Evening star., 1933-06-23
Married Workers Will Be
First to Go Under Retrench-
ment Program.
GENERAL ACCOUNTING
REDUCTIONS FORECAST
State and War Departments Are
Only Ones Which Have Not
Announced Policy.

The scythe Of retrenchment was
swinging vigorously through the old
established Federal agencies today,
cutting down additional workers in its
sweep.
In order to stay within a $4,000 900
coming year. Commerce Department
officials announced today that approx
mately 500 married workers in Wash
ington would be dismissed from the
service, and that the entire depart
ment personnel would have to take a
15-day administrative furlough, effective
June 80.
The administrative furlough would
bring an additional per cent cut in
salaries of approximately $4,000 en-
ployes in the department, officials said.
Each workers salary Is now cut IS per
cent under the economy act, and 3 2
per cent additional is deducted from the
base pay for the retirement fund.
In addition, officials declared that
effective July Is several hundred more
workers would be separated from the
service because of low civil service eff
cheney ratings.
The exact number of these workers
has not yet been determined because
departmental appeal boards were re-
ported still in session.
Effort to Salvage Jobs.
An effort is being made to save the
jobs of a large number of clerks now
attached to the departments Bureau
of Foreign and Domestic Commerce bY
having them transferred to the nom
civil service status national recovery
administration.
Secretary of Commerce Roper said
he has recommended that the recovery
administration take over the functions
of some Of this bureaus commodity d.
visions, and that Brig. Gen. Hugh S.
Johnson, industrial control adminlStra-
tor has the matter under advisement.
The Bureau of Standards, according
to Malcolm Kerlin, executive assistant
to Secretary Roper, will be drastically
cut. Three divisions, including one
devoted to housing conditions set up
by President Hoover, are slated to be
reduced, he said, from $150,000 to $685.
900 annually in operating expenses.
Kerlin said he was not in a position
to give the exact number of employees
to be dismissed by the department.
There are, he said, 600 married workers
will be dismissed. The other 100 are
in so-called key positions, and would
not feel the economy act, he explained
Other separations from the service,
he said, would not take place until
July IS, because all of the administra-
tive officials engaged in reorganiZing the
department have found the task too
difficult to perform prior to this date
At the Government Printing Office,
George H. Carter, the public printer,
made known that between 300 and 400
employees would be dropped by July Is;
the General Accounting Office also
forecast dismiSsals. These developments
hard on the heels of announce
ment yesterday of impending personnel
slashes in two of the executive depart
ments-Justice and Interior. Elsewhere
in the Government, administrative Off
GERS were whipping into final shape the
program to be followed in the new fiscal
year, starting a week from tomorrow,
on the basis of drastic reductions in
funds.
Next to the Commerce Department
slash, the cut at the Government Print
ing office will be among the largest in any
of the local agencies, and IS to be di-
rected at two clasSeS-those employees
whose husbands or wives also are in
Federal service, and those to be retired
after 80 years or more service.
In the former group there are POT,
in the latter 368.
Married Workers Advised.
Notices were sent out yesterday to
the first named. advising them of the
requirement in the economy act for
dropping a husband or wife. where nee
essary, and giving them the option of
choosing who would stay and who would
go. This same principle was followed
last year by Mr. Carter, who at that
time however, required designations only
where both husband and wife were In
the Printing Office.
The reductions will reach into every
Continued on Page 2. Column D.