(The matter referred to is as follows:) Summary statement relating appropriation estimates to current appropriations— 1947 appropriations (including supplementals) 1948 appropriations in annual act 1948 appropriations in supplemental act Total appropriations for 1948... Net difference, 1949 over 1948: Appropriations $903, 137 963, 220 Statement relating appropriation estimate to current appropriation—salaries, Supreme Court 1947 appropriations (including supplementals) _ $710, 706 1948 budget estimates (including amendments and recommended supplementals). 766, 900 Within-grade salary advancements_ 5, 969 Regular pay in excess of 52-week base (5 U. S. A. 944). 1, 690 24, 100 Total appropriations for 1948__. 786, 600 SALARIES, SUPREME COURT Mr. STEFAN. The first item is "Salaries, Supreme Court." The appropriation for 1948 is $762,500 and the estimate for 1949 is $786,600, or a requested increase of $24,100. The total estimates submitted for the fiscal year 1949 is $1,163,400, against a total for 1948 of $955,720, or an increase requested of $207,680. We shall be very happy at this time to hear Mr. Justice Burton, who, I understand, will present the general justification for these items. Mr. JUSTICE BURTON. Mr. Chairman, I assume you wish to proceed in the order in which the justifications have been prepared and in which the items appear in the appropriation bill. The increase requested for the coming fiscal year can be readily divided into two parts. There are five rather small items relating to the Court's operation. AUTOMATIC PROMOTIONS Mr. STEFAN. Referring to the item of salaries, is the requested increase of $24,100 made up of automatic promotions? Mr. Justice BURTON. A part of it is made up of automatic promotions. I would like to make a comment at this point which relates to a statement that I made during last year's hearings. Of the $24,100, $7,659 is for automatic salary increases plus one item of $1,690 for the single day in excess of 52 work-weeks. The rest of it, $16,441, relates to two items on which I should like to make a brief statement. ADDITIONAL LAW CLERKS We have a plan in the Court whereby the Chief Justice has three law clerks and each of the Associate Justices has two law clerks, if he wishes them. Last year four of the Associate Justices asked for the two law clerks and four asked for one each. Next year, two more of the Associate Justices are asking for two law clerks. Two Justices still will have only one apiece, but the rest will have two law clerks. So there will be two more added, which makes $10,233, as they are listed at $5,116.32 apiece. If the new men are junior law clerks, the cost will not be quite that amount, but we must allow for the possibility of getting senior law clerks because men of experience are sometimes obtainable. Mr. STEFAN. Then you are asking for two new law clerks. ADJUSTMENT OF SALARIES OF SECRETARIES The other item amounting to $6,208 relates to secretaries. Mr. Justice BURTON. Those are secretaries to the Chief Justice or Associate Justices. Mr. STEFAN. Are you asking for additional secretaries? Mr. Justice BURTON. No additional secretaries. This is for a change in salary. The way that comes about is this. We mentioned last year that it was clear that there had been no readjustment in the basic salaries of these secretaries, although there had been for secretaries in other departments of the Government and for most of the other employees of the Court. We did not ask for it last year, for we felt that it required an investigation by us in order to bring these salaries into proper relationship to those in the executive branch. As a matter of fact, the new salaries will be on a basis a little below the salaries paid on the average to secretaries to cabinet officers. Mr. STEFAN. What are the salaries? Mr. Justice BURTON. They will correspond to those in CAF-10, at $5,116.32. Mr. STEFAN. Is that the net salary? Mr. Justice BURTON. That covers everything. That is the gross salary. They do not receive a further addition for overtime. If they stay long enough, the salary could go up to a maximum CAF-10 salary of $5,806.02. That is on a basis comparable to that of a Cabinet secretary. MISCELLANEOUS EXPENSES Mr. STEFAN. There is a small increase requested for miscellaneous expenses, $5,100. Mr. Justice BURTON. That is made up of three items. One of them is $1,500, for the increased cost of printing the office supplies at the Government Printing Office. The second is for $2,100, to meet a recommendation of the National Archives to take care of the so-called prize-case records-a couple of examples of which I have on my left here. This is needed to put these original documents in such condition that they may be preserved. These are the records of certain cases tried before there was a United States of America under our present Constitution. The Congress authorized this prize court. It was called a court of appeals. Congress, later on, put its records in the custody of the Clerk of the Supreme Court and told him to keep them on record and available for copying. They are to be given the same faith and credit as the proceedings of our present Supreme Court. Mr. STEFAN. Are you going to microfilm them? Mr. Justice BURTON. They will first be put in proper condition and then microfilmed. These represent early prize cases. In the early days, before there was a system of United States courts, prize cases came to the Congress and Congress would refer them to this court of appeals. They had to do with captured vessels. Mr. STEFAN. I notice that this one is dated October 17, 1776. Mr. Justice BURTON. That is right. A resolution of 1780 later created a court of