding of goals and 

measures. I can testify directly because I spend a lot of time with 

agency officials, these types of measures send very, very clear messages and very, very dramatic messages down to the agencies of 

how important Congress views the implementation of GPRA, and 

as a result, it furthers the implementation of the act. 

42

Mr. HORN. Do you find much sharing between agencies at this 

point in the process, where somebody might have developed a good 

measurement that could be applied elsewhere? Are they hearing 

about it? Are they meeting and sharing information? 

Mr. STEVENS. I think the CFO council mechanism is the best example of that. That has taken place, yes. 

Mr. HORN. Well, I have high regard for that council. I think you 

are right. And, of course, now we are having the CIO council, not 

the union, but the Chief Information Officers, and that, I would 

think, would help a lot because they are essential in terms of a lot 

of the measurements being successes. 

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HORN. Well, if there are no more questions of this panel, why 

don’t we have our last four witnesses on panel two come forward, 

Secretary Robinson, Commissioner Dyer, Director Jones, and Chief 

Stewart. 

So if you would all come join us at the table, we will swear you 

in and just go down the line before we get into questions. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. HORN. All four have affirmed. 

We will begin with Secretary Robinson on the progression that 

has been made by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

Mr. Secretary, we are glad to have you here. 

STATEMENTS OF DWIGHT P. ROBINSON, DEPUTY SECRETARY, 

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT; 

JOHN DYER, ACTING PRINCIPAL DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, 

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY 

CAROLYN SHEARIN JONES, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF 

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT; AND RON STEWART, ACTING 

DEPUTY CHIEF, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOREST SERVICE 

Mr. ROBINSON. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and thank you for 

this opportunity to appear before the subcommittee this morning to 

discuss the status of HUD’s implementation of the Government 

Performance and Results Act. 

For the record, I have submitted my full testimony to you. 

Mr. HORN. Right. 

Mr. ROBINSON. And I will just simply provide major highlights in 

my comments this morning. 

Mr. HORN. Excellent. That’s what we would prefer. I am not putting the clock on a strict 5 minutes, but if you could keep it to 5 

to 10 minutes, that would be helpful. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Actually, it should be a little less than 5 minutes, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Cuomo and I believe that this important legislation 

has and will continue to help us to better serve our customers by 

better managing our resources. This is the reason we have embraced the legislation in all of its components. The following is the 

Department’s implementation development path. 

We will deliver the Department’s Strategic Plan for GPRA to 

Congress on September 30, 1997, as required. The Department has 

been developing component parts of our strategic plan, that is the 

43

performance objectives, the measures and other requirements since 

fiscal year 1994. 

We have used an application of Lotus Notes software to develop 

specific goals and objectives and performance measures and a way 

to monitor our progress in carrying out these major management 

plans and targets. 

The performance reporting process has included the review of accomplishments against established goals and objectives and milestones at regularly scheduled management committee meetings 

during the past few years. Based on these experiences, the Department has created and improved its system for establishing more accurate outcome-based performance measures, that is up from 4 percent to over 20 percent in 1997. 

An example of our outcome performance goals and performance 

measure criterion is the Secretary’s priority for community empowerment through the HOME program. The established outcome 

measure for fiscal year 1996 was production of, or rehabilitation of, 

50,000 affordable housing units. As of September 30, 1996, we have 

produced more than 62,000 HOME units. 

Our fiscal year 1998 budget submission links outcome-based performance indicators to major program areas. The next step in the 

performance-measured process for the Department will be the development of accurate and reliable performance measures to all our 

major program areas. The Department considers customer service 

to be an important element of our overall strategic planning process. In that regard, we have developed and implemented customer 

service standards, conducted customer service surveys and are developing an integrated customer service system. 

Finally, we have worked with other agencies such as the Department of Labor and the National Performance Review to further refine our performance measures and implementation plans and we 

expect to begin in earnest our consultation with Congress and 

other stakeholders soon. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HORN. Well, we thank you, Mr. Secretary, for that overall 

presentation. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Robinson follows:]

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Mr. HORN. And we now move to Mr. Dyer. 

John Dyer is the Acting Principal Deputy Commissioner for the 

Social Security Administration. 

And you are accompanied by Ms. Carolyn Shearin Jones, the Director of Office of Strategic Management in the Social Security Administration. 

So, Mr. Dyer, if you would summarize your statement and give 

us the high points, we would appreciate it. Anything Ms. Jones 

would like to add to it, please feel free to. 

Mr. DYER. Mr. Chairman and Members of the subcommittee, I 

am pleased to be here today to discuss how SSA is implementing 

the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, or GPRA. 

I will be discussing how well SSA is positioned at this time to 

comply with the law, including what we are doing now to refine our 

Agency’s Strategic Plan before the statutory deadline of September 

30, 1997. GPRA includes as one of its primary purposes: improving 

the confidence of the American people in the capability of the Federal Government. 

As one of the handful of Federal agencies whose programs directly and visibly touch the lives of millions of Americans, SSA 

plays a pivotal role in shaping the public’s opinion and we take our 

responsibility very seriously. SSA has a strong history of doing 

much of what GPRA requires. 

We have always measured the work we do and the way we do 

it. We have always been attuned to important societal trends that 

would affect program implementation. We have always been proud 

of our service orientation and our concern with the needs of our 

customers. 

SSA’s 1991 Strategic Plan contains a specific set of service delivery objectives that set forth the level of service, in real numbers, 

that SSA intended to achieve over a 15-year period. Our efforts to 

re-engineer the disability process and our improvements in access 

to our national 800-number have had their roots in the strategic 

plan. 

SSA already tracks a number of workload and performance 

measures that we, in consultation with the House Appropriations 

Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education 

and related agencies, worked out with Chairman John Porter, and 

the committee staff. Chairman Porter has asked SSA to actually 

commit to various performance levels in 15 workload and performance measures. We have been working with that committee since 

the 1995 budget on that process. 

We report on what we do. SSA began publishing audited financial statements several years before the law required it. And those 

statements have evolved into our accountability report. The report, 

which links program and financial data to establish how well the 

agency’s programs and resources are being managed, is seen as a 

model of integrated reporting on the operational health of a Federal agency. 

Our current leadership environment has used GPRA as an impetus to move the Social Security Administration into a stronger and 

more productive position of espousing strategic management as a 

guiding philosophy of the agency. The representation of this philosophy is SSA’s yearly business plan, which presents, first, the story 

50

around SSA’s budget, including performance targets, the drivers, 

approaches and enablers of SSA’s business strategy; second, an assessment of our business processes and service delivery interfaces 

and, third, a summary of the objectives and time lines of SSA’s key 

initiatives. 

In direct response to GPRA mandates, we are creating a new 

merit performance construct to ensure that the measures on which 

we report performance at the highest level reflect the entire range 

of program and administrative responsibilities. The performance 

measures and targets will be based on customer and stakeholder 

input, current performance, resource management strategies, and 

the agency’s own view of its future. 

GPRA has inspired us to be more efficient, to use more effective 

means of identifying where strategic action needs to be taken and 

to create systems and processes that allow us to evaluate the successes those actions have had in closing performance gaps. 

In recent years we have established a cost-benefit analysis methodology to be used agencywide, documented how work in our core 

business processes is being done to help identify innovation opportunities, and worked with different automated modeling tools to 

choose the best solutions to operating problems. 

The changes which have taken place in the new environment 

have not just been procedural, of course. Real results are being 

seen. For example, in 1991, one of our service objectives was to ensure access to a national 800-number system within 24 hours of the 

time an individual first called. That objective drove plans for certain changes to an 800-number processing, including the use of 

new technology and more efficient use of staff. However, the input 

we got directly from our customers made us realize that the standard we were using was not responsive to caller expectations, and 

we changed our access goal from 24 hours to 5 minutes for 95 percent of our callers in fiscal year 1997. Mr. Chairman, we are at 

about 95 percent access now. 

It is important for us to regularly re-evaluate our vision and 

strategies. We are using the legislative due date for the GPRA 

Strategic Plan as an impetus to refine SSA’s plans. 

We have just held the first of a series of executive discussions to 

make decisions around key issues facing SSA today and in the future. We plan to use the study of a customer-driven strategic plan 

sponsored by the National Performance Review for best practices 

that will help us equal or perhaps exceed the standards set by the 

best in the business for fulfilling the needs of customers through 

strategic planning. 

We are looking forward to establishing an active dialog with 

Members of Congress about the future they expect to help build for 

our agency. We will be finalizing our performance measures and 

identifying the levels of performance we intend to provide. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we are confident of SSA’s ability to 

implement the full letter and intent of GPRA. We look forward to 

working with you to address what may be one of the biggest challenges it presents, from changing the definition of success, from 

what can be counted, to what really counts. 

I look forward to answering your questions, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dyer follows:]

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Mr. HORN. I thank you very much, Mr. Dyer. 

Ms. Jones, would you like to add anything else to that statement? 

Ms. JONES. No. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HORN. We will now go to the Acting Deputy Chief, of the 

Programs and Legislation Department of the U.S. Department of 

Agriculture Forest Service, Mr. Ron Stewart. 

Mr. STEWART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

subcommittee. I am pleased to be here this morning to discuss with 

you briefly the implementation of the Government Performance 

and Results Act, or GPRA, within the Forest Service. 

I am also accompanied by Ann Loose who is the Assistant Director of Program Development and Budget, who is our agency expert 

in GPRA, and she is sitting behind me if we get into any kind of 

detailed questions. 

Results-based accountability is the heart of GPRA. Our experience with GPRA to date has helped us better link strategic planning to on-the-ground yearly activities and outcomes through our 

budgeting process, through monitoring and evaluation and ultimately through reporting, using both the annual performance plan 

and the performance report. 

The Forest Service was a pilot agency under GPRA, and as such 

we produced pilot performance plans beginning in fiscal year 1994. 

This has been an iterative process and we continue to improve each 

pilot plan based on what we have learned in the prior years. 

We have incorporated the GPRA reporting requirements into the 

annual report of the Forest Service, and we are in the process of 

incorporating GPRA into our budget process. Our efforts as a pilot 

agency have been reported as part of USDA testimony before this 

subcommittee in June 1995. 

The Forest Service has been in a unique position in implementing GPRA in that we have a long history of preparing strategic plans on a 5-year interval since 1974, as part of the Secretary’s recommended resource program and then preparing annual 

reports of accomplishment as part of the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974, also known as RPA. 

We have been able to capitalize on this prior experience in our 

implementation of GPRA. 

Our initial approach for the GPRA Strategic Plan was to incorporate the GPRA requirements into the Secretary’s draft RPA program. This program was published in October 1995, and when it 

was reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget, it was determined that while it contained all of the information that was 

needed to meet GPRA’s strategic plan requirements, they were not 

organized in a way that was easy to understand and so, therefore, 

we have currently gone to parallel approaches. We have two documents, or will have two documents, one which will be the Secretary’s recommended RPA program and the other will be the 

GPRA Strategic Plan. 

These will have the same basic content and will have the same 

strategic direction, but one will be specifically tailored toward the 

RPA requirements and the second one toward the GPRA requirements so that they will be easy to understand. 

58

One of the strengths of approaching GPRA using the Resource 

Planning Act plan is that RPA requires a significant amount of 

public involvement. We have had two national focus group meetings which included participation by congressional staff, conservation and commodity groups, professional organizations, Federal, 

State and local agencies and organizations, tribal governments, and 

representatives of local, regional and national groups and organizations. These meetings were designed to provide a forum for the 

early identification of issues. 

Once the draft RPA program was prepared, a 90-day comment 

period began, and this was in October 1995. At the request of 

Members of Congress, a second 30-day comment period took place 

in May 1996. During that public comment period, we held six regional listening sessions and a series of briefings here in Washington, DC. As a result of our outreach to the public, we received 

1,500 comments. 

In addition to this, we have participated in two congressional 

oversight hearings and a number of individual briefings have been 

given on the draft RPA program for both House and Senate staff. 

Although not required by GPRA, we have decided to complete a 

performance plan for fiscal year 1998 as a dry run in preparation 

for 1999. 

The draft 1998 performance plan contains specific quantified performance goals and associated performance indicators which will 

allow us to measure levels of accomplishment. The plan also displays baseline and historic trend data on performance indicators. 

We have already begun the budget formulation process for fiscal 

year 1999. The agency’s strategic goals, fiscal year 1998 annual 

performance goals and the fiscal 1998 President’s budget have all 

formed the starting point in preparation for the 1999 budget discussions. 

The end products of this will be an agency request and associated 

performance plan which will be submitted to the Department with 

the agency request and then to the Office of Management and 

Budget. Once the President’s budget is finalized, the performance 

plan will be revised, the budget justifications written and both sent 

to Congress with the President’s budget. 

Once we receive an appropriation, the performance plan will be 

adjusted and the goals and accomplishments disaggregated to our 

field offices as part of their budget allocation. Accomplishments will 

be tracked during the course of the fiscal year and reported in the 

annual report of the Forest Service for fiscal year 1999. 

I am proud to say that we have been recognized for our leadership in implementing GPRA. The USDA Office of Inspector General 

rated our fiscal year 1996 performance plan as the best in USDA, 

and in a 1995 review, the Government Accounting Office used us 

as an example of their best practices studies. 

Mr. Chairman, the Forest Service believes that GPRA is an excellent tool. It helps us use our limited resources effectively by 

tiering from our mission through strategic goals and objectives to 

annual performance goals associated with our budget. We are able 

to clearly articulate our relationships and present a compelling 

case for our programs. 

59

GPRA helps us to focus the debate on accountability and the 

agency outputs with our public and with Congress. 

This concludes my statement, and I would be pleased to answer 

any questions you might have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stewart follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much, Dr. Stewart. 

Without objection, the biographies of all of our panelists will be 

put in the record after they have been introduced and before the 

summary of their statement. We have a rather distinguished group 

of public servants before us and we are delighted you could make 

it to this hearing. You all have splendid records, which I had the 

opportunity to review. 

[Note.—The biographies referred to can be found in subcommittee files.] 

Mr. HORN. Let me now yield the first 10 minutes to the vice 

chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Sessions of Texas. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Thank you to each one of you panel members for being here 

today. We appreciate your service. 

It sounds that if we looked at what you submitted here, we 

should have no questions, we should go home and know that everything is going to work right. 

But with that said, I am going to take just a few minutes, if I 

can. 

Dr. Stewart, I would like to think back to your words at the very 

end. You talked about accountability and probably, we could write 

down a lot of words to get to where we want, but it really is accountability. 

But I would like to direct my comments, if I could, to Secretary 

Robinson and Mr. Dyer at this point. 

I am looking at the GPRA book that came out by GAO in trying 

to look at—I am on page 12, where it talks about defining the mission and desired outcomes. And so my question, Secretary Robinson, is, as we look at desired outcomes, is your agency looking at 

problems? 

I heard you mention customer service, attention to the needs of 

the public, even mission statement. But are you going in and looking at the problems that are and have been and are inherent within the agency? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Without question, Mr. Sessions. 

We have had, in fact, over the past 4 years, under the leadership 

of Secretary Cisneros looked at our organization and our programs 

across the board and been as critical as anybody in terms of how 

they work and what they produce in terms of service to the American people. 

We have proposed, as you know, over time, a number of renovations, changes, transformations of the Department. We are committed to continuing that under Secretary Cuomo. He said both in 

his confirmation speech and in our budget roll-out that his priorities fall into line with that. 

And so as we put together our programs and objectives under 

GPRA, which, by the way, we have been doing for the last 4 years 

in terms of performance management of the organization, while 

what we have been accomplishing, in my opinion, have been baby 

steps toward our goals, focusing not only on customer service and 

the things that I spoke to in my testimony, but also on the problems of the organization and our accountability for the results 

across the country. 

67

Mr. SESSIONS. Does that ever lead one, let’s say, Secretary 

Cuomo, to believe that at some point the accountability would 

mean that someone would be cutoff from money or from budget or 

from something? 

Is this true accountability, if you don’t perform we are not going 

to give you any money; we will not reward anything that you are 

doing? And likewise, do you think it would lead to a discussion of 

those areas that are doing well seeing that they get less scrutiny 

and more pats on the back? 

So, in other words, this process is going to lead you to doing 

something about the problem areas and then encouraging those 

proper things? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, Mr. Sessions, I would characterize it as continuing to do things in terms of what the record shows over the last 

4 years under Secretary Cisneros and what Secretary Cuomo wants 

to accomplish. 

Just this past Friday, Secretary Cuomo conducted a review of our 

empowerment zones and enterprise communities and he pointed 

out in his comments that those who have made progress, we support that and we are going to work with them, and those who 

haven’t, we are going to work with them, but he said he had no 

problems, if people didn’t make progress, with the dire need for 

very limited resources and funds to moving those dollars to where 

it might be used better. 

So I think there is no question about that on the record from the 

Secretary just this past Friday. 

