Relation of the Federal Government to Research 



81 



vision of tlie Treasui"y Department. If such hardships 

 were important, recommendations could presumably be 

 devised to effect whatever modification in the present 

 procedures might be desirable imder certain specified 

 conditions. 



Percentage Allocations 

 For Research 



A particularly unrestricted kind of flexibility in the 

 use of research funds is possible for such agencies as 

 the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of Public 

 Roads, that supervise construction work on a large 

 scale. In these cases, a certain percentage of the amount 

 appropriated for construction is available for general 

 administration, or specifically for investigations neces- 

 sary to proper planning of the construction program. 

 A similar provision has been used advantageously for 

 other kinds of work such as, for example, the adminis- 

 tration of the public debt, where administrative ex- 

 penses also depend partly on the volume of work which 

 is to some extent unpredictable. 



The experience of the agencies having such funds has 

 not been examined sufficiently to comment on this tech- 

 nique other than to mention the obvious advantage to 

 the agency of flexibility and the equally obvious dis- 

 advantage of absence of budgetary or other general gov- 

 ernmental control. The flexibility so acquired by the 

 few agencies where tliis method is possible may, how- 

 ever, be somewhat offset by instability in the research 

 program if violent fluctuations in the volume of new 

 work should occur. 



Flexibility in Retrenchment 



Since with few exceptions a reasonable amount of 

 flexibility in research programs of the major Federal 

 agencies is quite possible now under normal conditions, 

 the only serious danger from undue rigidity (except 

 perhaps for limitations on publication and certaiu pur- 

 chases) seems to lie in the method of applying tempo- 

 rary retrenchment measures, such as the provisions of 

 the Economy Acts of 1932 and 1933. In retrenchment 

 for general economy purposes, the principle of flexi- 

 bility requires that appropriation cuts, wliether ex- 

 pressed as percentages or as lump sums, be allocated 

 to each agency as a whole rather than to separate func- 

 tions, since the undiminished activity of some functions 

 may be more necessary than appears to the uninformed 

 outsider. The responsible officers of each agency will 

 be able to redistribute the total savings required for 

 the whole agencv among different constituent func- 

 tions or activities in whatever proportions seem most 

 advisable for the work of the whole organization. 

 Certain administrative officers, of course, might redis- 

 tribute the economy cuts within their organizations 

 unwisely, but such officers would be a handicap under 

 any system. 



Uniform Project System 



A recent innovation of the Dejjartment of Agricul- 

 ture is a "uniform project system," which has con- 

 siderable promise for wider adoption as a means of 

 bringing the budgetary procedures within and without 

 an agency into one consistent system. It might also be 

 used as a substitute for any narrowly-limited appro- 

 priation paragraphs that remain. Under this system 

 the amounts decided upon for each project by the 

 bureau and department are not only reported for 

 informational purposes to the Bureau of the Budget, 

 but are the work units (with further division into 

 sub-projects) for the department's own internal au- 

 thorizing, review, coordinating, and control procedures. 

 The only budgetary limitation from the Congress is 

 the appropriation paragraph, which usually covers a 

 group of two or more major projects having the same 

 general function. 



For several years the Bureau of the Budget has 

 requested other agencies, for informational purposes, 

 to report their expenditures by projects or functions, 

 in addition to the usual classification by object. How- 

 ever, the projects so reported are not on a uniform 

 basis among organizations and are, so far as is known 

 to the writer, not used for internal control except in 

 the case of the Department of Agriculture. Some 

 agencies furnish no project or functional break-down 

 of their appropriation programs even for informa- 

 tional purposes to the Bureau of the Budget. 



Special Research Fund 



The Department of Agriculture, in which the bu- 

 reaus probably have research appropriations for as 

 narrowly defined functions as in any other department 

 or independent office, now has a compensating "special 

 research fund" of $1,200,000, nearly one-half of which 

 can be used to give flexibility to the research activities 

 of the Department, by financing new or supplemental 

 projects. While a lump-sum, supplemental research 

 fund has obvious advantages in creating flexibility of 

 expenditures and meeting contingencies, the method 

 also has possible limitations that may discourage wide- 

 spread adoption. For example, such a fund might 

 conceivably be used, not so much to inject bona 

 fide flexibility into a research program as to promote 

 new expenditures. New projects, begun by use of the 

 special research fund, might be continued indefinitely 

 by resorting to the special research fund eacli year 

 until an appropriation is begun for the purpose. A 

 project, once undertaken, is apt to acquire a vested 

 interest, so that pressure groups may become active to 

 have the project specifically provided for in the regu- 

 lar budget. This practice would not be reprehensi- 

 ble, but it would be quite different from the promotion 