appeals in cases of capture. There are 109 such cases and they are listed in volume 131 of the United States Supreme Court Reports in the appendix, but reports of them are not printed. Every now and then an inquiry comes in which makes it necessary to go back to these prize cases. They are in rather poor condition to handle. CARE OF SUPREME COURT BUILDING AND GROUNDS Mr. STEFAN. The large item of increase comes in care of Supreme Court buildings and grounds, the increase requested being $200,400. I think this is a matter that you took up with me some time ago, but the committee has not had time to look into it as yet. The executive secretary of the committee and I had planned to go over to the building, to have a look at the condition there. Mr. Justice BURTON. I hope you will be able to do that. AIR CONDITIONING OF THE GROUND FLOOR Mr. STEFAN. Most of this is for air conditioning the basement, is it? Mr. Justice BURTON. About half of it is for air conditioning of the ground floor. These items relating to the building are for the most part capital items and therefore nonrecurring. I might mention three of them together that relate particularly to the air-conditioning system, and say this: When the building was completed in 1935, it was for the Supreme Court and its employees alone. It was contemplated that there would be ample space for expansion on the first, second, and third floors. Since the Congress, after recommendation of the Court, has created the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, which has about twice as many employees as does the Supreme Court, they have been quartered over there and the result is that they overpopulate the original office space. Many of them are housed on the ground floor or basement, which was intended for storage space, and for which no air conditioning was provided whatsoever. They have to be there during the summer and it represents a difficult and uncontemplated situation. Therefore, there is involved here first of all an item for one additional engineer at $2,469. This will be a continuing item in order to take care of the increased machinery that will be necessary for this air conditioning, and also to care for the older machinery already there and carrying an increased load. REPLACEMENT OF EXHAUST FANS There is a second item of $3,500 which has to do with the replacing of four exhaust fans which are rusted and need replacement. IMPROVEMENT OF STORAGE BASEMENT FOR ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE The third item is the main item, $110,000, which the Architect of the Capitol will present to you in detail. This will make the storage basement available for habitation by the Administrative Office, although their employees have been there for some time without proper provision for them. Those are the main and most essential items. IMPROVEMENTS AND ALTERATIONS TO INCREASE LIBRARY CAPACITY Next is an important item for the library. The most important of the remaining three items is for the expansion of the book space in the library. The library has about double its original supply of books. Miss Newman, the librarian, is here, as is the associate librarian. The total expansion of library cases to take care of these books would come to $75,000. It is conceivable that a part of this might be taken care of now and a part later, but it will all have to be done sometime. Seventy-five thousad dollars is a careful estimate of what it will take. IMPROVEMENTS AND ALTERATIONS TO TELEPHONE EXCHANGE There are two more items. One is in connection with the telephone room in the basement, to take care of the increased load that the telephone equipment has been carrying. That is $3,500. ADDITIONAL ACCOMMODATIONS FOR LAWYERRS The last is for additional dictation rooms for lawyers. The lawyers were pushed out of the second and third floors by the Administrative Office. They come here from different parts of the country to present their cases and they need to make use of our library. This item would give them some small rooms near the library where they may make adjustments of their briefs, and so forth. That comes to $3,000. That covers all of it, Mr. Chairman; But I shall be glad to answer any questions. Mr. STEFAN. Will you tell us something about your work load? Mr. JUSTICE BURTON. The work load is not greatly increased, but is steadily increasing. That is set out on page 7 of the justifications. Perhaps the simplest way to say it, leaving aside for the moment the miscellaneous cases which are small cases which come to us from the penitentiaries, you will see that from the 1945 October term, which corresponds to the fiscal year 1946 to the 1946 October term, which corresponds to the fiscal year 1947, the number of cases on the docket increased from 1,329 to 1,524 and the cases disposed of during the term increased from 1,161 to 1,366. Mr. STEFAN. I think it would be well to insert in the record the table on page 7 and on page 8. (The information is as follows:) JUSTIFICATION SALARIES, SUPREME COURT Objectives The appropriation here requested is to provide the necessary moneys to pay the salaries of the members of the Supreme Court of the United States, the officers of the Court; their respective staffs, as well as the Court's custodial employees. General justification As a matter of interest and information, there is respectfully submitted the following statement reflecting a comparison of the case work of the Court for the past three terms: Statement showing the number of cases filed, disposed of, and remaining on docket, at conclusion of October terms 1944, 1945, and 1946 (October term 1946 ending June 1947 corresponds to fiscal year 1947) |
