Mr. CABELL. Has he had pretty good background training in business administration, accounting, fiscal affairs, or is he primarily an educator?

Dr. SCOTT. I would say his educational preparation is in the field of education. I think that his experience and his leaning of recent years has been in the area he has been assigned to, and he performs those services quite well.

Mr. CABELL. Are all of your authorized top positions-I think you have several echelons of superintendents-are they all filled at the moment?

Dr. ScoTT. No, Mr. Chairman. The Associate Superintendent for Planning has been advertised now and I will begin the interview process on that next week. I think we have an Assistant Superintendency in Planning, also, that is not filled.

Mr. CABELL. Now, then, where the positions have not been filled, but where they are budgeted, are those funds retained or held in escrow, so to speak, or are they transferred to other functions?

Dr. SCOTT. Well, at times of redirection it would be transferred to other functions, but I think that the planning and budget people indicate to me there is some projection in the budget for a certain number of positions they operate at a certain vacancy level. That degree, where that line meets, we would be free above that to reprogram.

Mr. CABELL. There was a story I read in one of our papers some months back, that the salary of one unfilled position went into some rather elaborate refurbishing of an office. The Associate Superintendent's job, I believe.

Dr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I think you are speaking of the recent refurbishing of the offices of the Deputy Superintendent for Instruction and Administration, not the Associate Superintendent, Dr. Guines.

Mr. CABELL. From whence it came doesn't make a lot of difference, but I am just trying to determine if there is any fiscal responsibility with reference to maintaining funds that are budgeted for certain items and then transferring them to other uses.

BUDGET

Dr. Scorr. Yes, there is. I think the Budget Officer can give you the details on the procedures we follow; but in-house we have a checking system to determine whether funds move from one line item to the other, and also the District constraints.

Mr. CABELL. By what authorities are items moved from one line item to another?

Mr. CORNICK. Mr. Chairman, there is within the District Government and the two Appropriation Committees a method for reprograming and redirecting of resources. These have to be upon request and upon approval by the Senate Appropriation Committee or the House Appropriations Committee.

With specific reference to your question, the position of Associate Superintendent for Planning, while it is vacant, still remains in our budget. Now, we don't identify specifically funds for this position and use it for another position. We treat it all in the salary classification, personnel costs versus non-personnel costs. And we do not make transfers between non-personnel costs and personnel costs.

Mr. CABELL. Well, would you say the refurbishing of Dr. Guines' office was a legitimate transfer of teacher salary funds for this rather elaborate refurbishing? Would that come under being transferred within a specific category?

Dr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, it wasn't Dr. Guines' office. It was the office of the Deputy Superintendent, Mr. Norman Nickens, and two additional offices related to the Office of the Superintendent, administrative assistants to the Superintendent.

Mr. CABELL. That had not been budgeted beforehand?

Dr. SCOTT. No, this was under funds allotted to the D.C. Schools for remodeling and renovation, and the money did not come from any personnel costs. It was not shifted from any budgeted item. It was a line item in the budget to cover such costs.

Mr. CABELL. Where was that line item?

Dr. Scorr. The line item is under "Remodeling" and under "Administrative Services." I think the Assistant Superintendent for Business can give us

Mr. CABELL. Can you identify that by page in your line item budget?

Dr. SCOTT. There is a certain amount of money, Mr. Chairman, allotted for remodeling. And within the priorities established, this was one I made in terms of asking the Associate Superintendent whether there was sufficient money appropriately allocated to cover this cost. The indication was that there was.

Mr. CABELL. Do you have in your organization a position that would compare with a comptroller in a business operation? Or would that be your Budget Officer?

Dr. SCOTT. This is a position that I have moved to create in the Office of Budget and Executive Management; right. Yes, sir.

Mr. CABELL. Is he functioning now?

Dr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I have been moving steadily to provide a system whereby all funds, be they from foundation, Impact Aid, Federal fund

Mr. CABELL. How long is it going to take to have fiscal responsibility as a part of your normal operating procedure? Wouldn't that be normally one of the first things that would be done in setting up a table of organization?

