Evening star., 1946-04-22
PbA and Army
Confer on Cuts
lin Office Space
Survey of Pentoeon
Shows Increase in
| Room Per Person

koom FER Person
Government Office space saving
specialists placed the War Depart
ment under close observation to-
day as first patient" in their drive
to reduce the Governments Office
space 100000 square feet by June 80.
Space experts of the Public Build
ings Administration, which re-
Gently was given sweeping powers
by the President to slice away some
of the excess Office space used by
some agencies, today were con-
ferring with officials OF the War
Department to see what could be
done.
Among those in attendance at
the meeting were John A. Nagle,
PBA deputy commissioner in
charge of the space-saving drive,
and his assistant, Clay J. Guth-
eridge, PBA space and property Of
ficer. Mr.. Nagle has set the imme-
date space reduction goal at the
400, ,000-s 0-square-foot figure. R. l..
McKeever, director of liquidation
and President Truman's right-hand
man on the of1ce-space problem,
has estimated the long range re-
duction goal at 100000 square feet
and like amount has been called
for by Congress in passing the In
dependent Offices Appropriation Act
for 1947.
Leading Space Users.
Mr.. Nagle lists the Governments
leading space users as the War De-
partment, Navy Department and
State Department. His figures show
that in the last nine months, each
Pentagon worker has been allowed
10 more square feet of space.
AS of June 80, l945, 23,5oo en-
ployes occupied 100000 square feet,
or 81 square feet per person.
By March 30, 1916, 21 900 employees
occupied 2,o44, 900 square feet (some
dead space was converted into Office
space in the meantime) or 81 square
feet per person.
What officials were trying to do
today was to see if this 10 square
foot rise could not be eliminated,
thus permitting space savings all
along the line and eventual vacating
OF a certain amount of badly needed
commercial Office space or former
residential space in the Capital.
Although the War Department was
called first into the space doctors
Office today, PBA officials said they
were not forgetting the regional of
flee OF the Veterans Administration,
which is threatened with loss of it's
office space June 80. 1t must vacate
the District Municipal Center OH
that date, but so far has been
blocked from moving to 1925 H
street NV, its new home, by a four
way space tieup between the Fedora.
Security Agency, the Civilian Pro-
duction Administration, the National
Housing Agency and the Office Of
Economic Sterilization.
State Has Cut Space.
Getting back to top agencies sus-
pected of having too much space,
PBA figures show that the State
Department employees occupied $50
feet per person last June 30, but
have reduced it to where they now
have 1877 feet per person. Compar-
ing these figures to those for the
War Department, PBA may well find
| it can do some cutting there.
Navy Department occupancy has
risen 2l2 to feet per person since
the end of the last fiscal year.
In the current space survey. really
an intensifcation under new author
ity of what PBA has tried to do in
the past. the buildings agency will
control space in much the same way
as the Budget Bureau keeps grip
on the Government payroll and the
General Accounting Office on eX-
penditures, officials said today.
In the past, space control has been
handled on an "if you please" basis
and PBA had no set of legal teeth
with which to crack down when
pleading failed to do the trick
Must Certify Economy.
Long-range space plans now call
for a system under which PBA
would certify in the case of every
Government agency that maximum
space economy has been achieved.
To show how quickly small space
savings would be reflected in Gov
ernment expenditures, PBA officials
estimate that if only 101 persons
were put in Office space now occu-
pied by 100, saving of so cents a
square foot would be made. Ap-
piled to the Governments $4,000, 900
Washington rent bill, thl. would
mean saving of $4,000. Another
$4,000 could be saved at the same
time by reducing guard and GUS
todial forces a like percentage,