"budget preview," which projects the financial requirements of the Government in May for the budget which is to be sent to Congress the following January. This preview forms the basis for determining the President's policy with respect to his forthcoming budget and for setting the "target figures" to govern the spending agencies in the preparation of this budget.

Aside from the development of the budget preview, the work of the Fiscal Division as a whole during the 8 years of its existence has been disappointing. It has been disjointed in approach, sporadic when not routine, and generally not well planned. Opportunities for clarifying and simplifying the budget document have been passed up on the excuse that more staff was required to undertake the task. Considerable time and staff effort were recently spent in developing a functional classification for use in the budget message and the summary tables, when a character classification might have been much more productive of information that would aid in determining fiscal policy and in setting up an understandable budget.

The Division of Legislative Reference

The legislative reference work, as it related strictly to fiscal measures, was inaugurated in a modest way by the first Director of the Budget. This work was not originally assigned to a unit of the Budget Bureau, but was handled by the Bureau's staff with the assistance of the Department of Justice. Then in 1936 the Division of Coordination was set up in the Budget Bureau, its name being changed later to the Division of Legislative Reference. Gradually all legislation was made subject to the Division's review.

The Division now has the responsibility for clearing and coordinating the views and advice of the various administrative and other agencies on proposed legislation, enrolled bills, executive orders and proclamations, and other formal documents. It advises the President on approval or disapproval of enrolled bills, including drafts of veto messages. It also prepares executive orders and proclamations for the President.

Hence the Division has become a rather necessary adjunct to the White House staff. It is perhaps more essentially a part of this staff than of the budget staff proper, to which it is attached. At least, it operates on the fringe of the budget work, strictly speaking.

The Division has a comparatively small staff-18 persons in all. It is possible for this staff to handle the volume of work which comes to it, especially during congressional sessions, by referrring legislation to other divisions of the Budget Bureau and to the various departments and agencies for opinions and recommendations. Many of these references with respect to fiscal matters go to the Estimates Division for reports

The organization of the Division of Legislative Reference is simple and direct. The chief of the Division keeps closely in touch with the work of the individual staff members without the aid of any deputy or assistant chiefs. The staff is fairly fluid and all assignments are quite flexible. This arrangement is, of course, facilitated by the general character of and approach to the work of the Division.

Considering the volume and nature of the work turned out by the Legislative Reference Division, it is perhaps the most economically and efficiently operated of any of the divisions of the Budget Bureau.

The Division of Statistical Standards

The Division of Statistical Standards was established in 1940, as the successor of the Central Statistical Board. This Board has been transferred to the Budget Bureau by the Reorganization Plan of 1939, where it became the Division of Statistical Standards, upon the expiration of the 5-year terms of its members. Since then the Division has had a single head in charge of its work.

The staff of the Division now consists of 66 members, more than half of whom are in classes P-3 or above. The staff organization is markedly different from that of the other major divisions of the Budget Bureau in that it is operated largely on the basis of a pool. It, therefore, has a highly desirable degree of flexibility in performing its usual tasks, and can adapt itself quickly to any unusual demands. However, this arrangement does not preclude some specialization on the part of the individual members, which is also desirable for forming speedy judgments.

The main duties of the Division relate to the coordination and improvement of Federal statistical and reporting programs under the Federal Reports Act of 1942. This act gives the Division, acting through the Director of the Budget, certain regulatory powers over all statistical forms, questionnaires, and reports of the operating departments and agencies of the Government.

Although the staff members of the Division advise with the estimates groups on statistical requirements and programs, the work of the Division is not closely related to the preparation and execution of the budget. And there is no good reason why statistical standards work, any more than centralized purchasing work, should be directly or intimately associated with the budgeting work. Its present association with the budgeting work is perhaps due as much to accident as to design. The Division can probably be shifted to advantage in any realignment of the President's staff agencies. Recommendations with respect to the whole field of Federal statistics and statistical reporting should help to determine the ultimate location of the statistical standards work.

The Field Service

The Field Service of the Budget Bureau was started in July 1943, with the establishment of a headquarters at Washington and a field office at Dallas. Soon thereafter three more field offices were started at San Francisco, Denver, and Chicago. Nine field offices in all were planned by the Budget Bureau, but Congress refused to permit expansion beyond the first four offices. In fact, since about 1945 the appropriations committees of the House and the Senate have written a continuing provision into the Bureau's appropriations which forbids the establishment of more than four regional or field offices outside the District of Columbia. Since that time the Bureau has been endeavoring to make a case for the continuation and expansion of the field offices.