Beyond that, as we look toward making changes for those people 

who are performing and accountability—you mentioned how accountability would work. We are proposing in legislation again this 

year that we continue our efforts at deregulating public housing. 

There are certainly those public housing agencies out there 

across the country well-documented, who are poor performers, but 

there are likewise lots of public housing agencies that are doing a 

good job, and what we want to do is deregulate them and allow 

them to do the job that they do best at the local level. And that’s 

been part of our legislative proposals in the past, and we are going 

to continue that as we move forward this year. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Good, and I think that that is good that we encourage those people who are doing the right thing. 

Let me ask you a question then about how you think Congress 

should look at GPRA and how you report versus—and I have got 

your annual—semiannual report to Congress, September 30, 1996, 

before me. And I have gone through and seen, without a fine-tooth 

comb, problem area after problem area. 

Should Congress, if we look at what you are doing, from the 

agency where you are talking to every single housing entity within 

the given cities, should we say that if after you have done all you 

can do as an agency, you have given them assistance, you have 

warned them, you have tried to prod them into doing the right 

thing, should we then as a Congress come and say that we will 

take out specific money? 

Mr. ROBINSON. What we are proposing in our legislation is that 

while we work with people, those troubled public housing agencies 

as an example, as we work with people over time and try to assist 

68

them, and we have had unprecedented involvement on the part of 

HUD over the past 3 or 4 years in cities like Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Detroit across the country, 

and we have seen real progress in those areas, but in some of those 

areas where we have not been able to make progress, we are suggesting that there be more accountability in terms of takeover, judicial takeover, as we have seen here in Washington, DC. 

One of the reasons that we do not move forward in a very aggressive way in terms of taking back or lining out the dollars is that 

we don’t want to remove all the services to the poorest people in 

our community in terms of their needs. And so from our perspective, if the public housing agencies can’t get their act together is 

that there are ways of dealing with that, and we have demonstrated over the past several years our commitment to doing 

that, and Secretary Cuomo is committed to doing that. And that’s 

in the legislation that we are introducing now. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Good. 

Mr. Robinson, I guess you have hit the essence of what we have 

talked about, and that is good money that taxpayers have provided 

for the right purposes that are intended to help the people who 

need it most, is our effort. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes. 

Mr. SESSIONS. That’s what I think all taxpayers are after. But 

I believe that part of this process should mean that we expect results, and I can tell you from at least my own perspective, that we 

must get those actions, we must have accountability, or I am in 

favor of simply not giving out the money if it’s going to be wasted. 

So I would hope that internally that this is not—it’s not Pete 

Sessions saying this, I think you already feel this pressure under 

yourself, but I hope that there is a real discussion that goes forth 

from what you present to Congress about problem areas and how 

you are trying to resolve it to where these people who are in these 

various areas that have had problems producing and doing the 

right thing, that they will know that some punitive action could 

take place from within your agency. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Mr. Sessions, I would agree, and we don’t always 

agree on either side of the aisle, but I can say that from HUD’s 

perspective we have moved forward I think aggressively in putting 

forth not only legislation, but changes in the way we operate in 

terms of the programs that we deal with under Secretary Cisneros, 

and Secretary Cuomo is committed to continuing that; in fact, 

heightening that in his priority. 

We have done that in our budget and we will continue to do so 

in terms of what we do as we put forth our legislative packages 

and that will continue as we deal with how we run the agency utilizing GPRA. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Good. Well, I will look forward to seeing that because I know Secretary Cisneros and Secretary Cuomo are dedicated to this function. I will be watching with great interest to see 

how that is involved in your planning statements through GPRA. 

Now, if I could go to Mr. Dyer, please, and then I will be very 

brief. Essentially along the same lines, probably the easiest one to 

talk about is SSI. That has been a big problem, I believe, in not 

only administering, but making sure that accountability is there. 

69

Do you believe that within your agency, with what you will be 

submitting, that you are getting to the heart of your problems and 

how to resolve them? 

Mr. DYER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Sessions, as you know, in the SSI, we were just put by GAO 

on the high-risk list—— Mr. SESSIONS. Yes. 

Mr. DYER [continuing]. Over concerns about how it is being managed. 

For the record, I would like to say that several of the items that 

the General Accounting Office identified were areas that we had 

been working on and identified ourselves. In fact, many of them we 

have worked with the Congress on. 

For one, we have been looking at how to review who is on the 

rolls. And with the Congress we were able to get through legislation last year that allows us to do what we call continuing disability reviews, which is actually to go back and review the medical 

histories of the people to see if those on our rolls should continue 

to receive support. 

As a result of what we worked out with the Congress, we will 

be going from doing less than about 100,000 reviews 2 years ago 

to, in the next 2 years, over a million a year. So we expect to be 

able to review everybody at least once every 3 years. People who 

have certain kinds of medical issues that we think should recover 

quickly we will review on almost a yearly basis. So, yes, we have 

looked at problems. We have dealt with them. 

In terms of our strategic planning and where we are headed, we 

have identified issues which we are working on and we plan to address several others that were identified by GAO and ourselves. 

Getting back to your question of accountability, we do view ourselves as accountable to the American people and if we find that 

funds are not going where they should be or not being used properly, we are addressing it. 

Second, we plan, through our strategic plan, to increase our investments in some research areas and some policy-analysis areas 

to further be in the position to have good discussions with the Congress, and with the executive branch as to what other actions we 

may need to take. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Good. Thank you. 

The comments that I have directed to both of you today have a 

lot to do, in my mind, with how we should look at what is presented at the end of September, and how it should be a road map 

to the Congress to be able to work with the agencies on a goingforward basis. I think that’s one of the things that we are going 

to have to struggle with, particularly in this committee, Mr. Chairman, looking at them, knowing that what you said you want to 

achieve, but then how do we hold you accountable then also? 

And so I hope that you will continue to make us aware on a 

going-forward basis what you are doing to hold your groups accountable, your offices and other people that you work with, and 

likewise how we should hold you accountable also. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HORN. I thank you, and we will have another round. I yield 

12 minutes to Mr. Davis, the gentleman from Virginia. 

70

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have got a series of questions for Mr. Robinson. Mr. Robinson, 

let me just start by saying out in Fairfax, where I was on the county board for 15 years, I helped start the first shelter for the homeless; we did several senior housing projects that I was instrumental 

in setting up; many times we went without any Federal funding at 

all because I found the Federal regulations and rules and everything to be much more costly and not to give us the desired result 

of trying to give affordable housing to senior citizens. 

I was also co-author of a Statewide ordinance that mandates developers build a percent of affordable housing as part of new housing developments. So I would yield to anybody in terms of a commitment to try to get affordable housing. 

But, frankly—and this predates you so it’s not personal at all, 

but I think HUD has been just not very effective in the way they 

have gone about things. You need to re-examine and start looking 

outside the box. You have talked about that earlier and I share Mr. 

Sessions, some of his concerns, because there is a problem out 

there I want to help solve. 

As you know, the act talks about discussions with stakeholders 

in the various departments. What stakeholders have you either 

consulted with or, I guess solicited comments from in your performance plans? Do you have an ongoing dialog or do you consult on 

an ad hoc basis? What is HUD doing about that? 

Mr. ROBINSON. First, Mr. Davis, let me say that I am very well 

aware of the efforts that you personally made and the renowned efforts that Fairfax County has made in housing over the years, and 

I am proud to say I am a resident of Fairfax County. But having 

said that, let me suggest that in reviewing the stakeholder—working with stakeholders under GPRA, we have actually brought together all of the constituency groups that we deal with on a regular 

basis to deal with not only the issues of HUD but how HUD is 

transformed in getting its mission accomplished. 

We have done that now for the past 2 years, first with a document we call Blueprint 1, under Secretary Cisneros, and the second 

document was called Blueprint 2, both aimed programmatically 

and operationally at transforming the Department and providing 

increasingly more flexibility to the stakeholders out there. 

So I would agree with you, the chairman mentioned my re ́sume ́, 

and if you have read it you know I have been involved in housing 

for more than 20 years, and I would agree with you in terms of 

HUD’s overall performance. But we think that we have made significant progress not only in how we run the program, but the results that we are getting and what we are projecting for the future. 

And I would note, as an add-on, that Secretary Cuomo understands and has stated very specifically that he does not see a difference between our mission for our programs and what we manage. And so bringing those two things together, I think, will get the 

outcome that we are looking for, not only under GPRA, but how we 

do our business across the board. So we have reached out to all of 

our stakeholders, I am talking about tenant groups, ownership 

groups, management groups, local government groups, State 

groups, congressional groups, in both a formal and informal way, 

and we expect to continue that. 

71

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. 

Let me just reiterate, I think talking to some of the local governments involved in this who are dealing with us on a day-to-day 

basis, in many cases, it can be very illuminating because we share 

the same goals and the same mission statement, and we are partners in this. Sometimes the best—I certainly have authored some 

programs in the county with best of intentions, that didn’t work out 

very well, and you just have to be honest when they don’t work out, 

have this dialog and put the egos aside and move on. I think that’s 

where we are right now, with HUD. 

I am not one of those who favors abolishing the agency because 

things haven’t worked out. It’s a great opportunity, may be the last 

chance. So this act, I think, gives us an opportunity to try to work 

together, reformulate a strategy together, the Congress and the administration, and the stakeholders and try to move on from there. 

Have you asked any organizations to help you with developing 

outcome measures at this point? 

Mr. ROBINSON. We have not asked any particular organization on 

the development of the measures themselves. We expect to do that 

but, quite frankly, while we think we have made progress, we have 

got to get much better in terms of the development of measures. 

And as I heard the discussion earlier today, the culture is, of 

course, output: How many of these, how many of that? And to turn 

to accountability in terms of outcome is a culture shift, I think for 

the whole Government and certainly for HUD; I can speak of HUD. 

So we are moving in that direction. It’s incremental, but I think 

progress is being had. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. I don’t mean to dis the other members on the panel, but out in Prince William Forest, which is working well—not a lot of agriculture—but I want to focus on housing 

here just because it has been so important to me. And I think this 

act gives us an opportunity to make some revisions in current policy on a bipartisan, if you will, both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, 

everybody working together, and that’s something that’s been missing. 

Have you consulted, Mr. Robinson, with other Federal agencies 

to make sure that you and they are treating similar programs in 

a comparable manner, and who are you working with on that if you 

are doing it? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, we have a number of opportunities for consultation. You mentioned one, the CFO council, where we meet 

with CFO officers from all organizations. 

I am a member of the Presidential Management Committee 

which is run primarily through OMB, where we meet with deputy 

secretaries from all of the agencies in Government, and like committees of that sort. But we have specific consultations that we 

have undertaken, mostly through NPR, with HHS, with welfare reform being a major part of what’s going on and housing being a 

piece of that. 

We certainly are working with them. We have been working with 

the Treasury Department in terms of affordable housing, how financing works and what the outcomes might be. Those are two 

that come to mind. 

72

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I was going to ask one other question, 

going back to a couple of questions before. In the stakeholders, 

have you talked with the construction people who are building 

these units and the financing people as well? Are they part of the 

stakeholders that you talked with in this case and ask for their 

input? 

Mr. ROBINSON. It’s interesting. We held a couple of sessions, 

large sessions, about a year ago, we looked at design and how you 

build affordable housing across the country. Secretary Cisneros was 

very much interested in understanding the relationship between 

design and how things are put together and how its longevity was 

impacted and how it was able to serve public housing and affordable housing across the country. So the answer to your question is, 

yes. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. Now in testimony to the Subcommittee on Human Resources on March 6th, the IG of HUD referred to the Semi-Annual Report of the Congress that the Office 

of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 

Development issued on September 30, 1996. The report stated that 

despite improvement in some aspects of HUD’s performance, 

HUD’s capability to perform is limited by three fundamental issues 

that have gone unaddressed and can be expected to become more 

serious over the next few years. 

These are the number and the very types of HUD programs or 

initiatives that are significantly out of balance with the capability 

of the constantly dwindling HUD staff to carry out the program initiatives. 

Second, various components of HUD, especially the Office of Public and Indian Housing and the Office of Multifamily Housing are 

not equipped to provide reasonable stewardship over taxpayer 

funds expended for their program. 

And third, HUD’s avowed commitment to a place-based program 

delivery approach is, in important respects, inconsistent with 

HUD’s organization and authorities which follow discrete HUD program lines. 

Now, the IG suggested that a narrower, more precise definition 

of HUD’s mission would help in the first instance, but would require a major shifting of authorities within the Department. She 

also suggested that development of systems that accurately measure program performance rather than just regulatory compliance 

were crucial, especially considering that HUD doesn’t have the capability to carefully monitor all aspects of the huge program it has. 

How would you respond to those points? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, we respond in this way, Mr. Davis: Clearly, 

the IG has touched on a number of areas that have been ongoing 

problems within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the problems that we believe and issues that we believe that 

we have begun to address over the past 4 years and will continue 

to do so. 

If I could go through them one at a time? 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Sure. 

Mr. ROBINSON. No. 1, the number of programs, clearly we agree 

that the mission of the Department and the number of programs 

that it operates should be refocused, and we have documented that 

73

desire to refocus and reduce the number of programs, both in the 

two blueprints that I mentioned and in legislation that both we 

have written and supported, that was in the Congress last year. 

We will continue to document that in our congressional proposals 

that we are proposing this year in terms of the number of programs that the Department operates. 

Second, as far as Public and Indian Housing and the Multifamily 

Affordable Housing programs in what she refers to as—I call it the 

lack of talent—to keep up with the ever-changing and fast-paced 

world, a very complicated world, of Multi-Family Housing Development and Finance, clearly we have had difficulty maintaining appropriate talent in that area. 

I believe that FHA Commissioner Retsinas has made major steps 

in that regard primarily through securing private and contractors 

to help us out—to help HUD out in securing the kind of information that we need, and more than that we have created swat teams 

across the country that will go in and focus in on the mismanagement of multi-family housing across the country. 

And then last, as far as the place-based approach is concerned, 

we would disagree with the IG. We believe that place-based is very 

important to us because we actually operate in places out there 

across the country, and what we want to do is have HUD resources 

be responsive to folks in the local areas and understand what’s 

going on in the local areas and not necessarily have monitors with 

the one-size-fits-all attitude back here in Washington, DC. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I think when you boil all of these down, 

and, Mr. Chairman, I will turn it back over to you, is that you are 

in a changing era with limited resources. You are still trying to do 

too many things. And this is a good focus point for you, this whole 

exercise now, of trying to keep that mission and focus what we can 

do well with existing resources, and we are all counting on you and 

want to work with you to make that accomplished. 

I appreciate what you are trying to do, and don’t look at us as 

the enemy here. We share the same commitment that you do and 

want to work with you to make it come about. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. HORN. I thank the gentleman for his excellent questions. We 

will have a series of questions, so we don’t detain you here this 

morning, if you don’t mind, you are all under oath, and the responses, just if you would submit them, and we will put them in 

the record at the relevant places. Some of them are elaboration, 

Mr. Secretary, on the Inspector General’s reports and so forth. 

Let me ask Mr. Stewart a few questions. 

We don’t want you to feel that you are overlooked here. 

How much is the budget now of the Forest Service in a typical 

year, either the one just completed or the one now? What’s your 

budget basically? 

Mr. STEWART. Roughly, $2.3 billion for fiscal year 1998. 

Mr. HORN. $2.3 billion. 

How much do you return to the Treasury as a result of your logging operations and your assistance to logging operations? 

Mr. STEWART. I don’t have the number available offhand. I can 

certainly submit it for the record. 

Mr. HORN. Could we submit it for the record at this point? 

74

Mr. STEWART. Be glad to. 

[The information referred to follows:]

In 1995, $27.9 million in timber receipts were returned to the Treasury.

Mr. HORN. I am interested in the degree to which the Forest 

Service, in looking at its vast resources throughout the country, is 

looking at options as to its present mission. For example, I think 

historically the Forest Service has been obviously able to preserve 

this great resource around the country, manage it correctly and 

make it available in most cases, to private timber in terms of logging operations, some of which are beneficial to the forest—I know 

there are arguments on this in the environmental community—and 

some of which aren’t. 

But one major option comes up, and that is to what degree 

should the U.S. Forest Service and its national forests be involved 

in recreation as opposed to growing trees for the purposes of logging? Now, you can do both. Obviously, it depends on the analysis 

of the particular forest involved. 

What’s your feeling on that and to what degree is that goal becoming part of the Government Performance and Results Act as far 

as the Forest Service is concerned? 

Mr. STEWART. Mr. Horn, I would say that one of the things or 

three consistent comments that came out of our public involvement 

on the draft RPA program is people in general are asking for greater emphasis within the Forest Service on protection of the environment as opposed to development. 

