charges the Director and the State Governors with providing a true representation with respect to the population of the board that it represents in terms of racial, ethnic background.

Mr. CLAY. Does the law spell out any penalties for those who violate that section of the law?

Mr. PEPITONE. There is an interesting, somewhat long history about cases wherein there have been challenges. Individual registrants have challenged the composition of a board in cases where classifications did not suit them.

As I recall, in just broad and nonlegal terms, the finding that I remember was by a judge, I believe in Texas, who determined the classification was valid and that even through a representative was serving on that board after he had moved from the county of concern, it did not invalidate the board.

I know of no penalty per se for violation, but I know of no existing violations either.

Mr. CLAY. You know of none?

Mr. PEPITONE. That's right. As a matter of fact, after the 1971 amendment to the law, section 10(b) (3), when it was modified as it has been modified, we have had a very, very drastic change in the local board membership.

The age has been reduced, the tenure of people now having been fixed by law has brought many of the old members to retire. We have virtually a new structure in the last 2 years.

Mr. CLAY. What is the policy now when a person moves from one area to outside of an area? Is he automatically dismissed from that board or is he forced to resign? What is the policy?

Mr. PEPITONE. There are several things. The first part of the policy is that we prohibit him from serving further on the board when he removes himself from its jurisdiction.

It has been my policy and will continue to be that, if he has exhibited interest in serving on the board in the first instance, we like to keep him as a noncompensated employee of the system. Consequently, I offer him a position as adviser to a registrant, or a registrar in an area where he will subsequently reside.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. HENDERSON. Thank you, gentlemen.

I would certainly like to join my colleagues, Mr. Pepitone, in expressing my interest and concern on this latter point.

I am not sure that it is related to the legislation, but again, we are entering into a time when we should take the experience that we had during the very tragic, tough years of Vietnam to improve the Selective Service System and have it ready to meet the kind of any kind of contingency we could possibly think of, and those that we are most likely to anticipate.

With regard to the ethnic makeup of the local boards, I am sure that you would have most of the problem in the South; perhaps in some of the urban city areas it would be somewhat simpler.

I hope this problem has already been solved. If not, I hope you will give it very close attention. Just speaking as one member and not as chairman, I think that we have learned a great deal, and I certainly join the distinguished gentleman from Missouri in urging you to be as careful as you can in the composition of your boards and then your

entire work force will be as representative of our people as they possibly could be.

I worry a good bit about one problem in this entire area; that is simply, how can we get some local selective service boards to be representative of the very poor? And my concern is because it seems to me that the very poor of our country have the toughest burden to bear of the Selective Service System.

But I believe that without being too concerned about that, if we have competence and fairness-and I certainly agree that they should be residents of that geographical area served-if we do those other things, we can still have a system that will not fail or be criticized, at least on these points. It is important.

I am appreciative of your appearance this morning, and most importantly of the dramatic change, such as the one that has occurred in the last few years with regard to the views on the legislation, and, again, I am very hopeful we will be able to get this enacted into law very shortly.

Mr. PEPITONE. Thank you very much, sir. We thank you for the opportunity to appear and to let us state our case.

Mr. HENDERSON. Our next witness will be Mr. Ray Jacobson, Director of the Bureau of Policies and Standards, U.S. Čivil Service Commission. It is always a pleasure for this subcommittee to welcome you, Mr. Jacobson. We are delighted to have you.

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND JACOBSON, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF POLICIES AND STANDARDS, U.S. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION

Mr. JACOBSON. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before this committee today and present the views of the Civil Service Commission on H.R. 6334, a bill that would provide more equitable treatment for employees of the Selective Service System's local boards and appeal boards by bringing them under the Government-wide General Schedule classification and pay system. This bill would also remove the statutory limitation on the appointments of the executive secretaries of the local boards.

