By GAIL FINEBERG
House Republicans and Democrats on July 10 defeated a legislative branch appropriations bill amendment that would have cost the Library an estimated 100 jobs and cut legislative branch funding an additional 1.9 percent across the board for fiscal year 1997.
During House floor debate on the legislative branch appropriations bill (H.R. 3754), members voted 248 to 172 to defeat the amendment offered by Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R- Minn.).
The $1.68 billion legislative branch spending package approved by the House by a vote of 360 to 58 for FY 1997 contained a Library budget of $360,896,000, including authority to spend $30,138,000 in receipts from the Copyright Office and Cataloging Distribution Service.
The House action increased the Library's budget by 2.4 percent from the FY 1996 level (1.9 percent without receipts). The Library had asked for a 6.4 percent funding level increase (6.1 percent without receipts). The full House did not change the Library's budget as it was reported from the House Appropriations Committee on June 26.
The congressional appropriations bill is now before the Senate, which will propose FY 1997 spending for its operations and legislative branch agencies. The Senate began its legislative proceedings for the Library with a Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on July 10.
Rep. Ron Packard (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, vigorously defended his FY 1997 congressional spending package and the Library against the additional 1.9 percent across-the-board cut by Rep. Gutknecht. "If this subcommittee had not done its job effectively, I could probably agree to this amendment," Rep. Packard said. "But there is no subcommittee on appropriations that has done a better job of cutting itself and all the agencies it represents better than this subcommittee.
"We have cut ourselves, the legislative branch of government, almost 12 percent between last year and this year. We have gone far beyond what the intent of the author of this amendment would have asked us to do last year and this year, and to ask us now to absorb another 2 or almost 2 percent cut across the board I think would cut deeply into programs and agencies that, simply, the Congress would be ill advised to cut.
"I think the first point I would like to make is that an across-the-board cut is not a good way to prioritize our spending programs," Rep. Packard continued. "It is a lousy way to prioritize, frankly. But we have not used that as our procedure. We have funded those programs in this bill that ought to be funded at level funding. We have cut those programs that ought to be cut, and we have done a very responsible job, I believe, in doing it in an orderly way.
"But this would cut the Library of Congress in ways we would have to have a hundred library employees fired. We have asked the Library to cut back in their staffing, and they have done so, but they have done it in an orderly way, and this would eliminate the ability to fund the increases, the mandatory increases, for staff COLAs in our offices and in all of the agencies that we represent in this bill," Rep. Packard argued. "Some 28,000 copyrights would not be registered, and that would be unconscionable, I think, in the Library of Congress; 2,800 braille books and 88,000 sound recordings would not be made available to the blind and handicapped patrons of the Library."
Rep. Packard argued that the House Appropriations Committee had already eliminated unnecessary legislative funding and programs: "We have cut ourselves $262 million over the past two years. I do not know why they are asking us to make further cuts when we are the model of cutting in the entire appropriating process."
Countering Rep. Gutknecht's argument that his amendment would save "two pennies out of every dollar to preserve opportunity for our children" were, among others, Reps. Bob Livingston (R-La.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee; William M. Thomas (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee; and Ray Thornton (D- Ariz.), ranking Democrat on the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee.
"The fact is that this bill [H.R. 3754] does cut 2.2 percent, or $37.4 million, already," Rep. Livingston said. "We can pick up a pocket of change and say all we are talking about is 1 percent, 2 percent. _ [But] when we look in terms of whether or not it is Library of Congress jobs, or jobs on the staff of your office, or in other bills it is Indian reservation jobs, or in other bills water project jobs, the fact is that we are talking about real and meaningful people who are going to be cut here."
Rep. Livingston said Congress "is doing the job" of cutting discretionary spending but could do more to cut mandatory spending. "The problem is in the mandatory side of the equation. We have not done the first thing on mandatory. That is the problem. If members want to do something constructive for their constituents, go back and tell them how we can figure out how to save our citizens, to save our children and the economy of this country by restraining the mandatory spending of this government."
In support of Rep. Packard, Rep. Thomas argued that the House has cut legislative branch spending from $1.9 billion in FY 1995 to $1.72 billion in FY 1996, to $1.68 billion as proposed in H.R. 3754. "Those are declining real numbers every year," he said.
Rep. Thornton joined Rep. Packard "in vigorous opposition to this amendment, which transforms what is a studied, careful, and heavy reduction in appropriations into one which can have a very detrimental effect.