They agreed either with just sort of the broad, general direction 

that we have identified in the draft RPA program or they have at 

least agreed with specific components of that program. But the 

crux is, many of them say that they want a more obvious statement 

of our multiple-use mandate and what that means. 

As you know, we are mandated to have a broad multiple-use of 

the National Forest and that includes commodity and noncommodity uses, recreation being one of those. Certainly recreation is 

a key one. We are the largest recreation provider, I believe, of all 

the Federal agencies at this point in time. It has always been very 

important to us throughout our history. 

Mr. HORN. That includes the National Park Service, I assume, as 

a comparison. Do you base that on the number of people that access the forest for recreation or those campsites primarily, or 

what’s the measurement there? 

Mr. STEWART. We use a measurement called Recreation Visitor 

Days, RVDs, and it is based on—I believe it’s a visit of one person 

for an 8-hour period, so it’s not just a passing through. It’s on a 

sample basis. And it is developed and disbursed in campgrounds as 

well as hiking and people driving through, it takes a number of 

those to account for one Recreation Visitor Day. 

But the focus of the debate is not on the multiple-use mandate 

but on interpretation of it and how much emphasis should go into 

commodity versus noncommodity programs. And it clearly has become a key of the discussions we have been having within the 

agency as part of GPRA and as part of developing the RPA plan, 

the Secretary’s recommended program. So in answer to your question, yes, it is playing very heavily in that discussion. 

75

I believe the agency is going to continue to support a multipleuse mandate, not eliminating any of the uses, but I do see the possibility that there will be shifts. 

I think, depending on who you talk to, and depending on whether 

you are in a local community or you are talking at a national level, 

there is a great deal of difference in opinion about what that mix 

ought to be. 

I would say, generally, in local communities that are dependent 

upon the local national forest, they tend to want to focus on commodity development. As you move away from those forests, people 

tend to focus on noncommodity, the visual assets, wildlife and so 

forth, and those are all important to our mission. So this debate 

is helping us try and formulate what that mix ought to be, but I 

do believe that we are going to end up supporting the multiple-use 

mandate, and generally the public does. 

Mr. HORN. Noting your comment on the number of people that 

pass through a forest, I have to ask you the question: Are there 

any national forests where an interstate highway or a major thoroughfare goes through the forest? 

Mr. STEWART. I am familiar with one. I came from California, 

and the main interstate out of L.A. going east goes actually on the 

border between the San Bernardino and Angeles National Forest. 

Mr. HORN. So conceivably, one could count the traffic there and, 

say, divide 8 hours in the number of minutes and come up with 

some conclusion? I am just curious. 

Mr. STEWART. I would like to believe we use a little common 

sense on that one. 

Mr. HORN. Yes, because I think those measures can make a lot 

of us nervous, shall we say. 

I am interested in the degree to which the Inspector General’s 

comments have been taken serious by the Forest Service. I looked 

at one of his comments on the financial statements that got his adverse opinion from the auditors apparently, and this means that 

the auditors found the financial information provided in the report 

to be unreliable, in other words not accurate. 

How does the inability to provide accurate financial information 

affect your ability to implement the Government Performance and 

Results Act? Is that a major problem? 

Mr. STEWART. Yes, it is Mr. Horn. And, in fact, that adverse 

opinion has caused a lot of inner introspection within the Forest 

Service. And we currently have a team that is jointly made up of 

members of the Forest Service, the Office of Inspector General, and 

the Office of the Chief Financial Officer of USDA. We have a plan 

laid out, an action plan, with specific timetables in it, specific actions to be taken to have us result in getting a favorable opinion 

in as short a period of time as possible. We are working through 

that plan. There is a lot of energy and effort going into that. 

I think, basically, the three parties, the Forest Service, the Chief 

Financial Officer, and the Inspector General, are pleased with the 

progress; at least, that is my understanding to date. But certainly, 

if we can’t adequately account for the financial resources, that also 

included property resources in that finding, then it is going to be 

difficult to fully implement. And partly as a result of that, we are 

putting a lot of energy into trying to correct problems. 

76

Mr. HORN. In other words, in a particular national forest, the 

Forest Service has difficulty in putting an actual price tag, I take 

it, on the assets as well as the budget related to the administration 

of that forest. Is that what our main problem is, we can’t really 

look at this and analyze it in a fiscal sense? 

Mr. STEWART. That is at least a major part of the problem. 

Mr. HORN. What are some of the others that make the data inaccurate? 

Mr. STEWART. Having adequately trained people and accounting 

methods is part of it; the financial reporting systems that are integrated from one time entry all the way to the top so that you can 

accumulate information easily and readily throughout the organization; having the resources available to actually do the valuating of 

the property, putting a value on it. Again, all of those have been 

identified as portions or parts of the action plan and are being 

worked on to correct those deficiencies. 

Mr. HORN. You mentioned commodity groups, and we have mentioned conservation and environmental groups. How are we resolving the disagreements among these different groups, environment, 

conservation, commodity groups, as to the mission of the Forest 

Service? What kind of a framework are we bringing them in to 

share their views and thoughts? 

Mr. STEWART. As you probably are aware, as of the start of this 

calendar year, we have a new chief, and Chief Mike Dombeck has 

made a priority and consistently said and sent a message that he 

expects what he calls collaborative stewardship, and that is to get 

people at the table who have an interest and begin working out the 

solution. 

The agency’s history is as the professionals, we always thought 

we had the answer, and I think what we are finding in today’s environment is that that is not working very well. So the role of the 

Forest Service shifts to being the facilitator and convener of those 

discussions and to providing the technical background so that the 

discussions are within the biological limits of the forest or the 

rangelands that we are dealing with and then helping communities 

of interest come up with solutions that are workable. 

That is a whole new role for us, and a number of people are taking training in the process. There have been some local districts 

and forests within the Forest Service that have been doing that for 

years, and quite successfully, and suddenly we are beginning to 

look at what they were doing and learning from that. So I look at 

sort of I wouldn’t say evolutionary change, I would say revolutionary change in how we do business in the future. It is going to 

be much more collaborative and much less dictatorial on the part 

of the agency. 

Mr. HORN. That is a very interesting comment. I have great respect for the Forest Service over the years. It has been one of the 

Government’s premier public service groups, and there is a lot of 

fine forestry schools around America, and I am just curious, are 

they forestry schools working on that collaborative aspect that the 

chief is talking about where they educate future foresters in terms 

of the importance of the environmental conservation aspect in relation to the commodity aspect? Do you see that change in curriculum coming? 

77

Mr. STEWART. I suspect it will. There are some universities already that have programs along that line. Whether they have actually incorporated it in the forestry program, there is always this dichotomy. There is so much professional requirement, science background needed, and there is always a tradeoff. But I can’t imagine 

that the national resource professional of the future is going to get 

by without having better dealing with people and resolving conflict. 

Basically, when I went to forestry school, we basically dealt with 

managing trees, and it was quite a surprise to find out there were 

a lot of people out there, too. It was much easier to deal with the 

trees; they don’t talk back, and they don’t move around. It was just 

handed to me, Yale Forestry School, of course, which was the first 

forestry school in the United States, has a leadership program, and 

part of that leadership program is teaching these collaborative decisionmaking skills. 

Mr. HORN. Now, is that while they are getting their forestry degree, or is that post-degree education? 

Mr. STEWART. I think it is post, as I recall. We actually bring 

people into that program. 

Mr. HORN. Well, I think it is too bad that we haven’t started earlier. They ought to really be getting this phased in that they relate 

to people in the real world. And that is true of a number of professions. I am not picking on the Forest Service. Let’s start with the 

medical health professions where we have that problem also. You 

can be a brilliant surgeon, but you might not be very good on understanding people, and that has been sort of the surgeons’ rap 

over the years. 

Let me go into depth a little bit on this OTA report, Office of 

Technology Assessment. They issued this report entitled ‘‘Forest 

Service Planning, Setting Strategic Direction under the Performance Results Act,’’ and it looked at the 1974 act, and then in July 

1990 sort of analyzed where were you. It was requested because of 

a certain feeling in Congress that the results and performance 

goals had not been set in a strategic direction for the Forest Service planning at the national level, and what they found in the 1989 

assessment was that there were very serious shortcomings, and for 

many resources there were no data on resource conditions, and 

there was no evaluation of investment opportunities, and there was 

insufficient information on cooperative assistance and research 

needs and priorities, and that the claims made were not substantiated. 

For example, they gave the timber situation. Two measures of 

public concerns were acres clear-cut, acres of old-growth forest, and 

they were discussed, but with no supporting data on conditions or 

trends. So what the Office of Technology Assessment concluded was 

much of the information in the Results Act documents are incomplete, of poor quality, and that the resource inventories in the assessment scarcely provide sufficient data on the quantity, the quality of the outputs of each resource to analyze opportunities to improve resource management. Some of the information they said is 

based on surrogate measures or on professional judgments, which 

we have been discussing. And then they argued better data are 

needed; better data will not automatically lead to better planning, 

78

but could settle debates on what is and focus attention on what 

should be. 

What this report presumably is telling the Congress is that the 

Forest Service really doesn’t know what the data are. We have 

agreed on the financial data, and that report is 1990, and we read 

the audit in 1995, and the question is obviously did we improve in 

that 5 years; otherwise why the audit problem? But there are data 

besides financial data, and I would ask to what degree is the Forest 

Service assured that the nonfinancial data are accurate, relevant, 

helpful in the measurement part? I wonder if you just want to 

react to that? 

Mr. STEWART. That, Mr. Horn, is a good question. I would begin 

by saying that I agree with Mr. Robinson that we are better at 

measuring inputs and outputs and less at outcomes, and as we 

have begun to define the outcome as being healthy forests or 

healthy rangelands, the difficulty of defining health all of a sudden 

comes to the forefront. And that is something that you can measure 

at a point in time, but measuring progress toward improvement 

takes good trend data. 

One of the things that has occurred over the last year is we have 

formed an Inventory and Monitoring Institute. As you know, we 

are responsible for the national forest inventory, and that increasingly is becoming more integrated and more a multi-resource. 

Rather than just timber, it is beginning to look at other resources 

also. One of the roles of that institute is to assure the quality of 

the data, the consistency of the data, and the fact that it does add 

up across the country. 

We had joined in partnership with other natural resource agencies to jointly define what kinds of measures do we need to adequately measure things like forest health or sustainability, which 

is another issue, so that we are using consistent definitions and 

consistent data when we are presenting our information. 

We have partnered up with the Natural Resources Conservation 

Service, the sister agency within USDA, in their inventory efforts, 

so that we are taking common information and even have common 

plots. Again, I think that is going to improve the quality of our 

data. 

So, as I mentioned earlier, it is an iterative process. We are beginning to move away from just measuring things and begin looking at what is it we are trying to achieve on the lands; what does 

the land need to look like, and how do you measure those? The 

tradeoff is always going to be between the two extremes, those who 

want to measure everything, which you can’t afford to do, and 

those who want to measure very little. And somewhere in the middle is where we need to be, and that is one of the purposes of the 

Inventory and Monitoring Institute is find out what is that set of 

information, what is most important, which will be things like forest health and sustainability that will be measured across ownerships and across different kinds of management strategies also. 

So it is a problem. We are working on it. We are beginning to 

implement in a broader scale something called forest health monitoring. The intent eventually is to have it in all 50 States, and it 

is being lined up efficiently and effectively with our forest inventory efforts. We are using the same plot designs. And it will expand 

79

the usefulness and accuracy of that kind of information. So there 

are a number of initiatives going on that over the next couple of 

years will begin to bear fruit. 

Mr. HORN. Well, that is very helpful, and you have stated the reaction very well. 

Let me to move to Mr. Dyer from the Social Security Administration. One of the concerns that we expressed in the earlier part of 

the hearing is the degree to which the Social Security Administration would be able to work with other Federal agencies in terms 

of tracking data on the success of some programs, and what we 

were talking about was worker retraining or worker re-education. 

I think all of us are visited probably twice a year by members 

of private industry councils who have Federal money they are 

using to help meet the job needs of a particular area of the country 

with different occupations involved. There is no simple cookie-cutter approach. But the real question is, how effective is the training? 

Are we getting our money’s worth? And I think the only way we 

will know is if we find what happened in the job experience of 

those individuals that they gave 6 months’ training to or a year’s 

training, and the only way we are going to know that is if the Social Security Administration will tell us where they are, what are 

the payments going to these workers now, did they improve? 

Tracking them is the excuse always for not having those data. 

And I just wonder what is the situation in the Social Security Administration in terms of the laws involved that would prevent one 

Federal agency which is subsidizing re-education for a workforce, 

and this is part of the President’s agenda obviously, and another 

Federal agency which knows where that individual is in the workforce from cooperating together. 

Could you sort of give us a bird’s-eye summary of that situation 

in terms of either the privacy laws as they pertain to Social Security or to what degree are you cooperating now with other Federal 

agencies? 

Mr. DYER. Mr. Chairman, we have been working very closely 

with other Federal agencies in terms of coordinating our programs 

with theirs. And there is a flip side, too. We are very interested 

that people on our programs, particularly in supplemental security 

income or disability under Title 2, are able to go back to work if 

they want to, if they can work. So we are very interested in the 

same thing. We ourselves have been running pilots, and this year 

we have worked out an initiative in the President’s 1998 budget 

which allows us to start moving toward how to return people to 

work. 

Mr. HORN. Would you get the mic a little closer. I am having difficulty hearing you. Just move it toward you. 

Mr. DYER. I am sorry. 

In terms of your second question of sharing data, generally, if it 

is for research purposes and very broad, that does not give us too 

much problem as to how we share it because we do not identify the 

individual. So for large-scale studies we work with agencies and do 

share data. 

Where we get into privacy concerns is when it is for individuals 

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eral agencies we are able to work out those kinds of arrangements 

so that they assure us as to how they are handling the data. 

I note from our end, we do matches with other agencies themselves to see what is going on, who is in what program, and what 

is happening, particularly, for instance, in the unemployment insurance world. And it is something we would be glad to work with 

other agencies on. I think it is of interest to all of us. 

Mr. HORN. Have you ever had an opportunity to work with those 

private industry council programs that are funded by the Federal 

Government? 

Mr. DYER. I am not the expert in the agency on this, Mr. Horn, 

but we do have a lot of contact with a lot of various groups that 

are involved in rehabilitation or mental health or whatever, and I 

am sure many people on our staff have worked with them. 

Mr. HORN. Who would be the best person for the subcommittee 

to contact? 

Mr. DYER. Our Associate Commissioner for Disability, Susan 

Daniels. 

Mr. HORN. OK. So the Disability Associate Commissioner’s realm 

would cover this matter? 

Mr. DYER. Most of it, yes, sir. 

Mr. HORN. Good. That is very helpful. 

Now let’s turn to the General Accounting Office in closing this 

out. Anything you heard this morning that you would like to comment on for the record and advise us whether that helps us move 

toward the goals of the Government Performance and Results Act 

or deters us from achieving the goals? 

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. Chairman, I think we have heard a variety of 

experiences. We have a variety of agencies just within the three 

that are up here. We have the Social Security Administration, 

which I think has had quite a readily defined set of responsibilities, 

more so than the Forest Service, which—for example has got a mix 

of responsibilities, some of which may indeed be conflicting, certainly which are changing. 

There was a good deal of discussion, it seems to me, on the need 

for good data arising from all of these programs and the emphasis 

that GAO has put over the years on the production, the maintenance and value of the kinds of information on performance and 

costs of these programs, it seems to me, just to be a starting point 

for anybody making progress in these areas. And with HUD, of 

course, that is probably a more serious problem, but apparently, according to Mr. Robinson, it is being addressed. 

We have commented at some length on each of these agencies 

and their performance. I think GAO probably tends to pick out 

some weak points that weren’t emphasized by the witnesses up 

here, but if I were in their position, I wouldn’t emphasize the weak 

points either. 

Mr. HORN. Well, we will try to elicit those in the followup questions. 

What would you suggest this subcommittee might do in terms of 

prodding the system along to be successful in carrying out the law 

as far as the strategic mission, as far as the measurements related 

to that and so on down the line? 

81

Mr. STEVENS. I think there are two focal points. One you are 

doing with the agencies themselves. I think the oversight committees have a very broad role there and knowledge of GPRA, what 

agencies’ responsibilities are under it. If they are called up to testify before Congress, they are expected to find out about this and 

presumably have something positive to say. 

I think probably the greater challenge, however, is to work within the Congress itself. We have maintained for a number of years, 

based on our conversations with agencies, that unless Congress 

uses the kinds of information and analysis that the Government 

Performance and Results Act was designed to achieve, unless it 

asks questions based on that information and agencies’ self-assessment, and unless it acts on the answers that it gets in its own real 

decisionmaking process, despite the fact that GPRA is a law, it 

could still fade into irrelevance as many other management initiatives have in the past. 

It is ultimately going to depend on whether Congress really uses 

it, and there I think the role of this committee—this subcommittee 

is of critical importance in bringing on board a number of committees that themselves are just beginning to find out what it is all 

about. 

