relationship between the allocation of funds 

 and the goals stipulated in the legislation. 74 



Forest Service Budgets, 1955-1972 



The reader should be wary of arguments 

 (such as the one that follows, and others in 

 the literature) that compare agency requests 

 with appropriations and then suggest that the 

 root of the problem is the failure of Congress 

 to appropriate funds in accordance with 

 "actual" needs. The budget requests of the 

 Forest Service may be unrealistic estimates of 

 actual need. It must be recognized that an 

 even stronger assertion of this possibility 

 might be made on the basis of more extensive 

 research. 75 



The Appendix contains information of 

 vital importance to understanding of the man- 

 agement direction taken by the Forest Serv- 

 ice. As indicated above, the ability of the 

 agency to pursue rationally what it views as 

 optimal programs depends on the level of 

 funding for its budget request. Appendix 

 table 1 contains budget data for the years 

 1955 to 1972 on four separate aspects of the 

 budgeting process: The initial requests sub- 

 mitted by the Forest Service; the budget re- 

 quests forwarded by the Department of Agri- 

 culture; the President's budget request, pre- 



See Kaufman (1960) for an informed and easily 

 understood account of the budget-setting process 

 within the Forest Service. He argues in part that the 

 "goals" of the administration are carried out in large 

 part by control over the allocation of funds. What is 

 missing is any convincing argument that programs and 

 projects that do receive funding are in fact those that 

 would best achieve the legislative objectives. Al- 

 though certain changes have occurred in the interven- 

 ing years, Kaufman's analysis is still valuable. 



7S Representatives of many interest groups, as well 

 as individuals, suggest that their investigations show 

 misplaced allocation of funds. Generally, however, 

 they are really saying that funds are not allocated ac- 

 cording to the "weights" or "trade-offs" they would 

 like to see established. (See U.S. Congress, Depart- 

 ment of Interior and Related Agencies Appropria- 

 tions for 1970, 91st Congr., 1st Sess., Part 3; and 

 Public Land Law Review Commission, One third of 

 our Nation's land, 1970, Wash., D.C., Govt. Printing 

 Office.) Hagenstein (1971) argued that not enough at- 

 tention (i.e., allocated funds) is being given to the 

 "economic development" aspects of the Forest Serv- 

 ice's goals. 



pared by the Office of Management and Budg- 

 et, formerly the Bureau of the Budget; and 

 actual congressional appropriations (including 

 supplemental bills and appropriations). 



The budget request of the Forest Service is 

 first reviewed and revised by the Secretary of 

 Agriculture. With revisions and adjustments, 

 this Department request is then forwarded, 

 without mention of alterations made, to the 

 Office of Management and Budget. At this 

 level the President's budget is formulated, and 

 additional changes are made before this is for- 

 warded to the Congress for hearings in the ap- 

 propriations committees. 



The steps in the budget process are good 

 indications of the priority formulation proc- 

 ess. Alterations of the original Forest Service 

 priorities show up quickly as over- or under- 

 funding of the various line item requests. A 

 view of the allocations at various levels as a 

 percent of the original agency request reveals 

 priority determinations. 



Evidence of Forest Service Priorities 



The data presented does not lend itself di- 

 rectly to an estimate of the "absolute" pri- 

 ority ranking among the various resources, 

 nor to determination of the numerical value 

 of the weights used in agency decisionmaking. 

 Nevertheless, changes in the relative ranking 

 are evident. During the period prior to the 

 enactment of the MU-SY Act (1955-1962), 

 the Forest Service attempted through its 

 budget requests to place greater emphasis on 

 the noncommodity resources of the FOREST. 

 Timber and range were being deemphasized in 

 favor of other resource considerations. Fol- 

 lowing the "catching up" period which ended 

 in 1962, the agency began to show relatively 

 constant priorities for all of the resources. 

 This conclusion rests on the following anal- 

 ysis. 



In the absence of legislatively stipulated 

 priority rankings, some other indication of 

 the relative priorities between the various re- 

 sources must be found. Two different sets of 

 calculations are suggested here. The percent- 

 age of the total budget request for National 

 Forest protection and management that is al- 

 lotted to each of the separate resources is a 

 clue to the relative importance of that re- 



58 