"We do not need to make across-the-board cuts, which cut funds for books for the blind, which cut funds for COLA increases for valuable employees of the legislative branch of government," Rep. Thornton said. "This amendment would impose radical cuts across the board instead of singling out particular cuts that should be made."
The $1.68 billion appropriations measure passed by the House for FY 1997 reflected a 2.2 percent overall reduction for the legislative branch, excluding spending for the Senate, and a 2 percent increase for the operation of the House; a 4 percent cut in the budget for the Architect of the Capitol (excluding work for the Senate) to $109.1 million for FY 1997; an 11 percent cut to $332.5 million for the General Accounting Office, in addition to a 14 percent cut last year; a level budget of $24.3 million for the Congressional Budget Office; and a reduction of 5 percent to $2.9 million for the Botanic Garden. Nothing was budgeted for the Office of Technology Assessment, which Congress decided last year to eliminate.
In addition to a 2.9 percent reduction to a budget of $110.7 million for the Government Printing Office (GPO), the House passed by a voice vote an amendment offered by Rep. Jennifer B. Dunn (R-Wash.) to cut an additional $5 million and 100 jobs from GPO.
Though the FY 1997 Library budget approved as part of the House legislative branch appropriations bill would be 2.4 percent greater than this year's budget, it is less than the $374,796,000 budget, as amended, that the Librarian of Congress asked for on March 5, when he made LC's budget request before the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, and on July 10, when he appeared before the Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee. LC's FY 1997 budget request includes the authority to spend $30,147,000 in receipts. The Library's current FY 1996 budget is $352,399,000, including authority to spend $27,699,000 in receipts.
The House bill included, as part of the FY 1997 appropriations for the Library, appropriations of $62.6 million for the Congressional Research Service (a 4 percent increase from the current funding level); $33.4 million for the Copyright Office, including authority to spend $22.3 million in receipts; and $44.96 million for books for the blind and physically handicapped (an increase of $13,000 over the FY 1996 level).
The Library's budget request to the House and Senate reflected a proposed 6.4 percent increase from the current FY 1996 budget; 62 percent of LC's requested increase would cover mandatory pay and price level increases.
Although the increase recommended by the House Appropriations Committee and approved by the full House would raise LC's appropriated funding above the FY 1996 level to cover mandatory pay increases for the staff, the funding level would not cover price-level increases for items the Library must purchase.
According to the House Appropriations Committee report dated July 8, "The committee bill provides full funding for the projected 4,138 FTE [full-time equivalent positions], and an additional $10,179,385 in mandatory and related costs for the current FTE base." However, LC's FY 1997 funding level was reduced by 83 vacant full-time equivalent (FTE) positions.
The funding level approved by the House would not provide for growing workload increases as Dr. Billington requested on March 5. "No new positions are provided. To the extent additional positions are required, the Library is encouraged to fund them through attrition. The additional positions requested for security should not be filled until the authorizing committees complete their ongoing reviews of the Library's risk assessment and the overall organization of the security program," the House Appropriations Committee report stated.
However, the bill includes a provision to authorize transfers of funds, with congressional approval, among the several Library appropriations accounts. "This authority will provide much greater flexibility for shifting funds where exigency and opportunity arise during the course of the fiscal year," the committee report said.
Noting that the Library has, "like all other legislative agencies, rearranged their staffing patterns to meet priorities by using attrition and hiring restrictions," the House Appropriations Committee said, "the priorities given to cataloging and security of the collections, arrearages, reading room coverage, and the research needs of Congress are inarguable."
The committee said the Library may be able to find "opportunities to economize" by evaluating the extent to which renovated space in the Jefferson and Adams buildings could be used to offset the need for outside leasing of office and storage space-a Library expense that now nears $5 million each year.
According to the committee report, the House Appropriations Committee encouraged the committee that has "legislative jurisdiction" to move forward with a review of a proposal to consolidate the Library of Congress Police, the Capitol Police, and the Supreme Court Police "under a unified service command." A report by the Capitol Police Board showed "that there is an uneven level of training among these forces and that consolidation would, in the long run, improve the situation," according to the July 8 committee report. "This is one alternative that should be explored to improving the security of the Capitol complex, the collections of the Library of Congress and the Court."
Although the subject of the American Folklife Center did not come up during the House floor action or debate on the appropriations bill, the House Appropriations Committee report included the committee's direction to the Librarian to create a plan to transfer the center and its board, budget, staff and collections to the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies at the Smithsonian Institution.
Gail Fineberg is editor of The Gazette, the Library's staff newspaper.