Mr. HORN. I think that is well said. 

I would also like to put a stress on the Office of Management and 

Budget using the data and measurements when they dole out resources and decide whether there will be a plus or minus this year 

for a particular agency. And it seems to me we need to make sure 

that in their budget go-arounds that we can get measurement data 

that both the executive branch and the legislative branch agree 

make some sense. Then we are a long way there in analyzing particular programs. 

And I have always been bothered by the fact that we can’t get 

agreement between OMB and CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, as to projections on the economy. It just seems to me there 

ought to be a way to work out some of those things so we don’t 

have rosy scenarios, as they say, at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue. And I think GAO could be immensely helpful in continuing 

to be a neutral critic as to what is going on, and we are going to 

count on you for that resource. 

So I thank you all for coming. 

I have one announcement before I thank the staff, and that is 

that there are no further questions. We are going to thank you for 

being here. And the second session of this hearing will take place 

10 a.m., Thursday morning in the same room, and we will be hearing from Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York City on the privatization Government reform initiatives in that major city. And we 

will stand recessed until 10 a.m., on Thursday, March 13th. 

I now thank the following people who have put this hearing and 

will put the next one and a few others together, and that is the 

staff director, J. Russell George; Anna Miller, professional staff 

member to your left; John Hynes, professional staff member, on the 

side; Andrea Miller, our clerk, who set up the hearing; and then 

David Bartell, my chief of staff next to the staff director; and our

82

friends on this side, one is missing, David McMillen, Mark Stephenson, professional staff members for the Democratic minority; 

and our court reporters, Ryan Jackson and Mindi Colchico. We 

thank you all for your role in this, and we are now recessed. 

[Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the subcommittee was recessed.] 

(83)

GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS 

ACT IMPLEMENTATION: HOW TO ACHIEVE 

RESULTS 

THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1997 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room 

311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman 

of the subcommittee), presiding. 

Present: Representatives Horn, Maloney, and Davis of Illinois. 

Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director; Anna Miller, 

Mark Uncapher, and John Hynes, professional staff members; Andrea Miller, clerk; David McMillen, minority professional staff 

member; and Ellen Rayner, minority chief clerk. 

Mr. HORN. The Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology will come to order. 

I have just come from another hearing, the DC Subcommittee, 

where the Mayor of the District of Columbia is testifying, as well 

as a number of other people. 

And I mentioned our series of hearings on results-oriented government in terms of the Government Performance and Results Act, 

and noted that you were going to be here as a witness, Mayor 

Giuliani. I mentioned that I would like to see the same results that 

you have established in New York City established in the District 

of Columbia. 

Right now, only the State of Oregon has a results-oriented government. Australia and New Zealand do. And we just do not talk 

about hey, give us some more money. Because we have a great 

idea. We look at a plan to get something done, and the citizenry 

to participate in evaluating that plan, to see if we are getting results. 

So this hearing is a continuation of a series that began in 1995, 

and will increase in number, simply because we want to see how 

well the Federal Government is doing it. And we had several agencies testify last week in terms of Social Security, and the Forest 

Service, and HUD. And, of course, this hearing will focus on what 

has been accomplished in local government with you as one of the 

major leaders in this area. 

I think that you and I would agree that the voters are clamoring 

for the kind of reform that has results. And no one will deny that 

84

they deserve such reforms. And, of course, our question is, what 

can Congress do to expedite the process? Certainly, we have a role 

at the Federal level. The question would be what kind of role do 

we have, if any, at the State and the local level? 

We have learned during these hearings that results can be a 

powerful instrument for reform if we are industrious and vigilant. 

But we also have to be thoughtful and innovative. We cannot assume that the Results Act will do all of the thinking for us. We 

must constantly search for successful reform examples such as your 

own. 

Luckily, one need not look far. And that is why we asked you to 

join us and share your experience in terms of the police department 

in New York City. And the issue of crime, as we all know in this 

room, anybody who knocks on a door in any precinct, that is what 

worries people. The quality of education, and the quality of our control of crime by youth gangs and others who are disruptive of our 

society and our opportunities. 

So we are going to be very interested in the broad strategic 

changes that occurred in the New York Police Department. And we 

look forward to your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Mr. Mayor, I am going to swear you in, and then have 

your distinguished New Yorker and Staten Islander, and our distinguished colleague, introduce you to us. All of our witnesses are 

sworn in here, if you do not mind, Your Honor. If you would raise 

your right hand. 

[Witness sworn.] 

Mr. HORN. The mayor has affirmed. 

And I am now delighted to introduce the distinguished Member 

from New York, Ms. Susan Molinari. Thank you for coming. 

Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank 

you for giving me an opportunity to introduce a man who has become very special to the people of New York City. He is a man who 

has devoted most of his adult life to Government service. And I am 

just going to go through a brief background, because I think it sets 

the stage for where he gained a lot of his experience that he has 

implemented in New York City, and we are grateful for that. 

Out of law school, he clerked for a Federal judge in Manhattan. 

He then joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where he became chief 

of the narcotics unit at the age of 29. 

He served as Assistant Attorney General here in Washington, 

DC, and returned to New York as U.S. Attorney for the Southern 

District, where he accumulated over 4,000 convictions, many 

against organized crime figures notorious for their previous ability 

to escape justice. 

Since becoming mayor of the city of New York in 1993, Rudy 

Giuliani has taken a number of steps to improve the quality of life 

for New Yorkers. But I daresay, as you correctly pointed out, nothing has been more impressive or important to us than his bold initiative to fight crime, regardless of the severity. 

From fare jumping at subway turnstiles, to truant officers at 

New York City schools, and dealing with and effectively prosecuting murders, the mayor knows that the first priority of Government is protecting its citizens. If people feel safe, they are likely 

to raise a family, buy a home, or just enjoy the best city in the 

world. 

As a result, New York City is attracting both new businesses and 

old friends that had left. And with these businesses come employment opportunities; 110,000 new private sector jobs have been created in the past 31⁄2 years. Think about that, 110,000 new private 

sector jobs. 

This is a dramatic reversal from the previous 4 years, where 

400,000 jobs were lost to New York. This all amounts to economic 

growth and opportunity, growth and opportunity which naysayers 

thought were long gone from New York City. 

But as you know, we New Yorkers are a tough bunch. And just 

when you think you may have us on the ropes, we come rallying 

back. 

As the mayor of New York City with a population of 8 million 

people, and a number that doubles just about during the course of 

a day, some of the mayor’s accomplishments include, and I know 

that he will go into detail as to how he gets there, but I am just 

so proud of what he has done that I have to take this opportunity 

to brag a little bit. 

87

A 38 percent reduction in crime since 1993, including a 50 percent drop in murder. Reining in a bloated and often wasteful bureaucracy by reducing the number of Government jobs. Eliminating, I think, 21,000 without direct layoffs. 

Directing educational resources on teachers and classrooms and 

not on administrators. And undertaking the most ambitious Welfare to Work program in the city’s history, moving 37,000 people 

off welfare and onto jobs. 

And I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, when I served on the New 

York City Council, we had a tough time dealing with a pilot program that was going to get welfare mothers to work, 500 of them. 

We could not pass that in the city council. And Mayor Giuliani has 

been able to create miracles in that city that we did not believe 

could be duplicated anywhere in this country. The mayor’s effects 

are indeed achievements for which he should be commended. 

While not equal in size or scope of the entire country, New York’s 

successes point to how an accountable government can be an effective government. It is a recipe for success in a big, complicated city, 

a small town, or the entire United States. 

Mr. Chairman, I am very proud of the man who is sitting next 

to me. He has brought back a spirit of discipline, of hope, of exuberance, and of anticipation to a city who thought those were qualities that were long gone. He has made a difference for just about 

every family in the city of New York by dedicating every waking 

hour, and I have to say knowing Rudolph Giuliani, that is about 

20 hours of the day, to improving the quality of life for New York 

City. 

I am very proud to introduce the mayor of New York, Rudolph 

Giuliani. 

Mr. GIULIANI. Thank you very much. 

Ms. MOLINARI. It is my honor. 

Mr. HORN. And thank you. 

Mr. GIULIANI. Good morning. Mr. Chairman, and members of the 

subcommittee, and Congresswoman Molinari, I am very pleased to 

be here. And I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak 

with you. 

Mrs. MALONEY. First, Mr. Mayor, could I welcome you also? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Please. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And my colleagues. And I ask that my opening 

statement be placed in the record as read. 

I must say, Mayor Giuliani, I never thought in my wildest 

dreams that New York City would be held up as the poster child 

for achievement in controlling crime for the Nation. 

In fact, in the last election, some Republicans complained that 

the President was using New York City and the national crime statistics, and New York City was driving down the national crime 

statistics due to the tremendous success that we have had in New 

York City with your leadership. 

And also, I think that we have the best police department in the 

world. There is no question about it. They are the bravest, the most 

innovative, and actually the best in every way. 

And I must say that the President’s anticrime proposals have 

helped bring moneys to New York City for additional police officers 

and certainly the ban on assault weapons. 

88

So, I am very happy for my constituents and for New York City 

with the success of bringing crime down in New York City. And I 

am very pleased to welcome you here today. And, as always, I look 

forward to what you have to say. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney follows:]

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STATEMENT OF RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI, MAYOR, NEW YORK 

CITY 

Mr. GIULIANI. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Congresswoman Molinari, Congresswoman Maloney, 

and Mr. Chairman. 

The fact is that the things that we are going to talk about are 

very much geared to your introduction. What we tried to do from 

the day that I became mayor is turn New York City into a resultsoriented Government, and then spend time trying to figure out 

what is the result that you actually want to achieve. 

The results that I am going to talk about, which are very positive 

ones, are the product of very good teamwork within all of the agencies of the city, and community groups, by the fine representation 

that we have in Congress; Congresswoman Molinari and Congresswoman Maloney, and all of you who represent us here. This is very 

much a team effort. 

Although I will describe what my administration has done, none 

of it would be possible without the very strong support of all of you. 

And I thank you very much for that. 

The Government Performance and Results Act comes in response 

to an overwhelming desire on the part of the American people to 

see Government become accountable and efficient. 

In New York City, we have seen how effective management can 

yield successful results. New York City has become known as a 

place that now welcomes growth, welcomes progress, and welcomes 

new ideas. 

As Congresswoman Molinari pointed out before, there was a period of time in which you were not allowed to have a new idea in 

New York City. And we tried to create the groundwork and the 

ability for people to propose new ideas and to deal with some of the 

most important and difficult problems that the city faced. 

In the late 1980’s and the early 1990’s, it was my fear that New 

York City—that when people said those words, the two things that 

would come to mind quicker than the great advantages of New 

York City, and the arts institutions that are there, and educational 

institutions, the two things that would come to mind first were 

crime and welfare. Crime, a city to which people were afraid to 

come. And second, a city in which people thought that welfare was 

really breeding dependency in not moving people back to work. 

So we tried very hard to put tremendous emphasis on turning 

around those two things, and to come up with a measure of success. The charts that I have here show the results in the area of 

crime. And again, since what you are looking at is measuring results, these are the results measured by the FBI. 

The first chart on the left shows what happened to the overall 

number of crimes as measured by the FBI. And New York City now 

has a level of crime that is lower than any time in the 1990’s, the 

1980’s, the 1970’s. 

In fact, the crime rate last year was lower than in the year 1968. 

So there is the number, 386,000 serious crimes as measured by the 

FBI. The last time that we had a year like that was in 1967. And 

these are FBI statistics, not our own statistics. So this is the way 

that the FBI measures crime. 

93

Or another way to look at it is the chart right next to it, which 

shows the reduction in crime in New York City over the last 3 

years. New York City has the largest reduction in crime of any city 

in the United States over the last 3 years, 31.9 percent. San Diego 

is right behind with 29.5 percent. Los Angeles with 22.9 percent. 

And just to show that it is not a national trend, some major cities 

during this same period of time have had fairly sizable increases 

in crime. And you see them at the bottom of the chart. 

So yes, there are things that are happening nationally. But the 

fact is that reductions in crime of this magnitude are not happening in every part of the country. 

This chart, which is a little hard to read, shows where New York 

City now ranks among cities with populations of 100,000 or more. 

According to the FBI, mid-year last year, New York City was city 

No. 144 for the possibility of being a victim of a crime in the 

United States. City No. 1 was Atlanta. City No. 144 was New York 

City. And virtually every city in America has, per capita, more 

crime now than New York City. 

This is a very different picture than existed 3 or 4 years ago. It 

is actually a little startling, and people do not believe it. They do 

not believe that New York City is 144 out of a group of 187 cities. 

And cities like Little Rock; and Phoenix; and Richmond, VA; and 

Rochester, NY; and Omaha, NE; and Boston; and Buffalo, NY; and 

Albany, NY have more crime per capita than the city of New York. 

This is not in any way to demean them. It is just to deal with 

a stereotype that New York City is the most dangerous city in 

America. It is just the opposite. It is city No. 144. 

Mr. HORN. I might add that with these charts and tables, they 

will be put in the record at this point. 

Mr. GIULIANI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. GIULIANI. And this shows the decline in New York in June 

1995 to 1996. This is the last one audited and measured by the 

FBI. The decline nationally was 3 percent. The decline in other 

major cities was 4.3 percent. The decline in New York City was 

10.5 percent. 

This is the point that I believe Congresswoman Maloney made 

before. The fact is that New York City makes up about 40 to 45 

percent of America’s crime decline. And without that percentage, 

America would have had a very negligible crime decline. So in a 

way, New York City is doing something that people never thought 

was possible. 

The real question is why is that coming about, why is that happening? These results were achieved, because we carefully rethought the way that the police department should operate. And 

the strategic missions that we came up with proved to be a resounding success. 

Times have changed, and we have made critical improvements in 

the way that the department does its work, establishing separate 

strategies for dealing with guns, for youth crime, for drugs, for domestic violence, for auto-related theft. 

We have paid special attention to the key objective of improving 

the quality of life in public spaces. We found that implementing the 

broken windows theory, which says that sometimes the things that 

were being ignored because they were too small to pay attention to, 

because you were ignoring them so often and creating such immunity on the streets, that it was really leading to the more serious 

crimes. 

We had a period of time in the city in which that philosophy and 

theory was carried to such an extent that street level drug dealers 

were not arrested by the police, because it was thought that we 

had more important drug dealers that the police should be concentrating on. So entire streets and neighborhoods were turned over 

to drug dealers. 

I reversed that, and we increased the number of arrests of street 

level drug dealers by 30, 40, and 45 percent. We still cannot arrest 

all of them, but we do not have to give them immunity. 

We focused very carefully on something that I think was a New 

York phenomena—squeegee operators. Squeegee operators were 

people who would come up to your automobile, and ask you for 

money in order to clean your window, but very often intimidated 

people into giving that money. 

And we decided that we had to change that, that we had to do 

away with them. We had to enforce the laws against interfering 

with traffic, which always existed, but were being ignored. And 

what we found was that half of the squeegee operators were wanted felons, very often wanted for crimes like murder, rape, mugging. 

So in fact, two things happened. We created a safer environment, 

and we removed from the streets people who probably were going 

to engage in repeating their criminal behavior, like mugging, rape, 

and murder, if they had not been caught specifically for squeegee 

operations. 

Within a year and a half of taking office, our administration 

achieved a merger of the three police departments in New York 

99

City, which had always been separated, the New York Police Department, the Transit Police, and the Housing Police. 

We have an advantage that is not focused on very often, one that 

I got to know when I was the third ranking official in the Justice 

Department. New York City has one major police department, one 

large police department. 

The other cities that you looked at by and large are dealing with 

counties in which there are 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and 40 different 

police departments. 

We have one police department of 38,310 police officers that covers five counties of the State of New York. That gives us a tremendous advantage. The New York City Police Department, I believe, 

is actually larger than the FBI in size, and can accomplish many 

of the forensic things that the FBI can also accomplish because of 

the scope of it. 

It also means that we can bring to bear large numbers of police 

officers in an efficient way without having to worry about jurisdictional disputes. 

All of these things are important to the results that I have shown 

you and more. But the one that I would like to spend some time 

on this morning, because it just won a prize from the Kennedy 

School as one of the most innovative programs in Government, is 

the Compstat program. 

Compstat uses intensive crime analysis sessions, up-to-theminute crime statistics, and computer pin mapping technology as 

basic crime fighting tools. Compstat transformed the New York 

City police from an organization that reacted to crime after it occurred, to an organization that can now with a fair degree of accuracy, predict where crime is going to happen and react to it in advance in order to prevent it. 

Before Compstat, the New York City Police Department’s 76 precinct commanders often were isolated from the top executives in 

the police department. They rarely met. Under the Compstat system, precinct commanders now meet with the police commissioner, 

the chief of the department, the chief of detectives, and all of the 

top leaders at semi-weekly meetings, where together they identify 

local crime patterns, select tactics, and allocate resources. And they 

come up with strategies for reducing crime. 