The Civil Service Commission very strongly supports H.R. 6334. Employees of the Selective Service System are generally covered under the same appointment and pay laws that apply to employees in other Federal agencies, but the system's local and appeal board employees have been exempted from the General Schedule classification and pay system. It has long been the view of the Civil Service Commission that there is no valid basis for this exemption. The Selective Service System agrees with our position on this subject, and in 1970 planned to bring these employees under the General Schedule by administrative action. However, the Comptroller General ruled that this was not permissible under the provisions of the Military Selective Service Act.

Therefore, the Selective Service System decided to administratively follow the provisions of the General Schedule system both in grading the positions and in determining the pay for individual employees of local and appeal boards. For grading purposes, a designation of "SG" is used to distinguish the exempted positions from those that are un

der the General Schedule or GS system. The pay rates and ranges for the SG grades are identical to those for corresponding GS grades, and within-grade step-increases are granted under the same conditions as under the General Schedule.

Although the Selective Service System is now paying the local. board and appeal board employees at salaries equivalent to those they would be receiving under the General Schedule, there are certain benefits that cannot be extended to them by administrative action. For example, General Schedule employees by law have a right to appeal to the Civil Service Commission (1) the classification of their positions and (2) the denial of a periodic within-grade increase due to a determination that their work is not of an acceptable level of competence. Employees of the local and appeal boards do not have these appeal rights. In addition, when a General Schedule employee is promoted to a higher General Schedule grade, he is guaranteed an increase equivalent to two step-increases in the grade from which promoted. When a selective service board employee is promoted to a General Schedule position, however, he can be given only the lowest rate in the General Schedule grade which is not less than his existing salary.

Placing the positions of the selective service board employees under the General Schedule will insure that they have the same benefits and receive the same treatment as their General Schedule peers in the Selective Service System and in other Federal agencies.

The other major change that would be made by the enactment of this proposed legislation is the removal of the 10-year statutory limitation on the appointments of "executive secretaries" of the local boards. This limitation is totally inconsistent with one of the basic concepts of the civil service merit system.

Employees who occupy the positions of executive secretaries are in the competitive service and, with one exception, have all the rights that are generally applicable to other employees in the competitive service. The one exception is that their tenure in the executive secretary position is limited to 10 years unless they are reappointed. They qualify for their jobs under regular civil service procedures and acquire career or career-conditional tenure. However, at the end of a 10year term, they must be reappointed, reassigned or separated from the service.

There is no reason whatsoever for treating these executive secretaries any differently from other employees in the competitive service. If an executive secretary is not performing satisfactorily there are established removal procedures under the merit system and these should apply to executive secretaries the same way they do to other career civil servants.

of

In addition to its major purpose described above, H.R. 6334 also includes provisions to eliminate the statutory designation of "executive secretary" for supervisory employees of the local boards, to insure that its enactment will not result in a reduction in the pay of any. the local board or appeal board employees affected, and to prescribe an effective date not later than 90 days after it is enacted. We find all of these provisions desirable.

The Civil Service Commission strongly advocates the enactment of H.R. 6334. This bill would eliminate the long-standing anomaly of the exclusion of these local and appeal board employees from

some of the rights and benefits of the General Schedule system. Further, the bill would eliminate the totally unjustified and inequitable limitations on the length of appointment of the local board executive secretaries.

This is a piece of legislation which we are very much in favor of and we do support it. I agree with Mr. Pepitone's views on the advantages and benefits of the legislation, and the Civil Service Commission would be very happy to see its enactment. We think it will be of benefit to the System as a whole and to the selective service employees as well.

We do stand fully behind the legislation. We are very pleased with it.

In our bill report we did not suggest any modification. We thought it was excellently stated and quite appropriate under the circumstances. I would be glad to answer any questions.

Mr. HENDERSON. On page 3 of your statement, you do mention that the other major change that would be made by the enactment of legislation is removal of the 10-year statutory limitation on the appointment of "executive secretaries" of the local boards and then you go on from that point.

Perhaps I should have brought this up with Mr. Pepitone. but would you comment on this just briefly. I never have understood why we have had that 10-year statutory limitation. I am glad to get rid of it, but I would like to have your testimony on it.