Dr. SCOTT. Yes, sir. I think this is the first move I did make in terms of moving to create a position to respond to that.

Mr. CABELL. Well, does that man have the authority to say "no, you can't transfer that"-that you have already spent

Dr. Scorr. Yes, he does, subject only to the Superintendent. He has authority to tell me I can't do such and such.

Mr. CABELL. Well, then, it is your choice; you don't have to take that before the Board?

Dr. SCOTT. Yes. Certain personnel actions and certain things which come under those requirements which require Board action, yes, it has to. The recommendations are submitted by Superintendent to the Board, but certain administrative functions within that broad policy would not have to go through the Board. But personnel movements, in terms of creation of new positions, reclassification, or promotions, would be upon the recommendation of the Superintendent to the Board.

Mr. CABELL. I am talking about transfers of funds. I am talking about moving of funds from one line item to another.

Mr. CORNICK. Mr. Chairman, we do control on the basis that the District Government has set up-and this is what they refer to as Limitation 01, which is Personnel Costs; and Limitation 03, which is Non-Personnel Costs. There are procedures whereby if we want to transfer funds from one category to another, that we do have to seek permission.

We have within our own organization, Budget Memorandum 70-27, I believe, which governs reprograming and redirection. We do have a procedure set up whereby we do follow the prescribed regulations for transfering of funds from one broad category to another.

We do not, sir, administer on a traditional line by line item, where we identify money for this particular person's salary as opposed to purchase of supplies or something in another category. We don't control that finitely. But we do have the procedure that you are talking

about.

Mr. CABELL. Is that procedure followed?

Mr. CORNICK. To the best of our knowledge, we try.

What I am saying, sir, in trying to administer a budget of over $150 million and the size of our organization, I could not say with any specificity that there are no cases in which procedures were not followed. I think we have been policing and we are developing, as Dr. Scott mentioned, through the Office of the Budget and Executive Management, greater controls over the very thing that you are talking about.

Mr. CABELL. Well, if I can analyze the answers I have had so far, the conclusion then is that you are working toward these ends, rather than that you feel you have a sufficient tight control at this time; is that correct?

Dr. SCOTT. I think, Mr. Chairman, that is fairly accurate. I think we are moving to improve. One of my great concerns is to get a system of approval of funds, receipt of funds, disbursement of funds and audit of funds maintained in the office of this gentleman here.

Mr. CABELL. But, actually, you don't have in your entire staff a man who has devoted considerable time, training and experience in the matters of fiscal control, of materiel control?

Dr. SCOTT. Yes, we do, sir.

Mr. CABELL. Well, now, you told me that the man responsible for this was primarily an educator.

Dr. SCOTT. No, I thought you were speaking of the functions in terms of relation of disbursement of the funds.

Mr. CABELL. That is what I am talking about, the control of the disbursement, the control of those accounts, the control of the materiels, the merchandise, the supplies, the millions of dollars of books.

Dr. SCOTT. Each of these departments under the Administrative Services has an individual who has expertise in these specialities. Such as Mr. Bedford in the business section, Mr. Granville Woods on in the area of physical plants.

Mr. CABELL. But there is no one comptroller of the fiscal affairs of your administration; is that right?

Dr. ScoTT. That would be Mr. Cornick, the gentleman on my left here.

AUDITS

Mr. CABELL. Do you ever have these accounts audited by an outside auditor? I am not talking about an in-house auditor.

Dr. SCOTT. Yes, we do.

Mr. CABELL. And is that an audit of what we would call an adding machine tape audit that just verifies that the money has been spent? Has it ever been audited to determine whether it was judiciously spent and whether it was spent in line with the approval that is given in the budget?

Mr. CORNICK. We have two types of audit, Mr. Chairman. One is the audit which the General Accounting Office may perform upon request for the Legislative Branch, and Number 2 is the audit that is performed by the District of Columbia Government, Internal Audit Division.