Critical to this is keeping very, very accurate statistics about 

crime. Last night at midnight, every 1 of the 76 precincts in New 

York City had to report to headquarters the number of crimes that 

took place in all of the categories that are evaluated by the FBI, 

plus additional ones we have added. 

And by some time this morning, the police commissioner can see, 

if he wants to, his crime going up or down in any 1 of those 76 precincts. And if it is going up, where is it going up? Is grand larceny 

auto going up? Is rape going up or down in a particular precinct? 

And then every 2 weeks, the precinct commanders get together 

and look at those patterns. And when they see crime increasing, 

they are expected to not only see it, but to come up with a strategy 

to reduce it before it does become a pattern. 

Computer technology makes this possible; 10 or 15 years ago, you 

could not do this even if you had thought about it, because the 

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lieve that this kind of analysis of communication has been critical 

in our battle against crime. 

Last year and this year, I selected and funded two major initiatives in two parts of the city. And the reason we did it was because 

the information that we have gathered, the computer technology 

and the mapping technique, demonstrated to us that certain areas 

of the city not only had more crime, but they were exporting more 

crime to the rest of the city. 

We focused on the northern part of Brooklyn. This was because 

we found that a number of the crimes committed in Manhattan, 

and in other parts of Brooklyn, and in Queens, and Staten Island, 

and even in the Bronx, were committed by people who came from, 

or brought drugs from organizations located in the northern part 

of Brooklyn. 

So by putting a thousand police officers there, and reducing the 

drug organizations in the northern part of Brooklyn, it actually had 

an impact on the amount of crime that occurred in other parts of 

the city. And then we made similar choices for this year in a number of precincts in the city. Those are the things that Compstat 

makes possible that was not the case before. 

But there is something that is even more important in what you 

are evaluating about this. For years, the New York City Police Department, and I believe most police departments in this country to 

this day, were measured by the number of arrests that were made. 

It was thought that the best way to determine police productivity 

was to figure out how many arrests were made. If a precinct commander had a precinct where lots of arrests were made, that must 

be a hard working precinct. If a police officer made a lot of arrests, 

that must have been a hardworking police officer who was doing 

a good job. 

And actually, all of that is true, but it misses the point of what 

a police department is for. A police department does not exist for 

the purpose of making arrests. That is part of what a police department has to do. 

There was a higher mission, and one that had to be identified as 

a result of what police work should be. The real purpose of the police department is to eliminate crime, or more realistically to prevent crime. 

So when you are using crime statistics as your management tool, 

you are now having the police department evaluated by precisely 

the result that the public wants from a police department. What 

the public wants from a police department are not more arrests, 

but less crime. They want a safer neighborhood. 

If arrests accomplish that, fine. If there are other ways to accomplish it, then that is equally as good and maybe better. 

The way in which I describe this to people, the way that this concept works, and the way in which we really devise it, is if you were 

running a bank and it has 76 branches, like the New York City Police Department has 76 precincts, the person running that bank 

would every day get an assessment of how much money was made 

or lost in the 76 branches. 

And quickly, when a branch lost money for 4 or 5 days, or a 

week, or two or three, when that had not been the case before, they 

would have to focus on why, what is going on, is it something we 

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are doing, is it something going on in their economy, how do we 

fix it, how do we cure it? Should we close that branch, should we 

consolidate two other branches? 

Profit and loss is a very, very effective measure of success for 

most profitmaking private institutions. In Government, it is a little 

harder to find out what is the measure of success. But we use 

crime statistics the way that a bank would use profit and loss 

statements, and deposit records, to determine which precincts are 

accomplishing what. This in fact is the ultimate objective of the police department—preventing crime—which ones are doing it the 

most effectively, which ones are not and why, and what is the 

strategy for making certain that they do. 

In one precinct, the strategy might be to use more police officers 

to reduce car theft. In another precinct, the strategy might be to 

use those police officers more accustomed to violence to prevent 

gang violence by young people. In a third precinct, it might be dealing more effectively with drug dealers, because they are producing 

crime. 

Compstat allows you to make informed, intelligent, and strategic 

choices in how to use your resources. And this is a program that 

could be used and probably would be easier to do in just about any 

city in America. 

Because in New York City, we have a tremendous volume problem. In other cities, it is actually even easier to focus your attention. 

So of the many things that I could select as reasons for these 

major crime declines, and I guess of the many different things that 

have contributed to it, I would say that this is probably the most 

innovative, and the one that is the most exportable, one that could 

be used and varied for different conditions in different places any 

place else in America, and I think with the same effect. 

I think the other thing that Congresswoman Molinari mentioned, 

because this is a very similar thing. Just because we had not 

reached a true measure of what success meant in the police department, the same thing was true with our welfare programs. 

When I was a private citizen and looking at the various management reports of the city of New York, every year I would see this 

chart that showed the welfare rolls in New York City increasing 

from 800,000 to 900,000, to 950,000, to 1 million, to 1.1 million. 

And then I would see charts that predicted that it would grow 

to 1.4 million and 1.5 million by the year 1994, 1995, 1996. 

Now remember, we are a city with an official population of 7.3 

million people. Probably we have 8 million people in New York 

City. But 7.3 million is the official population. If you start looking 

at numbers like 1 million, 1.1 million, 1.2 million, 1.3 million, 1.4 

million, and 1.5 million on welfare in a population of 7.3 million, 

you have fewer people working, fewer people with jobs, more people 

being supported by the people who are working, and your tax base 

rupturing as a result of that, because people make choices to go 

live somewhere else. 

And the thing that disturbed me the most, and part of this whole 

emphasis on results and new ideas, is that those charts were produced by the city of New York, but there was never an idea presented about what to do about it. Not even a single idea. 

102

The best idea available was sit, watch it, observe it, catalog it, 

and come to Washington and ask for money to continue it, which 

seemed to me a horrible future for the city. Even more horrible 

when those numbers got filled in with human beings, an additional 

100,000, 200,000, 300,000 people, who are not going to have any 

work, are not going to have anything to do all day, and are going 

to be supported by other citizens, many of whom will leave the city, 

because of this unfortunate progression that was taking place. 

We decided 3 years ago that we had to do something about it before the Federal welfare reform bill. And there are some measures 

that are similar, and some that are frankly very different. 

What we decided to do was an evaluation of the people who were 

on welfare, determine whether they were actually eligible for welfare. If they were eligible for welfare, give them their benefits, not 

reduce the benefits. If they were not, make certain that they did 

not obtain welfare. And also, use technology in order to accomplish 

that in much the same way as we did with the Compstat program. 

We developed a computer program and finger imaging. So that 

when people sought welfare, they were interviewed, and the information was put into a computer. We developed a data base that 

had all of the people who were on welfare. And now that data base 

allows us to also have in that computer people from surrounding 

counties, so that we can eliminate people who are collecting welfare 

two, three, and four times in different jurisdictions. 

We could therefore eliminate people who were collecting welfare 

who worked for the city of New York, had jobs, and on their lunch 

hour or part-time would come in and collect welfare. And we found 

more than a few people who worked for the city of New York, who 

were collecting welfare, and the city of New York never bothered 

to check. Because they did not bother to check anybody coming in 

asking for welfare on the theory that that would be humiliating. 

And when I first instituted the notion of finger imaging, I was 

accused of being harsh, and mean, and punitive. And my view of 

it was that everyone who worked for my administration was 

fingerprinted. And if you get fingerprinted for work, you should get 

fingerprinted and finger imaged as a means of identification for 

welfare. 

What we found was that some of the people on welfare worked 

for the city, worked for the police department, the fire department, 

and worked for the mayor’s office, except no one bothered to check. 

We also found that there were a lot of people who deserved and 

needed to be helped, who needed a tremendous amount of help, 

which the city generously and in the right spirit wanted to give to 

people. We want to make sure that it really goes to people who 

really need help. 

The second part of the program was a workfare program. After 

the determination is made that someone is eligible for welfare and 

properly entitled to it, if the person is able bodied and does not 

have children under the age of 3, then we do the best that we can 

to find work for that person. And if we cannot find permanent 

work, we have them do temporary work that would assist the city 

in improving the quality of life. 

And right now, there are 37,000 people who are enrolled in our 

workfare program. And they clean the parks. They clean public 

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spaces. They work in the Mayor’s Office, and in the Board of Education. And they work part-time, 20 hours a week if they are students, 26 hours a week if they are not. And it keeps those people 

in the workforce. It keeps them with a purpose in life. 

I think maybe the best way that I could illustrate the difference 

in result is this chart right here. The chart on what would be your 

left shows the welfare rolls in March 1995 at the very beginning, 

at the far left, when we started the program, and in January 1997, 

and you will see what they are now. 

Those are about 230,000 fewer people on welfare in a 2-year period, which is the biggest change that New York City has ever had 

in its welfare rolls. And it is a greater change than anyplace in 

America. This is a massive reduction of the number of people on 

welfare. 

And during this period of time, our unemployment rate actually 

is more favorable. We have not had an increase in unemployment. 

Actually, now up to 130,000 private sector jobs have been created. 

January of this year was the best month for increased jobs in New 

York City in 13 years. We have not had as many new jobs in New 

York City in any 1 month as we did in January 1997. The last time 

we did that was back in 1983. So it is not having a negative impact 

on our economy. 

And I have to say, Mr. Chairman, that if I had come here 21⁄2

years ago and told you that we were going to move 230,000 or 

240,000 people off welfare, and I went back home to New York 

City, several of the media operations in New York City would have 

predicted chaos in the city of New York with 240,000 fewer people 

on welfare, and crime rates will go up. That is a terrible demeaning 

view, by the way, of people on welfare. 

Crime rates will go up. Unemployment is soaring. Jobs fleeing. 

Just the opposite has happened. We have taken 240,000 people off 

welfare. New York City is safer than at any time since 1967 and 

getting safer. 

And our economy is recovering, not as fast as I would like, but 

we are recovering a lot better than it was 2 or 3 years ago when 

we had 240,000 more people on welfare. We are in a lot better 

shape today in our economy than we were then. 

And maybe the contrast shows this. Because I believe ultimately 

that results are enormously important as well as measuring them. 

But ultimately, philosophy and ideas are the most important. And 

there is a change in philosophy that is going on in the city of New 

York. 

When I suggested that people who come to emergency shelters be 

assigned to work, if they could—and when I say assigned to work, 

if they are able-bodied, and they are able to work—if they are not, 

then the city does have an obligation to care for them, and maybe 

even care for them permanently. 

But if people can work, they should be assigned to work. Several 

of the social activists said that I was being punitive. And when I 

heard the word, I kind of reflected on when did work become punitive. Going to prison is punitive. Being fined is punitive under our 

laws, our tradition. Working is ennobling. Going to work is something that dignifies you. It ennobles you. It gives you a sense of 

self-respect and self-worth. 

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I think that in our prevailing social philosophy in New York City, 

we lost that notion of work. We lost it somewhere in the 1960’s, the 

1970’s, and the 1980’s, and the early 1990’s. And there was an article just this week in the New York Times, I think that it was on 

Monday morning, talking about what they regarded as the successes and the failures in our workfare program. 

As a success, the article cited Maggie Montalvo, who was a mother who was fearful of losing her benefits after 15 years on welfare. 

She now meets her 20 hours a week workfare requirement by assisting teachers at her daughter’s Headstart program while she is 

studying for her high school diploma. 

And in the article, she points out that this is the best thing that 

ever happened to her. It broke the cycle of 15 years of welfare. She 

was cited as a success by the Times reporter. 

And let me cite a failure, which is maybe even more interesting 

to think about philosophically. The failure is a gentleman by the 

name of Mr. Contreras, which said that he refused his work assignment, because he was frightened and humiliated by having to 

sweep streets for his welfare benefits. 

Now I consider that case a success. Because hopefully, we are 

going to change Mr. Contreras’ attitude and ideology. I have a 

great sanitation commissioner in New York City. He is probably 

the best New York City has ever had. He got us through the two 

worst winters that we have ever had in the history of the city. And 

he got national attention for that last year when New York City 

was able to dig out of the snow faster than any other American 

city. 

He comes from Staten Island. He has been a sanitation worker 

for 37 years. And he began his career sweeping streets, and is 

proud of it. And I remember the quote of Martin Luther King, 

which I went and got right after I read this article, and Mr. 

Contreras’ idea that it is humiliating to sweep streets. 

Dr. Martin Luther King said, ‘‘If a man is called to become a 

street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo 

painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all of the hosts of heaven 

and earth will pause to say here lived a great street sweeper who 

did his job well.’’

That is the concept of work that we have to re-establish in New 

York City and in America. It is actually the concept of work that 

my father taught me when I was a very young boy. Because as eloquently as Martin Luther King, he would say to me, ‘‘There is no 

work that a man or woman can do that is honest to support his 

family that is not ennobling and does not give you a sense that you 

are taking care of yourself.’’ That is what we are trying to do in 

our workfare program. 

New York City has become a national leader in the area of welfare reform. And our successes are being used as a model in other 

cities, and in cities as far away as Toronto, and in England. 

And this is really wonderful for the city of New York. There were 

two things I said when I began that I said I was concerned about, 

that the image of New York City was becoming the image of a city 

of too much crime. We now lead America in crime reduction. And 

we were seen as a city that was the welfare capital of America. 

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And whether we lead America or not, I do not know. But we certainly have done more than the city has ever done before in moving 

people off welfare, getting them into a workfare program that ennobles work, and makes work a core function. 

And I think that what we are doing very simply is we are substituting for many, many failed social programs the only social program that really ever works, which is to give somebody a job. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Giuliani follows:]

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Mr. HORN. We thank you, Mr. Mayor. We are going to proceed 

with questions now. That was a marvelously eloquent statement 

and showing of commitment, and showing what leadership that is 

not afraid of making the tough decisions can do in turning a city 

around. And not some of the mayors that we see that sort of hide 

in their office and go cut ribbons, and do not know what it is to 

make a tough decision. 

Let me ask you a few questions on your testimony. And then we 

are going to have 5 minutes for each of us. And we will keep rotating until we get all of the questions out of our system, and as long 

as you are patient. 

I am curious as to what the most difficult factor you found in trying to turn this operation around, what was your biggest obstacle? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Resistance to new ideas. And whenever a new idea 

was proposed, it was contrary to the notions of political correctness. 

It was almost an effort to kill the idea before people could try and 

look at it and do it. 

I mentioned that the very first time that we proposed 

fingerprinting or finger imaging welfare recipients, there was a 

massive reaction. This was insulting. Which actually exposed what 

was wrong with the philosophy that was being implemented in the 

first place. 

There is nothing insulting about being fingerprinted. People are 

fingerprinted for jobs all of the time. But it took a whole lot to deal 

with a new idea. 

And New York City in a strange way, although it is America’s 

largest city, in some way, its intellectual core can become the most 

rigid. And it is very, very difficult to propose a new idea. 

I think that we have changed that. Because so many of the new 

ideas, some of which I am illustrating here, have now been able to 

create results in New York City that the city, at least in a few 

areas, appear to be very successful. 

Mr. HORN. Having been a university president, I can testify 

under oath, or without oath, that people who like dealing with 

ideas do not dislike new ideas. They like their fixed ideas that they 

have been comfortable with. It is very hard to change. 

I would think that besides that factor, sort of dealing with the 

corporate culture of the organization, you know, the old saw they 

have said for years. That they trained the right young people in the 

academy to go out on the beat. And the sergeant said, ‘‘Kid, forget 

the stuff that you were taught in the academy. Just watch what 

I do.’’

And to break through that, a person with your criminal justice 

background would be one of the few people who would understand 

all of those interrelationships. But I think that was one of the 

major problems. 

I am curious on the fingerprinting that you mentioned with welfare workers. 

Are all of the welfare recipients having an identification card and 

fingerprints? 

Mr. GIULIANI. All of their identifying data is put into a computer. 

And as part of the actual interview, they are really finger imaged 

rather than fingerprinted, right on the computer. It is four digits. 

114

So if in fact they are already collecting welfare benefits, that would 

within a minute be searched by the computer. 

Whenever you deal with New York City, which I learned when 

I became mayor, you are dealing with a volume that is almost unimaginable. This is enormously important. Because it might take 

you, if you just search manually, it might take you weeks to find 

out, if you could at all, if the person was on welfare benefits in another county of the city. Or even as happened more often, another 

county of the State. 

We had a lot of cross-over welfare recipients with other counties 

of the State of New York, Westchester County, and Nassau County, 

and Suffolk County. We are now able to search a computer base, 

so the people no longer try and do that. 

Mr. HORN. How many thousand left the rolls as a result of that 

simple thing of a fingerprint identification or a visual image? 

Mr. GIULIANI. I would have to go back and tell. 