The present field offices of the Service cover the area west of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River. The Dallas, Denver, and San Francisco offices each have a staff of 6 persons, and the Chicago office 7 persons. Seventeen of these 25 persons are in grades CAF-11 to CAF-14, 11 of them in the two top grades. The headquarters office in the Budget Bureau has a staff of 5 persons, including a chief and an assistant chief."

The total salary costs of the Field Service staff of 30 persons currently amounts to $171,000, or 5.6 percent of the total salary costs of the Budget Bureau. If travel expenses were properly allocated and a charge were made for the office space occupied in the four cities, the cost of the Field Service would be considerably more. Travel alone is no small item. In an effort to stimulate the output of the field staff, the office heads and one or two of their assistants are brought to Washington twice a year for a week's conferences, while an additional conference is held at one of the field offices. The chief of the Field Service and his assistant chief usually visit the various field offices two or three times a year.

The field offices work mainly on assignments from Washington. The bulk of these assignments, estimated at 80 or 90 percent, come from the Estimates Division, with occasional requests for information or short reports from the Administrative Management Division and the Statistical Standards Division. The assignments relate largely to Federal administrative problems of a local character. The existence of the field offices does not preclude the divisions from sending members of their staffs into the territory covered by the offices to make field examinations. Indeed, this is often done. In the eastern areá of the country where there are no field offices, the division staffs continue to take care of their informational needs by direct contacts or

The central staff has been reduced to four persons and the Chicago office to six persons under the current budget.

by using the field offices of the operating departments and agencies. In addition to the assignments from Washington, the Field Service, concerns itself with interagency relations in the area of each field office and also with Federal-State-local relations. In the San Francisco office the latter relations appear to assume considerable proportions. Just why so much emphasis should be placed on sectional State-local relations is not quite clear, especially when so many basic features of Federal budgeting remain largely undeveloped.

The management of the four field offices is very uneven; likewise; the output. Some field reports submitted to headquarters are very good, many others are poor. When received at Washington, few, if any, reports may be regarded as finished products, much editing and rewriting being necessary to make them useable in the Bureau. Joint reports of the field offices on the same subject matter are usually integrated by extensive rewriting at Washington, which is at best an uncertain process since no one person has viewed the total picture. The routine weekly reports from each field office are rarely enlightening from a budgetary standpoint, since they often carry little more than local gossip which may be easily gleaned from newspapers.

The chief difficulty with the Field Service is that its staff members are not familiar with the departmental and other problems at the estimates level, and therefore are largely ignorant of what to look for in the field. If they served on the staff of the estimates groups, they would be much more alert to the informational needs and the nature of the problems to be explored.

The Field Service, as at present organized and operated, is undoubtedly the least productive of all the organizational units of the Budget Bureau. Opinions differ widely, even in the Budget Bureau itself, as to the value of the Field Service: Some think it is worth retaining or even expanding; others think it could be discontinued without any serious loss to the budgeting process. A fair appraisal of the consensus of opinion, both inside and outside the Budget Bureau, would indicate that the Field Service has yet to justify itself, even on its present basis of four field offices.

The Federal Board of Hospitalization

The Federal Board of Hospitalization, after going through many changes since it was established in 1921, now consists of the Budget Director, as chairman, and six other members-the Surgeons General of the Army, the Navy, and the Public Health Service, the Chief Medical Director of the Veterans' Administration, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and the Director of the Bureau of Prisons. It reviews the hospital facilities of the Government, particularly with reference to the veterans of World War II, and determines the need for additional or new facilities and the localities in which they should be pro

vided.10 The staff of the Board, previously attached to the Veterans' Administration, was transferred to the Budget Bureau in 1946. Two members of the staff were immediately attached to the Hospital Section of the Estimates Division. The remainder of the staff-a director, secretary of the Board, and two stenographer-clerks—now constitute a small independent unit in the Budget Bureau. Since the Hospital Section of the Estimates Division handles the appropriation requirements of the Federal hospitals and collects certain statistics for the Board, it would not be improper for this section to furnish the secretarial help needed by the Board.

10 The Board ceased to function in its usual capacity during July, and the need for a staff or secretarial aid no longer exists.