PRIORITIES AND PROPERTY 24I 



ery of new equipment, and the property unit making equipment on hand 

 at the expiration of contracts available for use under other contracts. 



Property Accounting 



The first major task of the property group was to issue adequate instruc- 

 tions for the use of contractors in preparing the property accounting reports 

 required by the contract. Tentative instructions were issued to contractors 

 to cover the 350 contracts which had terminated up to the fall of 1942. These 

 instructions, as revised in February 1944 (Administrative Circular No. 

 15.03), proved adequate even in the liquidation period. 



Upon the termination of a contract a letter was sent to the contractor 

 requesting the submission of a property report in the prescribed form, and 

 follow-ups were made at appropriate intervals. When the report was re- 

 ceived, it was checked for completeness and forwarded to the appropriate 

 division for recommendations as to the acceptability of the report and the 

 disposition of the property on hand. 



As soon as a property report was considered acceptable and the disposi- 

 tion of all property on hand had been completed, a certification to that 

 effect was sent to the contract and fiscal sections as notice that the final 

 voucher could be paid insofar as property matters were concerned. At the 

 same time the contractor was notified that he had completed his property 

 accounting. As of January 31, 1946, 1480 contracts had been cleared with 

 reference to property. 



Disposition of Property 



While the war continued, the major emphasis in connection with the dis- 

 position of property was to provide for its use under other contracts. The 

 division supervising a terminated contract was given the first opportunity 

 to obtain the property on hand for use on other contracts under its super- 

 vision; if not needed by that division, the property was made available for 

 use by the contractors of other divisions. 



For a time OSRD maintained a storeroom in Washington to which sur- 

 plus equipment not immediately needed on OSRD contracts could be 

 shipped. The arrangement was never fully effective because of the diffi- 

 culty of getting and keeping a properly qualified technician to run the 

 storeroom. Many critical items were issued to contractors, however, before 

 the storeroom was Hquidated in 1945 by transferring the property on hand 

 to Government laboratories having a use for it. 



The problem of statutory authority for the disposition of property outside 

 the agency was solved by the inclusion of the following enabling legislation 

 in the various War Agencies Appropriation Acts which provided funds 

 for OSRD: 