Mr. HORN. Los Angeles County did a similar thing. Thousands 

were taken off the rolls without question. That is a county of a million people. 

Mr. GIULIANI. It is certainly thousands. I could probably find out 

for you and will get the precise number. 

Mr. HORN. If you have it. We will put it in the record at this 

point. 

[The information referred to follows:]

As of April 2, 1996, 37,584 cross-over welfare recipients have been taken-off the 

City’s rolls as a result of our fingerprinting program.

Mr. HORN. I think that with the responsibility, to use the Governor’s term, of devolvement of power and authority to precinct 

commanders, and giving them a more active role, that a lot of cities 

would be out recruiting your precinct commanders, because they 

now understand a new system. 

Has that happened very much, and does Compstat go with them, 

and are other cities asking for that data base, that type of software? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Two things. First of all, it has always been true 

that commanding officers in the New York City Police Department 

are often recruited to be police commissioners and police superintendents in other parts of the country. That has happened very, 

very often, and it continues to happen. 

There is a tremendous amount of interest in the Compstat program. And we have had delegations from at least 20 different cities 

come to visit the program. 

Mr. Chairman, or Congresswoman Maloney, Susan, any of you 

who want to come and see it, we would be happy to show you. It 

is done twice a week. It is done in a room about half the size of 

this one with a big map on the wall. 

It is interesting and exciting, and you can actually see how it operates. The police commissioner would be happy to show it to you. 

He has had groups from Washington, DC, and Baltimore. 

Mr. HORN. My colleague here has been wanting us to have hearings in New York City. So we will figure out a way to do a number 

of things when our ranking colleague is hosting us up there. 

115

Let me ask you on the jail capacity in New York City, are the 

New York City jails under any Federal court order as to a constitutional jail? 

Mr. GIULIANI. The New York City jails are under a Federal court 

consent decree that we had amended and lifted about 8 months 

ago, because I believe that we had demonstrated to the judge that 

we had accomplished everything that was sought to be accomplished 15 or 20 years ago. And now the mandates had really 

turned into very, very unrealistic micromanagement of the jail. 

So we have been relieved of many of those mandates. Our jail 

population is pretty close to the highest that it has been. 

Mr. HORN. What is it roughly? 

Mr. GIULIANI. We have about 20,000 people in jail in New York 

City. And we have about 60,000 people for the entire State that are 

in State prisons, of which New York City is probably about 60 to 

65 percent of that prison population. 

So there is no question. I said that there were a number of 

things that have led to the decline in crime. The number of people 

in jail in New York City or in prison in New York State contributes 

to the crime decline in New York City. 

Mr. HORN. I assume that your jail system has a classification 

system in order to conform with that consent decree. 

When a judge sentences an individual to a year in the county 

jail, let us say it is a felony—and as you and I know, 30 years ago, 

you usually had the town drunk and misdemeanants in the county 

jail, and the rest were in State prisons. Now you have a much more 

hardened population. 

So what happens? Does the director of corrections take them in 

and keep them for a year, or do they let them out the next day? 

In Los Angeles, we have let them out the next day. 

Mr. GIULIANI. We have an interrelationship with the State. Once 

a person is sentenced, the person becomes the responsibility of the 

State. But if it is a short sentence, or if it is a misdemeanor, they 

might actually serve their time in a city jail. 

One of the things that needs to be changed in New York, which 

makes the performance results for the police department, and the 

corrections department, and everyone else even more remarkable is 

we probably in the State of New York—I should not say probably, 

because I have looked at this over and over again—we by and large 

put people back out in the street through a very bad series of laws 

and court decisions faster than anyone else in the country. 

You would be likely to spend less time in prison in New York for 

a crime that you committed than in California, Pennsylvania, or 

Florida. Because New York has never gone through in New York 

the reform of the criminal justice system that most States went 

through in the 1980’s. 

It has been tried, resisted, and stopped. So if you are convicted 

of rape let us say in New York, and you are sentenced to 10 years 

in prison, you are probably going to be out in 3 to 4 years. Whereas 

if that same conviction took place in Florida, you are probably 

going to be in for 8 or 9 years. 

So we tend to put more of these violent criminals back out on the 

streets for longer periods of time in which they can commit crimes 

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sentially there have the philosophy of the 1960’s and 1970’s, without the readjustments that took place in most places in the 1980’s. 

If my police commissioner were here, he would tell you that the 

single most important thing that we have to do to continue these 

crime reductions is end parole in the State of New York. 

Mr. HORN. Since I went over, I will yield 7 minutes to my colleague, the distinguished ranking member from the city of New 

York, Mrs. Maloney. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Mayor, what advice would you give the Mayor of Washington, DC, to work to control the crime here in this city? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Well, there are different problems in different cities. I would say that the things that we are doing that are exportable to any city, including Washington, DC, and that would have 

fairly immediate results, is to incorporate the broken windows theory. To make certain that you organize something like the 

Compstat program, so that you evaluate crime statistics in every 

precinct, every day. 

That you give your local commanders essentially full responsibility for reducing crime in their precincts, and work with them to 

come up with ways to get the resources to do that. That a lot of 

crime reduction can come about through management of the police 

department. 

And that at least those two general things that we are doing, the 

Compstat program and the broken windows theory, can work in 

Washington, DC, or anyplace else in which they are used. 

Mrs. MALONEY. In the Compstat program and in developing the 

state-of-the-art computer system, how much did that cost, and did 

Federal dollars or the Federal Government play any role or are 

they playing any role in this program? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Well, right now, we benefit greatly from the crime 

bill. Much of this started before the crime bill, so it really did not 

fund the initiation of these programs. 

New York City was ahead of the curve in terms of hiring more 

police officers. The crime bill impetus to hire more police officers 

came after New York City actually hired 5,000 or 6,000 more police 

officers. 

But here is the way that the Federal Government has helped us. 

When the crime bill was first suggested, the theory of the crime bill 

was to hire more police officers. I realized that in New York City 

we had already done that, and we were not going to get any real 

benefit from the crime bill. 

So I asked that the crime bill be changed to include something 

that would be a little harder to understand, but we got the flexibility to hire more civilians. Because we could produce more police 

officers for the street by hiring 1,000 or 1,500 more civilians, and 

putting those police officers out on the street. 

The President and both Houses of Congress considered that and 

made that change, largely at the request of New York City and 

Philadelphia. Because we really did not need any more police officers, but we needed more civilians. 

We also asked for broader scope for technology. Now if I could 

give you a dollar amount, we are probably getting about $120 or 

$130 million of assistance out of the various programs in the crime 

117

bill, all of which assist us in having modern technology, improving 

that technology, having civilians do work that previously police officers were doing, so they could not be out patrolling the streets or 

making arrests. 

And it did not initiate these crime reductions. But I do not think 

that they would have continued at this level, if we had not had 

that support. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I can remember my first official meeting with 

Mayor Koch. At that time, I was a staffer for the New York State 

Assembly Cities Committee. And we met with him on what were 

the legislative priorities and the priorities of New York City. 

I remember that he put as one of the top priorities merging the 

police departments. And it has been a priority of many mayors 

even before Mayor Koch and Mayor Dinkins. It has always been 

something that was out there that seemed logical and common 

sense for our city, but no one was able to achieve it. 

You talked about some of the successes of putting more police officers to work the streets, or to help in crime prevention. 

Could you talk about some of the obstacles in getting the merger, 

and why do you believe that you were able to succeed when former 

mayors were not, who had tried very, very hard to achieve it? But 

I would like to know what some of the problems and obstacles that 

occurred, and how you overcame them? I think that it might be 

helpful to other Members who confront the same local problem in 

their cities across the Nation. 

Mr. GIULIANI. The major obstacle frankly was unions. You had 

three separate unions, and three separate union leaderships. And 

if you merged them together, there would only be one. You had 

three separate union presidents for the police, transit, and housing. 

And two of them knew that they would no longer be union presidents if the merger took place. You had three separate treasurers 

and secretaries. 

And in police work, if you are a police officer and an officer of 

the union, you get to sit around the union headquarters all day. 

And union officials and union officers have a tremendous amount 

of political influence, as you know. 

So frankly, the major obstacle going back to Mayor Lindsay and 

getting this one would be the vast and fierce opposition of two of 

the three PBAs. We had one for the police department with 2,728 

officers running it. We had one for the transit police with 2,728 officers running it. And we had one for the housing police. 

Well, that group of transit and housing officers knew that if a 

merger took place, maybe a few of them would survive, but most 

of them would no longer be kings, and queens, and high potentates. 

And that was the major opposition to it. 

Most of the police officers, the ones out there risking their lives 

in the housing and transit police wanted to be New York City police officers. Because the career path was better. Instead of always 

being in one area of assignment, you had the possibility of a multitude of 20 or 30 different kinds of assignments, and a much 

greater career path. It was more interesting work, because it was 

varied. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Did you need State approval? 

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Mr. GIULIANI. We actually figured out that for housing it could 

be done with the approval of HUD. And frankly, Secretary Cisneros 

and then Assistant Secretary Cuomo were enormously helpful to us 

in getting that done. We got that done administratively through 

the New York City Housing Authority and HUD by getting the approval of HUD to disband the housing police, and incorporate it 

into the New York City Police Department. We were sued by the 

union, and we went to court. They blocked it for a year. And we 

finally won the lawsuit. 

With regard to the transit police, I needed an affirmative vote of 

the MTA. And Mayor Koch had gotten very close to doing this and 

lost by one vote. Actually, a vote that was promised to him. And 

then the person, I would say because of pressure from the union, 

changed his mind. We were fortunate. We were able to get it 

through. 

Mrs. MALONEY. So there was no action by the New York State 

Legislature in this merger? 

Mr. GIULIANI. I think that it would have been frankly impossible 

to do, if that were the case. The pressure from the two unions, 

knowing the kind of influence that they exercise over the New York 

State Legislature, would have been so great, that despite the fact 

that most police officers wanted it, it would not have happened. 

Mrs. MALONEY. My time is up. 

Mr. HORN. I thank the gentlewoman. 

And I now yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. 

Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Mayor, I, too, would like to express my words of welcome to 

you to these proceedings. And I would also like to indicate that I 

thoroughly enjoyed your testimony in both its substance as well as 

the eloquence in which you presented it. 

I am particularly interested in the ability to reduce crime to the 

level at which you have been able to do. Especially given the fact 

that so many of us throughout the country sort of look to see what 

is happening in New York in terms of the reputation for innovativeness, for creativity, and for wrestling with the problems of the 

largest city of our country. 

The question that I have is were they, or how involved were community groups and organizations in helping to develop this new 

strategy of increasing patrol time, and dealing with what some 

might call mini-problems? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Vitally important. As I think the chairman pointed 

out when he used the term of devolvement of responsibility, what 

happens through the Compstat program, which is what the technology of it is, is a precinct commander is made the police commissioner for his or her area of the city. 

And the precinct commander has to show results, reduction in 

crime. That is what it requires precinct commanders to do, because 

they know every week and every month, the police commissioner 

is looking at what has happened with all of these crimes. The precinct commander all of a sudden becomes a community involved 

person. Because the precinct commander realizes that one of the 

ways that you can reduce crime is with close associations and ties 

to the community groups. They can help you deal with youth vioVerDate jun 06 2002 15:11 Jul 18, 2002 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00122 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\42636 pfrm15 PsN: 42636
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lence. They can help you deal with the people who are really going 

to line up and help the police, and the people who are going to be 

problems. Each one of the precincts in the city has precinct councils. They bring in people from the community. It is organized, and 

it is structured. But it means that at least once a month and very 

often once a week, the commanding officers of the precinct are confronted with people from the community to deal with areas of mutual interest, antagonism, and problems. 

If the police are having a problem in reducing a particular area 

of crime, they can ask the community to help. If the community 

feels that it is under-policed in a certain area, they can raise those 

complaints. 

It would be incorrect if I gave you the impression that all of 

these precinct councils worked perfectly. But some of them work 

really well. And all of them at least create lines of communication. 

So I would say that community support is absolutely vital to getting this done. But by focusing on crime statistics and saying to a 

precinct commander the result that we want from you is not that 

you arrest people, we know that you have to do that, but the result 

that we want from you is we want to see murder rates go down, 

and we want to see rape rates go down. 

And the precinct commander understands immediately that one 

of the ways to do that is to get the cooperation of the community. 

So it is in their self-interest to make sure that the police officers 

get involved. And that is something that we are still working on. 

That is still not working to the level of satisfaction that I would 

like. 

The police commissioner this year has put a tremendous emphasis on something he calls CPR—courtesy, professionalism, and respect. To try to increase in police officers the understanding that 

by acting respectfully, they are actually going to bring crime down 

more. 

It is something like the broken windows theory. When you arrest 

somebody, treat them in a respectful way. Even if you are angry, 

treat them in a respectful way. It will create a much different atmosphere in the community. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So it is really a form of further decentralization with more authority as well as responsibility being 

given to the local command? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Correct. It gives them a tremendous amount of authority, but makes them highly responsible with a daily measure 

in a sense of whether they are doing a good job or a bad job. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. My mother used to tell us when we were 

kids and had money, that if we took care of our nickels and dimes, 

that the quarters and the 50 cents and dollars would take care of 

themselves, so we would have a better understanding of how to do 

that. 

The idea of dealing with the broken window problem is the idea 

that if you focus on what people call small crimes, that in all likelihood that it will reduce the temptation for individuals to get involved in larger crimes. 

Mr. GIULIANI. That is certainly a very big part of it, Mr. Davis, 

yes. If in a city you say we take fare jumping seriously, you are 

going to teach a lot of young people even at a young age that they 

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should not be fare jumpers, and they are not even going to move 

on to the other things that they might consider doing. That is certainly part of it. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I must ask you a question, if I might, 

about the work experience program. 

As you have reduced the number of people on welfare, are you 

suggesting and recommending that one way to deal effectively with 

the transition from welfare to work is for Government at all levels 

to take more responsibility for the actual employment or the development of work opportunities for the individuals who have been in 

welfare? 

Mr. GIULIANI. In cities like New York, it is critical that Government do that. Otherwise, you would have massive numbers of people without anything to do all day. The ideal is for somebody to 

have a permanent job. And from my point of view, the ideal is for 

somebody to have a permanent job by and large in the private sector. That is where they are going to have the real career opportunities. 

The ideal is not workfare. But workfare is better than somebody 

doing nothing all day. And really, what we have in New York City 

now is not terribly different than the public works programs that 

existed in the early part of the New Deal. 

What we are saying is that we want to enhance permanent employment. We never wanted to detract from permanent employment. But if you cannot get permanent employment and we are not 

ready to help create that—that is not happening for everybody. It 

is happening for more people, but not for everything—it is better 

for somebody to be doing something meaningful for part of the day 

than being entirely out of the workforce. 

And the fact is that the work experience program participants 

are doing something enormously valuable for the city. Cleaning a 

city park is a big contribution to yourself and your fellow citizens. 

Cleaning graffiti off of city buildings is a very big contribution to 

your quality of life and the quality of life of your fellow citizens. 

And it keeps you in the workforce, and it keeps establishing the social contract with people on a one-to-one basis. 

I should tell you that we try to be as careful about this as we 

can. Because I also believe that it should not in any way reduce 

permanent employment. Recently, I rejected something that our 

subway system did. They made an agreement with their union to 

remove I think a couple of thousand permanent jobs in order to 

save money, and replace the permanent workers with welfare 

workers. And they wanted me, the city, to supply them with the 

welfare workers, which I refused to do. 

Because I want this program to increase permanent employment, 

not decrease it. The goal here is not for people to be on workfare 

for their entire life. The goal here is for people to be on workfare 

if they cannot get a permanent job. It is better than being at home. 

It is better than being out of the workforce. And we wanted to enhance permanent employment. 

And so far, that is working. We have reduced city jobs by 22,000. 

We have decreased permanent employment by about 120,000. And 

that is exactly the direction that we want to go in. We want more 

people working in the private sector. And for the period of time 

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that they cannot get work in the private sector, then we have valuable things that they can do to help the city. 

Now New York City might be more fortunate here, because we 

are a very big city, and we have a lot of needs, and we have a lot 

of things that can be done. But I think Government has a role, if 

it understands it correctly, in helping this transition happen. 

And some of my questions and problems with the Federal welfare 

reform bill, which frankly, I think, has lots of problems in it, the 

philosophy of it, I not only agree with, I incorporate in the 

workfare program. 

The mandates, how intensive they are and how much of a cost 

shift is made to local government, I think are very damaging. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Is it cost-effective? The last question. 

Mr. HORN. We have a vote. If Members would like to go over and 

vote and come back, we will continue the questions. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you. I will go vote. 

Mr. HORN. What is the percent of sworn officers here on the police department who are asked to go interact with clients, to interact with students, with groups or whatever? 

