80 



are provided to permit efficiency and economy through 

 specialization of effort and maximum use of specialized 

 equipment. Organizations that are not fully equipped 

 to carry on occasional or incidental work of a highly 

 technical nature may send such work to bureaus spe- 

 cializing along those particular lines. For example, 

 an agency collecting data from a large single-time 

 survey may have no tabulating machines, nor persons 

 trained in tabulating procedures, and hence might ask 

 the Bureau of tlie Census to undertake this phase of 

 the work on a reimbursement basis. The National 

 Bureau of Standards and the Bureau of the Census 

 are outstanding examples of organizations performing 

 specialized services of this character for other Govern- 

 ment agencies. The Congress has made specific pro- 

 vision in recent appropriation acts for such work by 

 the National Bureau of Standards. 



There seems to be little difficulty or complaint in 

 arranging for such transfers under the provisions of 

 section 601 of the Economy Act of 1932, which liber- 

 alized the previous authorization of the Fortifications 

 Act of 1920. Payment of a lump sum may be made 

 in advance and set up as a "working fund" for a par- 

 ticidar purpose, or reimbursement may be made as the 

 obligations are incurred. In either case, the agency 

 performing the work suffers no diminution of funds 

 for its own functions. 



Purchases and Payments 



The latitude of research directors in using their ap- 

 propriated funds is carefully circumscribed by stat- 

 utes and decisions of the Comptroller General. How- 

 ever, research funds are not more hemmed around with 

 restrictions than funds for many other purposes. Fur- 

 thermore, the existence of such limiting regulations is 

 essential for financial control in a democratic govern- 

 ment. Some research directors have suggested that, if 

 research is as important for national progress as they 

 believe, a small fixed percentage of the total amounts 

 appropriated for research in each agency should be left 

 free from any restriction on the object of expenditure, 

 provided a full report is made to the Bureau of the 

 Budget of all disbursements from such unrestricted 

 amounts. 



Of the restrictions in choice of objects to purchase or 

 hire, not only for research work but for all Govern- 

 ment operations, probably first in importance for re- 

 search is the limitation on printing and binding which 

 is discussed more fully in a later section. Next may be 

 mentioned the restrictions on hiring, discharging, and 

 use of personnel. There are civil service procedures 

 that must be followed to obtain new employees in most 

 research agencies. There is also a prohibition** 



" Revised Statutes, section 3G78 ; 12 Comp. Gen. 516 ; 14 Comp. Gen. 

 617; 15 Comp. Gen. 951. 



National Resources Committee 



against payment of Federal funds to a nongovernmen- 

 tal individual or agency for services, except on a con- 

 tract basis after appropriate bidding. It may be im- 

 possible, therefore, for an impatient research director 

 to obtain at once the services of the exact person he 

 wants for a particular study. In some cases, of course, 

 there are legitimate methods of mitigating the severity 

 of such denials. For example, an able universitj' pro- 

 fessor may be induced to accept responsibility for a 

 study, without compensation, if Government employ- 

 ees are detailed to aid him in the work and all neces- 

 sary supplies and materials are provided. One impedi- 

 ment, however, that is an especial hardship to some 

 research organizations, and seems to be without any 

 mitigating loop-holes, is the impossibility of sending 

 staff assistants with full pay to universities or research 

 institutions for special advanced training. Only the 

 Army and Navy have this privilege. In civil agencies, 

 training must be provided by the Government itself, 

 which is sometimes impossible, or the employees may 

 not be able to acquire the techniques that would make 

 their work more valuable to the Government. Safe- 

 guards would be necessary if agencies were allowed the 

 privilege of training employees at full pay in univer- 

 sities, probably under a general regulation of the Civil 

 Service Commission so devised as to permit variations 

 in individual cases. The general rule might, for ex- 

 ample, limit the number of persons to be trained for 

 any one agency, the length of time of training, and the 

 amount of expenditure for tuition and other expenses; 

 and should also include such provisions as might be 

 considered practicable to insure the continued services 

 of the trainee for a reasonable period after the comple- 

 tion of the training course.^^ 



Other restrictions on the latitude of research direc- 

 tors to make certain expenditures include the require- 

 ment of specific authorization (usually accompanied by 

 a specified maximum amount) to buy books and news- 

 papers, to use funds for travel, etc. 



Some research agencies state that equipment for ur- 

 gent scientific projects cannot be obtained expeditiously 

 by the usual requisition system devised for the protec- 

 tion of the Government in its purchases. It might be 

 possible to devise a modification of the standard pro- 

 cedure for the purchase of scientific equipment under 

 certain circumstances, but such modification would, of 

 course, also have to be uniform for the protection of 

 the Government against fraud. The frequency and 

 kind of cases in which a scientific agency is handicapped 

 by delay in purchasing equipment might be a proper 

 subject for study, preferably by the Procurement Di- 



'= since this parasrnph was written provisions In the two Executive 

 Orders ot June 24, 1938, have oiJencd the way for such employee train- 

 ing. See Section 8, Executive Order No. 7016, and paragraph 3 (4) of 

 Rule X o( Executive Order No. 7915. 