Mr. JACOBSON. Well. I must say that I never have been quite certain myself as to the basic reason except that evidently there was an intention to provide a specific term of office with a requirement that the incumbent of that office have to go through a reappointment process at the end of the term. This, I suppose, has some advantage to those people who feel that there ought to be a constant reconsideration. It just does seem appropriate to us to have career civil service jobs, which most of these jobs are, and have been, to have a limitation on their tenure.

We did oppose this provision many years ago and urged its revocation.

So. it simply is inconsistent to have the whole idea of a term of office if the job is to be a career job, and my understanding of the ex-i ecutive secretary is that this is the key career official of the local board. I the person who really runs the day-to-day work of the board and is responsible for the records and their maintenance. They are very im portant jobs, and we feel they ought to be filled on a career basis. Mr. HENDERSON. It's not going to be more difficult to separate them if they don't do the job, is it?

Mr. JACOBSON. No. In the first place, if we have someone who isn't doing the job, we shouldn't be keeping them there 10 years and waiting for the term of office to run out. And I'm sure that has not been the case.

I think that someone who is incompetent or inefficient, doesn't per form is duties properly, certainly will have to be removed. That should be done only through proper procedures, which are already provided for. There is no reason why they can't work.

Mr. HENDERSON. Noting that the record already reveals that the em ployees of the local boards are presently compensated under an administrative pay system, not subject to position classification and gen

eral pay rate provisions of the title 5 of the code, what would be the estimate of the results of applying position classification systems of title 5 to these employees? Would this result in upgrading or downgrading of positions presently occupied by such employees?

Mr. JACOBSON. We feel quite secure in saying that that is very unlikely to be a result, because the Selective Service System has been concerned in establishing the so-called SG system which is I don't know whether they got it by spelling GS backwards-but at any rate which is administratively established with grades identical to grades in the GS system. They use the Civil Service Commission standards in classifying the jobs. We have provided technical advice through having people go over and work with their key personnel people, to help assure the standards were applied properly.

Thus, we have every reason to believe that those jobs would simply become the same grade in the General Schedule without change. Certainly, there might be a job here and there that might change, but that occurs in the normal course of events. Generally speaking, if the job is properly graded now as SG-3, it would become GS-3. No general upgrading or no general downgrading should be expected as a result of moving these jobs officially under the General Schedule.

Mr. HENDERSON. The importance of your answer is to enable us to assure the members of the full committee and the House that there would be no additional cost as a result of the enactment of this legislation, certainly, as it relates to grading or classification.

Mr. JACOBSON. I think that is quite correct. This is the conclusion we have arrived at. Yes.

Mr. HENDERSON. Very good.

Now, the second question that I had earlier, if the legislation is enacted, do you see any effect it would have on the employees that would be involved in the reduction in force during the coming months?

Mr. JACOBSON. The employees concerned are career civil service employees in every sense of the word, even though they are on a different pay system. So, from a technical standpoint, there is no real change in their rights.

I think Mr. Pepitone's comments however, are well taken. Technically, there is no change, but under the SG system there is a psychological barrier in that-and it's not a fair one-psychological barriers frequently aren't-but people in this system, since they don't have those magic letters "GS" in front of their number that indicates their grade, some other Federal agencies might be quite mystified by this. They kind of assume that, well, these must be excepted service employees. Now, it's not true that they are in the excepted service. The Selective Service System and the Civil Service Commission people have made this abundantly clear. And agencies are starting now to absorb these people, as they become surplus. But I do think it's a psychological problem. I think it will make it easier for someone to move, with a little less resistance and a little less convincing that has to be done, once these people come formally under the General Schedule.

Mr. HENDERSON. On this point, we are talking about the situation and we obviously know Selective Service is at the present time going downward. But assuming for the moment that this becomes law and that the plan they have reported to us and have been talking about becomes effective, and then for some reason such as a national emergency, they would have to go back and increase the number of em