Mr. GIULIANI. I would say that it’s about—there are always different ways of evaluating this. I would say what I would consider 

to be administrative work, where they are not involved in enforcement, direct enforcement activities, it is probably down to about, 

now, 10, 12 percent. It used to be as high as probably 20 percent. 

Mr. HORN. Because we just went through a Booze, Allen, and 

Hamilton study of the DC Police Department. And just to round it 

off, out of 1,000 sworn officers, there are really only about 200 on 

the streets. They need a dose of your medicine, in brief, in this city. 

What have you done in terms of reinvention of processes and all 

of the rest in other areas besides the police department; have you 

targeted other areas of your administration? 

Mr. GIULIANI. In the law enforcement area? 

Mr. HORN. Right. 

Mr. GIULIANI. In the criminal justice and law enforcement area? 

Mr. HORN. You obviously have done great here. And I am sure 

that every single agency that you have can use some rethinking of 

how they do their business. 

And I was just curious as to what your general priorities were? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Sure. We have tried to do the same thing in every 

agency of Government. In other words, spend time with them figuring out what results there are that the public wants achieved in 

that agency. And then set those up as measures. Put them out 

there very publicly, and not be afraid to be accountable. 

For example, what I am trying to do right now with the Board 

of Education, where we educate 1 million students, I have taken 

$120 million and put it in a special fund, the purpose of which is 

to give students 6 more hours of reading instruction per week for 

schools who want to participate. To really get students private tutoring, so that their reading scores can be improved. 

But the program that I am working on with the chancellor of the 

New York City School System is to only get this money if you agree 

to be evaluated. The children tested on reading scores to start with. 

The children tested after 6 months. The children tested after a 

year. 

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If you are improving reading scores, we will continue you in the 

program, and have you expand it to help even more children. If you 

are not, then the chancellor is going to have to consider if we have 

got to change the personnel doing the instructing, because they are 

not really doing a good job. 

We are trying to incorporate in the educational system, which is 

independent of the mayor—it is not as easy to do, because they are 

not directly responsible to me—the same kind of results-oriented 

management. So we start tying the spending of money to improved 

reading scores, and how do you do it? Improve math scores, and 

how do you do it? Improve graduation rates, and how do you accomplish that? 

So we are attempting to use the same process there. And believe 

me, it is needed even more in that area. Essentially, what you had 

in the New York City Public School System is the culture of 

unaccountability. And what we are trying to change it into is a culture of accountability. 

So if you want more money, you have got to put yourself on the 

line for it. We are going to be able to improve the basics of education. And we are going to be willing to be measured by that, and 

held accountable for it. 

Mr. HORN. Well, I will pursue that when I return, because that 

is an exciting area. My words, as I left the DC hearing, was that 

this Congress should not tolerate thousands of African-American 

children going through the school system in the District, and they 

cannot read. It is a national disgrace. And we need to do something 

about it. 

We ought to look to New York. But as you know, the educational 

hierarchies in many of these cities, they are sort of independent of 

the mayor in most cities in America. And that is increasingly part 

of the problem. When we thought that we were protecting them 30, 

40, 50 years ago from political intrusion, now we are just protecting 

them for public opinion. 

Mr. GIULIANI. I just had that conversation yesterday with the 

mayor of Los Angeles. 

Mr. HORN. We see eye-to-eye. 

Mr. GIULIANI. He has the same view on that. 

Mr. HORN. We are in recess for 10 minutes, or until Mrs. 

Maloney returns and begins the hearing with her questioning. 

Mr. GIULIANI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HORN. Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. HORN. Thank you for your patience, both audience and witness. This is a vote on the rule to consider a very controversial resolution with the recertification of Mexico, given the drug situation. 

I do not know if you have any views on that, Your Honor. But 

if you do, I think that a lot of Members would appreciate knowing 

it. Because you can vote either way in doing the right thing. This 

is one of those votes. 

Mr. GIULIANI. I do not know the resolution. But the maximum 

amount of pressure on Mexico to do more about the drugs that are 

grown there, the crops that are grown there, is valuable and important. 

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Mr. HORN. There is no question that there has been a difficult 

time where drugs are still being flown in from Colombia, dropped 

below the border, and dropped out at sea. Several of us went out 

and looked at that situation several months ago. 

There is also no question that a hundred people lost their lives 

fighting drugs in Mexico—judges, prosecutors, police chiefs, and so 

forth. So it is a very difficult question. And we will have 2 hours 

to argue over the rule. And maybe by that time, we will all have 

made up our minds. 

Getting back to your results-oriented government there, I am curious. You mentioned education as we broke up for the vote. 

Are there any other areas that you see as major opportunities for 

this type of turnaround? 

Mr. GIULIANI. The Administration for Children’s Services is another example of trying to accomplish the same thing, and one that 

is harder. Because there is less agreement on what the results are, 

and it is harder to categorize those results. But we are moving toward that. 

When I became mayor of New York City, we dealt with protecting children as part of the overall approach of the welfare. The 

Child Welfare Agency was part of what we call the Human Resources Administration. It was a $6 or $7 billion agency. Child Welfare was about a billion of that $6 or $7 billion agency. 

And because of a terrible tragedy with a child dying in New York 

City, I really focused a tremendous amount of attention on what 

was going wrong there. And one of the things going wrong was that 

priorities of protecting children were being subsumed in to the priorities of dealing with welfare. 

And we needed to take that agency out from under HRA and 

make it a separate agency, and put the sole focus on what we can 

achieve in terms of results in protecting children. And I appointed 

a commissioner, because a lot of this is about leadership, a commissioner who had a very strong background in both child protection 

agencies and law enforcement, because both are involved here. 

And he spent months, and months, and months, and I devoted 

a lot of my time to this, trying to figure out what the results are 

that we can use to measure the success of this agency for all of the 

people who are in it similar to what we have done in the police department. 

We used one of the same consultants who did the police department study for us to do a study of the Administration for Children’s Services. 

Mr. HORN. On the consultant, was that a major consultant firm? 

Mr. GIULIANI. No. It was a single individual who helped us and 

worked with us. Really most of the work has to be done within. 

Mr. HORN. Could you share the person’s name? We might want 

to put him to work on testimony, if you are advising other people 

to use him or her? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Sure. Jonathan Lindner. 

Mr. HORN. Jonathan. 

Mr. GIULIANI. Lindner. 

Mr. HORN. Lindner? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Right. 

Mr. HORN. Very good. 

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Mr. GIULIANI. And we produced a report that lays out in great 

detail the results that we now expect of that agency. How to get 

there, and how they will be measured over a period of time. 

And ultimately, the most important result, like the ideal of preventing crime is, to prevent the death of children through abuse 

and neglect. To eliminate completely abuse and neglect of children. 

You know that you are probably never going to achieve that perfect objective, but you have to make it your objective. Just like the 

objective of the police department should be preventing all crime, 

knowing that it is never going to achieve that result. But maybe 

in trying to reach for that result, you have the kinds of reductions 

that you have been able to produce. 

Mr. HORN. Speaking of children, does the New York City government have any role in collecting payments from deadbeat dads 

which leave the city or your jurisdiction? 

Mr. GIULIANI. The agency that I just mentioned——

Mr. HORN. Has that responsibility? 

Mr. GIULIANI [continuing]. Now has that responsibility. And 

again, by focusing on results, and focusing on statistics and technology, they have been able to measure their success. Their collections are now up 30 to 35 percent. 

Mr. HORN. I do not know if they are aware of the bill, the HornMaloney bill, that became law. Commissioner Adams, the Commissioner of Revenue for the State of Massachusetts, said that was the 

best thing he has seen in years. Because he can now run State 

tapes against Federal tapes, and find out where the deadbeat dads 

are, and get a collection out of them. 

And I remember that the President used a national radio address 

to mention that. He just did not mention the authors of the bill. 

That is OK. We are used to that. Just get it into law. 

But that might be helpful to your group in terms of catching 

them. Adams thought that it was millions for the Massachusetts 

treasury, and to get them to the people. 

Mr. GIULIANI. One of the things that emerges from this study is 

that children whose fathers are properly contributing to their support tend to have much better reading scores, math scores, much 

less frequent involvement in violating the law, and their graduation rates are much higher. 

The connection of the father to the child, and making sure that 

the responsibility is carried out, not only has tremendous financial 

benefits for the mother, child, and society, but it is sometimes the 

thing that is needed to link the child to their father and to maybe 

a better future. 

I have been a long time advocate of what I call the right brain 

theory of education, the creative and artistic aspects of the child. 

And it goes back to my own grammar school experience in a rural 

part of California. A third of my classmates were Hispanic, and 

their parents really never had a chance to go to school. And I saw 

some tremendous artistic talent that I did not have. 

Those of us who were getting high grades in math or history, we 

still drew stick figures. And my colleagues, who did not know all 

of the math, and the history, and whatnot, they were drawing 

beautiful things that could be built on in a school system to raise 

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their self-esteem, and then transfer that energy and that commitment to school to understand some of the more left brain aspects. 

And just 2 days ago, Ms. Slaughter, a Member from New York, 

and I hosted a gentleman by the name of Bill Strickland from 

Pittsburgh who is the recipeint of the top MacArthur Foundation 

grant, the genius grant, where they give you several hundred thousand dollars, and do with it what you want. 

He has built as an entrepreneur, and a person who was a dropout practically from the schools, but a ceramicist, he has trained 

and educated welfare mothers, unemployed steel workers, and one 

thing led to the other. So he is operating a huge enterprise now 

with the latest architecture. They have never had a racial incident. 

The students are white as well as black, and so forth. It is really 

quite a success story. 

And he has located this facility and built it over the last two decades or so in the very worst part of Pittsburgh where nobody in 

their right mind would go walking around. Yet they come to see 

the jazz concerts. He has got a music program. He started with a 

ceramics program, and taught them how to make ceramics, and 

how to get sales. 

One thing then led to let’s get into a food operation. He now 

makes hundreds of thousands of profit a year, which he pours into 

the school. They had a horticulture operation. They had a training 

young pharmacist assistants operation, and so forth. It is a marvelous story of innovation and entrepreneurialism, where the private sector and Government came together and got some things 

done. 

So there is a lot of room for improvement, but we have got a lot 

of people like you have stuck their neck out, get the giraffe award 

so called, which is the proudest award that I have for sticking my 

neck out. 

Mr. HORN. But that is important, to get their neighborhood entrepreneurs. There is a lot of talent out there. And how do we funnel some of that talent, and put them to work? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Well, I think that in the area of education, that 

probably one of the biggest mistakes that was made in New York 

City in the past, and I think that this probably goes back 15 or 20 

years, was to essentially defund arts education on the theory that 

arts education was discretionary. 

And given the budget problems or whatever, arts education could 

be sacrificed. Because teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, history, or whatever was more important. 

I am trying to reverse that. And I am trying to reverse that from 

the position that we talked about before you took the break, which 

is not being directly responsible for the school system, like Mayor 

Reardon is not, and Mayor Rendell is not. And all of them I think 

would say the same thing. 

Mr. HORN. Hardly any mayor has any actual relationship. 

Mr. GIULIANI. Every one of those mayors, all of whom I think are 

very effective leaders of their city, will tell you precisely the same 

thing—that our greatest frustration is that we do not have the jurisdiction or capacity to turn around the school system the way we 

turned around the other areas of city government. Because we 

could accomplish that. 

126

And in the name of independence, what really has happened is 

unaccountability, total, absolute, complete unaccountability. And 

when you look at what has happened in Chicago, where the State 

legislature and the Governor had the courage to stick their neck 

out, and so did the mayor, and they turned the school system over 

to Mayor Daley, you are seeing the kinds of reforms there that 

could happen in the rest of the country. 

My only agenda for the New York City public school system is 

not a political one. I do not have anybody who wants to politicize 

the New York City public school system. I do not even know if they 

would know how to do that. My only agenda for it is to be able to 

come before Congress the way I just did before, and show you the 

same results in education that we showed you in crime. 

We will show you reading scores going up 20 and 30 percent. 

And math scores going up 20 to 30 percent. Graduation rates that 

were 20 to 30 percent becoming 50 and 60 percent. And I understand that we have to put arts education back into the schools. 

So here is the way that I have to do it, which is not the best way 

to do it, but it is the way that you have to do it given the strange 

arrangement that takes place. 

I have taken $25 million, and I have put it in the city budget. 

And I said to the Board of Education you can have that $25 million 

when you do two things. One, identify all of the arts programs that 

presently exist. And No. 2, figure out how you are going to match 

that money, so you can eventually get to $75 million. 

Because I have to do that in order to get them to get into their 

system, so that we can put drawing, music, and everything else 

back into the curriculum. We are going to accomplish it, but it cannot be done as quickly and as effectively as the kinds of things that 

I am talking about there. 

Mr. HORN. In 1975, I think it was, when I was the vice chairman 

of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the Commission went to 

New York City to look at the education system. And what we found 

was that the State laws of the 1890’s or so, was where they wanted 

a meritocracy. And we looked at the exams that they were giving 

for assistant principals. Three of us were college presidents out of 

the six members, Father Hesburgh, myself, and Chancellor Mitchell of the University of Denver. And we all admitted that we could 

not answer those questions. 

This is the one for the assistant principal, usually the person responsible for truancy, and the discipline in the school and all of 

that. And the exams precluded anyone with common sense from becoming the assistant principal in the New York City school system. 

And that was the State mandate of the Merit Commission, as I remember. 

And that was good for its time when you wanted to keep my 

Irish relatives with a third grade education out or teaching the 

sixth grade or something. But that was not good in the 1970’s and 

1980’s. And they needed a little more flexibility. And I do not know 

if the State government has given them any of that? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Yes, that has been changed. 

Mr. HORN. Good. Because it was sure needed. And we pointed 

that out in a report, as I remember. 

127

I am now going to yield time to Mrs. Maloney, because I know 

that she has a number of questions. 

Mrs. MALONEY. It is great to have the mayor of New York here, 

and we can ask him questions about the problems. 

My office is getting a lot of calls, and I am sure that Susan Molinari’s office is, on the Federal change in the SSI program. And I 

am getting calls from some people who are 105 years old or certainly relatives. Really elderly and frail people, 94. They cannot 

take the test for citizenship. And their SSI payments by law are 

going to be terminated. 

How are we as a city going to confront this problem? 

Mr. GIULIANI. This is a very, very big problem. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I would think that your office is probably deluged. 

First of all, who would I call in your office on these problems? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Well, he is sitting right here. Tony Coles. Stand 

up, Tony, and identify yourself. 

Mr. COLES. Tony Coles. 

Mr. GIULIANI. Senior advisor to the mayor. 

We are very concerned about the effect of both the Federal welfare reform bill and the immigration bill on legal immigrants. And 

I could give you an analysis of the numbers and the dollar impact 

of it. But beyond that, I am very concerned about the essential unfairness of what both of those bills will do. 

We have many, many legal immigrants in New York City. They 

are allowed in by the Federal Government. We have no voice in 

that, which we should not. Immigration in that respect should be 

controlled by the Federal Government. But we have large numbers 

of legal immigrants. The Federal Government collects taxes from 

those legal immigrants on the same basis that it collects taxes from 

me. And they work in slightly higher percentages in New York 

City, our native New Yorkers do. So these are people contributing 

to the Federal Treasury in large measure. 

Now when they become old, or if they become sick, they are 

largely going to be deprived of benefits, which I think is fundamentally unfair. I do not think that you take people’s money on an 

equal basis to everybody else. And then when they have the same 

difficulty that other people have, you say no, you paid in on an 

equal basis, but we are not going to pay you out on an equal basis. 

I think that there is something over a period of time that will erode 

the notion of America, if we allow that to continue. 

The practical problem for the city and the State of New York is 

that all of these illegal immigrants now denied SSI benefits and 

other Federal benefits will remain in the United States, as they 

should. I certainly do not think that they should be deported. 

They will remain in the United States, and they will remain in 

the city of New York. And they are going to be sick, and they are 

going to need help. The Federal Government is now withdrawn 

from the field. The city and the State of New York cannot. We are 

not going to let people suffer, die, go in want. So the city and the 

State are going to have to make up the difference. 

We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, and a massive cost shift from the Federal Government to really four States and the cities in those States. Seventy-five percent 

128

of the mandate, unfunded mandate shift here, is to the State of 

California, Texas, New York, and Florida, because those are the 

places where there is a larger percentage of legal immigrants. 

I would suggest that the mandates in the immigration reform bill 

be extended for at least another year. So that we could assess what 

this is going to mean, and how to do it in a fairer way and in a 

more effective way. 

My major objection to the immigration bill and the Federal welfare reform bill is we are not acting as partners. We have to reform 

welfare, and we have to reform immigration, but we should be 

sharing in the burdens and the difficulties of doing that. The Federal Government should not be pretending to reform both, and then 

shifting all of the costs of doing that to State and local governments, and not operating as a partner in doing that. 