There are some very specific accounts which we have audited. For example, by law a quarterly audit is made of the Food Services program by the Municipal Audit Branch. Other audits are made on request or on a non-scheduled basis by the Internal Audit of the Municipal Government. Those are the only two audits of general appriated funds.

Mr. CABELL. When was the last time the GAO made an audit? Mr. BEDFORD. I can't remember specifically, sir. We had a review of the total accounting system by GAO approximately

Mr. CABELL. As I recall, the last time that they made an audit was sometime back, and they made some very, very specific recommendations. Can you tell me if those recommendations have been carried out?

Mr. BEDFORD. We don't have a written report from the last GAO audit. We had a GAO review which was conducted at the District of Columbia level and those specific recommendations are being carried out. All of the Municipal audit recommendations that we have received within five days after receiving the audit report, we have filed actions that we would take to improve the situation.

CONSULTANTS

Mr. CABELL. Getting to the subject of consultants, do you have any members of your staff who are acting as consultants for other activities or other schools while on your payroll?

Dr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I think we certainly have individual educators in the D.C. Public School System who serve from time to time as consultants to other school systems. And the practice would be when such individuals perform these services to other school systems on a paid basis, they would apply for leave time, without pay, to perform these services.

Mr. CABELL. Do they go on leave when they are on these other jobs from you or do their salaries continue?

Dr. Scort. They take leave time. They are entitled to leave time, when they would perform consultant services.

Mr. CABELL. Is that true of these per diem consultants?

Dr. ScoTT. Do you mean those coming in to us, sir?

Mr. CABELL. Both. I was going to get around to asking you about how you handle those that you employ for consultation from other places.

Dr. SCOTT. I think the responsibility to determine whether they are on the payroll at the time they serve in the other school systems than the District of Columbia, is the responsibility of their own school system. But the practice would be a school officer from one school system serving another-and it is quite common-would apply for approved leave without pay, and then that individual would perform those services.

Persons that I screen for my executive officers, anyone who goes on any leave and they have to take my signature before they go-and if they go as a consultant, I make two determinations. One, whether or not we can afford to let them go at this time in terms of the priorities I have in the system and, two, that they are asking for absence without pay, in the sense they are taking annual leave time.

Mr. CABELL. Suppose that they are requested by some other school system for one or two days' work where they are on a per diem, not on contract; do they always take that leave? Or where it is just for a couple of days at a time, is that charged against their annual leave?

Dr. SCOTT. Yes, it is. There is a form that they fill out where they state the nature of the business for the leave. If it is educational leave, they state the nature of the meetings they are going to, whether they are a speaker or consultant without pay, in terms of a panel discussion or making a presentation, or audience participation, in terms of receiving information.

Mr. CABELL. When you employ or commission a per diem consultant, what is the going rate of pay for those per diem consultations?

Dr. SCOTT. It varies. The maximum that we can pay an individual consultant would be $121 per day plus travel and other expenses.

Mr. CABELL. I thing that would justify looking into, because information that we consider to be rather accurate has been furnished to this Committee that those who are taking these consultant jobs elsewhere are still drawing their salaries, they are not taking their leave but are just picking up the extra money at the expense of the D.C. School District.

I will not make any accusations by name because I do not have sworn testimony to that effect, but I think it justifies your looking into.

Now, we have asked for a statement, a breakdown, of the various consultation commitments that you had, whether they were either paid for by direct federal grants or out of the school system, and I believe that for your school system, it was stated or reported to us that you had some 71 projects that were budgeted at a total of $131,400. Does that sound accurate to you?

Dr. SCOTT. The figure is $131,000 for consultants?

Mr. CABELL. Yes.

Dr. Scort. I don't have that figure for that report with me now.

EVALUATION OF TITLE I PROGRAM

Mr. CABELL. This came from the copy of the D.C. Budget that was reported to us. Going to page 52 of this 1972 Federal Grant Supple