Because when you do not have to make decisions about your own 

budget, then you tend to have very unrealistic notions of how something should be reformed. And what I would like to see the Federal 

Government, first of all, extend the time period, so we have more 

time to assess it. And then to act as a partner with us in caring 

for people who are in need. Not pay for all of it, but act as a partner with the city and the State. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I think that you are fortunate that Mr. Horn and 

I come from cities and States affected with the problem. We have 

a track record of working very positively together to address problems. You mentioned earlier a field trip. I would welcome a field 

trip to New York on just this issue, meeting with your staff and 

trying to figure out what we can do. 

And I certainly would join my colleague in putting forth legislation for a 1-year extension. Being in the minority, we do not have 

the votes to reverse policy. But I certainly would like to work with 

my Republican colleagues in trying to get that extension renewed. 

But it is something that we should confront right away. And I 

believe that your report said that the changes would cost New York 

City $500 million. That is an awful lot of money. But what we are 

confronting right now and what you were going to be getting very 

soon is not a numbers conversation, but real people who have their 

SSI benefits cut. 

Where do we go in the city for the 95 year old woman who has 

just got her SSI benefits cut, cannot speak English, and has Alzheimer’s, and cannot take the test to become a citizen; what office, 

and how are we going to process these people? 

Do you understand what I am saying, where do I call? Last 

week, we got 20 phone calls in my office alone. And it is probably 

happening in every office across the city. 

Mr. GIULIANI. There are several places to go. The Department of 

the Aging, if it is a person who is elderly and needs help. 

Mrs. MALONEY. But Mr. Mayor, they are not going to have a direct——

Mr. GIULIANI. The Agency of Immigrant Affairs. 

Mrs. MALONEY. They are not going to have a direct grant for 

these people. In other words, they are used to a Federal grant for 

their life subsistence, and if that grant is cut, unless things have 

changed since I was a city council member, there is no city program that will be a direct grant to help that person. 

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Mr. GIULIANI. They are all going to be eligible for home relief. 

And previously, people who went on SSI were not getting home relief. But remember, in New York State, you have a home relief program that does not exist in most places for single adults. In other 

States, there might not be anything available. But in New York, 

home relief is available. 

Mrs. MALONEY. How much do you think that the shift is going 

to cost New York in the home relief burden? 

Mr. GIULIANI. That was part of our estimate of $500 million shift 

of cost. 

Mrs. MALONEY. A year? 

Mr. GIULIANI. It probably is going to be more than that. But I 

can get for you our estimates of how much the cost shift will be, 

and how fast that will take place. Most of it will take place on people coming off SSI, and going into the home relief program. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Another area that Anne Reynolds—is my time 

up, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. HORN. Your time has, but go ahead. 

Mr. GIULIANI. The way that you reduce that, which is something 

we are doing right now, the way that you reduce that burden is by 

making as many people in those categories, when you can, citizens. 

Mrs. MALONEY. My office is working to do that very rapidly. And 

we probably have the best record of any office in the city for achieving that result. But some people are just mentally incapable because of their age of taking the test, and of making that happen. 

Very briefly, this committee has jurisdiction over land transfers 

for cities. 

And who would I work with on your staff on the Governor’s Island problem, and how would you like to work jointly with the Federal Government to solve that; who would I work with on your 

staff? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro would be the person. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Would you ask him if he would meet with me 

maybe in 2 weeks on that, so we can figure out what would be the 

best way to do it? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. A second problem that has come to my office, and 

again it has probably come to your office, is the problem of welfare 

recipients who are attending college now. And Anne Reynolds said 

roughly 5,000 no longer were eligible under the Federal changes to 

continue as college students, and to have that count as their 

workfare. 

And she also mentioned something that would be very easy to 

change on the city level. She said that the problem was that the 

city guidelines said that students who were in college could not use 

their 20 hours working at college as a teacher’s aide or whatever. 

That would really help keep our young people in college, if we could 

have that adjustment. And I just want to mention that to you and 

see. 

Mr. GIULIANI. I have a different view than Anne Reynolds does 

on this. I think that you have to consider in all of that the minuscule graduation rate in the city colleges. The city college graduate 

rate for community colleges is below 5 percent. I want to say that 

one more time. It is below 5 percent. 

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And city colleges largely with one or two exceptions operate with 

no standard. So you do not have grade standards of any kind. My 

fear is that we are continuing in that college system the dependency model that we are trying to turn around with the welfare system. 

That we are not graduating anyone. And we are reinforcing all 

of the worse messages of a dependency society. And the work experience for these students is often the single most meaningful experience that we are going to give to youngsters who are in this community college setting. Because the educational component of it, at 

least by any standards that anyone can make, is not working when 

you have a 5 percent graduation rate. 

And to prepare these young people for life, they have to be able 

to understand that they must remain in the workforce. Because if 

they do not, you have terrible tragedies that occur later. The lack 

of standards in the New York City community colleges, not all but 

looked at broadly, really is appalling and frightening, and frightening for what it means in the future. 

What we ask students to do is to work 20 hours a week. And if 

we were to say that would just be done on the campus of the community college, the same lack of standards in education would 

apply to work, and nothing would happen for these young people. 

No education, no work. 

That is just the truth, Congresswoman. That is just the reality 

of what we face, which the bureaucracy of the college system does 

not want to tell you. What I have to worry about is what happens 

to these youngsters 3, 4, 5, and 6 years from now. And let us think 

of what we are asking of them. 

Because what I am trying to reestablish in the city of New York, 

in which the chancellor has not been particularly helpful, is a social contract. That is what all of this testimony about welfare is 

about. 

It would work something like this. For every benefit, there is an 

obligation. For every right, a duty. That has to be reinforced in everyone, the Mayor, the poorest person, the richest person. And the 

fact is that here are youngsters whose education is being paid for 

by someone else, and who are also asking someone else to support 

them. Essentially, they are asking other citizens to take money out 

of their pockets, pay them for their college education, and pay them 

salary benefits beyond that. 

Now in return for that, they should be asked to do something in 

return. They are not asked to maintain any grade point average of 

any kind. They should be asked at least to work in exchange for 

that. That is a good thing to do for them. That is wiser, more compassionate, and more decent than what the community college system is doing for them. 

It is in a more meaningful way and in a more decent way getting 

them ready for life. Just as I would with my own children, build 

in the sense and the ability that they are going to have to take care 

of themselves. 

And I cannot think of an area in which young people are being 

disserved more than with a system that refuses to reform itself 

that has a 5 percent graduation rate, and is resisting 20 hours of 

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work by students whose education is paid for by the taxpayers, and 

who are also being supported by the taxpayers. 

It is a vestige of the dependency society that we have turned 

around in other areas. And I hope that we can move on to a higher 

understanding of it, a more compassionate and a more decent understanding. 

Mr. HORN. If I might——

Mrs. MALONEY. If I could, because this is very important I believe to the city of New York. 

Respectfully, many studies show that if you want to break the 

cycle of poverty, really a college education, 2 years of college, that 

any additional education helps break that cycle. And I would like 

to request that you meet with me and Mrs. Reynolds. And maybe 

we could get a common ground of some standards, some effort to 

help in some way for the young people that reach certain standards 

to stay in college. 

Mr. GIULIANI. The best thing that Anne Reynolds could do is support workfare for the youngsters that are in the college system, and 

reinforce in them the notion that working for your college education is probably going to prepare you for success in life, much 

better than remaining in basically a standardless educational system. 

And that there is nothing onerous, and certainly nothing punitive, about asking a youngster whose education is being paid for by 

someone else, and who is being supported by someone else, to work 

20 hours a week. 

Mr. HORN. I am going to have to intervene. 

Mr. GIULIANI. I also have to disagree with you, Congresswoman, 

because I have looked at the studies on welfare. The single most 

important thing to move someone out of welfare dependency is not 

education. It is work, and then education. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Would you allow them to use their 20 hours in 

school, in other words work in the school while they are going to 

school? That would be a middle ground. 

Mr. GIULIANI. If I turn over the workfare program to the community colleges, as I said before, we will have the same lack of accountability and standards in the workfare program as they are 

presently demonstrating in their inability to educate young people. 

Mr. HORN. The time of the gentlelady from New York has long 

expired. 

I want to clarify the record here, because it is quite confusing. 

As you know, one of the aid programs, besides the Pell grants, 

which the last Congress put at the highest level they have ever 

been, and the Stafford grants and other loan programs, direct 

loans, guaranteed student loans, all of that, in between is the college work-study program, where they can work up to 20 hours a 

week. The university pays them minimum wage or sometimes more 

based on experience. 

And that is a very useful product. And the Federal Government 

years ago authorized those individuals to work with nonprofits in 

the community. Now I want to separate that program out from 

what I think the mayor is advocating. And I am not sure, because 

it is a little muddy, the exchange. 

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But the degree to which the people of the city of New York fund 

the colleges, am I understanding that you feel at least 20 hours of 

work ought to be contributed by those whose tuition and expenses 

are paid, or are you talking about work-study? 

Mr. GIULIANI. People who in addition have their tuition paid for. 

They are not asked to work, if they are having their tuition paid 

for. They also want to get welfare. In other words, they are going 

to college. And at the same time, they want to receive welfare payments from the city of New York. 

If you want both, a free education and welfare benefits, when 

what we ask is you work 20 hours a week. If all you are doing is 

seeking a free education, you are not required to work. But if you 

are seeking a free education, a largely free education, and welfare 

benefits, which after all in theory were intended for people without 

employment, if you want both, then you are asked like everyone 

else is to work. 

The usual welfare recipient has to work 26 hours a week. The 

accommodation made to students is that they have a part-time job. 

They have to work for 20 hours a week. If you want additional welfare benefits, in other words the home relief benefits beyond just 

a free education. 

Mr. HORN. And that has been recommended to the City College 

Board, has it, the Board of Trustees? 

Mr. GIULIANI. The City College bureaucracy has unfortunately 

done everything that it could to undermine the workfare component of that. And my reluctance to allow them to manage the 

workfare program is that they have had such poor results managing the thing that they are supposed to do, which is educating 

young people in the community college system. 

When you have a graduation rate of 5 percent, actually it is less 

than 5 percent—and if it were not for Kingsborough Community 

College, which has a graduation rate of about 35 percent, there 

would be almost no graduation rate in the rest of the community 

college system. 

They basically have a disaster going on that is being covered over 

by political correctness and ideology, and fear of really facing it. 

Mr. HORN. How are the board members selected for the City College of New York System? 

Mr. GIULIANI. The board members are selected by the Governor 

and mayor, and they have terms. So it is only recently, like within 

the last couple of months, that I have been able and the Governor 

has been able to replace the board members. So we now, I believe, 

have a majority. 

Mr. HORN. So there is a chance for this revolution to occur, I 

take it? 

Mr. GIULIANI. It will occur. 

Mr. HORN. You just need a few more votes? 

Mr. GIULIANI. Yes. 

Mr. HORN. The City College system is in the 1930’s and 1940’s. 

It was among the most distinguished in the United States. I think 

more people went on for the doctorate than any other university 

system in America. But you are talking about the community college portion of that system. 

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Mr. GIULIANI. There has been a similar deterioration, I say similar, there has also been deterioration, but not to the same degree 

as other parts of the system. And much of it has to do with the 

unwillingness to have standards and accountability. Precisely what 

we were testifying about before, the inability and the unwillingness 

to measure performance. 

There is no requirement of grade point average, if you want benefits or additional benefits. There is a fear. There is a fear that is 

eroding the whole system of being held accountable. 

Mr. HORN. I think that is very interesting testimony. Let me just 

close the hearing, since we have other hearings. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Let me ask one very positive question for the city 

of New York. 

Mr. HORN. One minute. 

Mrs. MALONEY. You gave a very good idea that would address 

one of the problems that our city confronts. I do not know whether 

we could pass it in this Congress, but it is certainly something that 

I support. 

What other ideas do you think we could do here in the Federal 

Government that would be helpful in helping I think, the greatest 

city, in solving some of the complex problems that we have? 

Mr. GIULIANI. I think that we could carry through in theory and 

practice the notion of not imposing unfunded mandates, and really 

understanding what that means. I believe that city governments in 

America right now are among the most vital governments that are 

operating, not just New York City. 

I know that many of my fellow mayors are doing very similar 

things in their cities. The Federal welfare reform bill and the immigration bill, to the extent that they are massive unfunded mandates, should be changed, and that we should deal with this as 

partners. 

If vast cost shifts are going to take place to cities, then the Congress should be more willing to listen to I think a different type 

of mayor than now exists. Mayors in major American cities used 

to be called the Tin Cup Brigade. They would come before the State 

legislature with a tin cup asking give us money, give us money, 

and blame you for our problems, because you were not giving us 

enough money. 

I am not coming here in that way. I am saying hold me as accountable as I would like to hold the Community College system. 

And also, the Federal Government cannot be establishing unrealistic mandates. Seventy percent of the people off welfare in 2 to 3 

years, no help, no money, no transitional benefits to accomplish 

that, that is just unrealistic. There are the areas where I think 

that you need much more of a partnership in both levels of Government being held accountable. 

Mrs. MALONEY. You have pinpointed the biggest problem in the 

welfare bill. 

Mr. HORN. I am going to have to let the New York discussion be 

in the written record afterwards, because we did make a commitment to be out of here by 12:30. 

I want to note, Your Honor, that your testimony is absolutely 

vital to what we are trying to accomplish with the Federal Government. And that is a results-oriented approach. And we intend to 

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make good use of your testimony. And when we distribute the report, just your testimony, I plan to send that to every Member of 

Congress. I think that they ought to look at what you are doing, 

and get that seed of creativity going in their areas. 

I would like to discuss with you for 1 minute the tax situation. 

There has been a report from the District of Columbia that there 

ought to be more innovative ways to attract business, and attract 

people to the District of Columbia, this is the Kemp Commission, 

either by changing the rate at which they are paid, or giving them 

a special benefit in what is essentially, and you have many of those 

too, distressed economic areas. 

And I just wondered if you have any thoughts on that aspect on 

how we save our cities by a decent Federal tax policy. This is not 

the committee that can do something about it, but if we can air it. 

Mr. GIULIANI. They work. Incentive programs to businesses 

work, as long as you solve some of the other fundamental problems. 

And that is why crime reduction is so important to us. No matter 

what kind of incentive program you have, someone is not going to 

establish their business in a place where they think that they are 

going to be killed, or in a place where they think that they are 

going to be mugged and beaten. 

So you have to get yourself to a reasonable degree of safety. And 

then tax incentive programs are enormously valuable. We use 

them. We use them for big businesses, keeping them in the city. 

We use them for a program that I call the anchor problem, to establish more business in the distressed communities of the city. 

And it can be enormously valuable to give businesses incentives. 

Frankly, the way in which it works the best is to solve the fundamental problem. There was an article in New York magazine, a 

cover article, about a month ago, pointing out that in the last 2 to 

3 years that more positive changes have taken place in Harlem 

than in all of the last 20 years combined. 

I am very proud of that article. Because the reason for that is 

we have solved some of the fundamental problems that have alluded the city in the past. Reducing crime dramatically. Removing 

illegal street vendors. Now national corporations are investing in 

Harlem for the first time. We also give them incentives to do that. 

But the incentives were there before. But it was not working, because people had these other fundamental problems that were preventing them from investing. 

Mr. HORN. Well, I thank you for that. 

I am going to close with one little story about my previous interaction with the mayor of New York City. And that is back in the 

Lindsay administration. I was 1 of the 10 Kennedy fellows at the 

Institute of Politics at Harvard at the time, and happened to have 

the good mayor up to my seminar on the future of the Republican 

party. 

And while he was there, he met with us. And he said, ‘‘Why don’t 

you guys spend a couple of days with me in New York, and I will 

show you what it is really like.’’ And we said, ‘‘Great.’’

So in April, we went down in 1967. And the Governor was there, 

and we met with him. And then he and John Lindsay together met 

with us. And they got us off looking at different aspects of the city. 

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And the comment that I want to close with is the one that Governor Rockefeller made. He said, ‘‘You know, John has got a tougher job than I do.’’ And, of course, we believed that without him telling us. Because as we approached city hall, there were barriers. 

There were pickets. There were strikes. Just a typical day in the 

life of the mayor. 

But I thought that it was good, because they were always supposed to have this feud going on, that the Governor, I think that 

his in-town office was on 54th Street or something, in that area. 

And the Governor said, ‘‘Nobody can get after me. I am either in 

Albany or where they cannot find me in New York. John, they can 

find,’’ and they did. 

And I think that is correct. Being a mayor in this day and age, 

the last 50 or even 100 years, is the toughest job in the United 

States. And I think you have showed us what a mayor with imagination and vision can do in helping to turn a city around when everyone else had given up, very frankly. 

So I thank you very much for coming. And I wish you well in the 

years ahead. 

And with that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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