Limit upon expenditures for field force of classified employees, Bureau of Yards and Docks (exclusive of retirement fund deductions)

Mr. FRENCH. Then the proposed allocation for 1926 would be

approximately the same?

Admiral GREGORY. Yes, sir.

Mr. SMITH. It may interest the committee to know that during 1922 we had 528 employees in the field; during 1923, 488; and during 1924, 452. So you see that there has been a progressive reduction. Expenditures, exclusive of the retirement-fund deductions, were as follows: 1922, $1,080,904.43; 1923, $922,501.10; 1924, $920,354.46.

Mr. FRENCH. There is another limitation in the paragraph, toward the end, which provides that not more than $175,000 shall be expended from the appropriations for the maintenance, operation, and repair of motor-propelled passenger-carrying vehicles, including the compensation of operators, and exclusive of such vehicles as are operated by the Marine Corps in connection with expeditionary duty without the continental limits of the United States. How is that limitation running?

Mr. SMITH. Very close. All reports are not yet in.
Mr. FRENCH. And you need approximately that amount
Admiral GREGORY. Yes, sir.

CONTINGENT EXPENSES

Mr. FRENCH. The next item is for contingent expenses and minor extensions and improvements of public works at navy yards and stations, $125,000, the same as given in current law, and the same as you expended in 1924.

Admiral GREGORY. In regard to this amount under Bureau of Yards and Docks, Contingent, it is an amount which is a reduction from what it was two or more years ago, and is beleived to be an absolute minimum of what should be provided for those expenditures which we consider of an emergency character. It is primarily intended to furnish the means to offset damage done by fires,

storms, earthquakes, and anything of that nature-acts of God. which can not be in any way anticipated.

We find that in the present year, for example, $125,000 will not begin to meet the emergencies that have come to us. Only a few weeks ago there was a hurricane in the island of Guam, and we have recently received rather complete reports which indicate that the damage done at Guam is in the neighborhood of $80,000. There was also a hurricane at Key West, and the damage done there was in the neighborhood of $12,000. At both places we have made only fractional portions of those allotments. We can not authorize at either one of those two places the full amount which we think ought to be provided. I think, therefore, that in the proposed budget the amount of $125,000 is the very minimum which should be set aside. Of course, it is a thing which we can not estimate. We can not tell how much we will need, and I think in the present year we may have to request the department to take up with Congress the question of providing an emergency or a deficiency item in some bill to furnish the funds to offset the damage at those two places that I have just mentioned.

Mr. FRENCH. In the first place, it practically wipes out the fund! Admiral GREGORY. Oh, yes; just those two storms alone would practically wipe out our complete appropriation.

This appropriation is reserved, however, for things of that nature. and I think that there ought to be an appropriation of that kind. because if there was no appropriation, Maintenance would be met with a need for those things, and it is none too large to meet the ordinary routine and regular depreciation.

EXPENDITURES FOR 1924

Mr. FRENCH. Suppose at this point you place in the record the allocation of the money for the fiscal year that ended last June 30. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

depot, damaged by wind.

800.00 Retirement fund, fiscal year 1924. 1,411.25 Renewal of burned out boiler tubes, power plant. 7,999. 86 To complete repairs of damage caused by typhoon. 1,200.00 Repairing refrigerating plant damaged caused by bursting of ammonia section of brine cooler. 1,839.69 Replacement of water tank destroyed by earth quake.

29.97 Install electric lights and strenghthen crane in
gasoline storage building.

Repair motor generator set, substation, building,
No. 233.

7,200.00 Replace roof destroyed by fire, building No. 45.
5,000.00 Remove wreckage and old piling stubs, due to

Oct. 9, 1923 Boston.

Dec. 20, 1923

do

1,923. 53

June 28, 1924

do.

Feb. 6, 1924

Brooklyn

1,487.42

May 10, 1924

do

Contingent, Bureau of Yards and Docks, 1924-Continued

63.79

140.00

4,353.84

1, 153. 74

2,797.09

1, 273. 28

2, 394.86

7,820.00

craft.

Repairs to Piers B, F, and G of damage caused by
Government craft.

To replace broken pipes and valves damaged by
heavy freeze.

Repairs to wharf at ferry slip, damaged by torpedo station ferryboat.

To replace storehouse and equipment destroyed by

fire.

Repairs to oil handling equipment, Melville, damaged by fire.

Repairs to derrick used for lifting buoys, damaged by U. S. S. Bridgeport.

Repairs to floating derrick No. 20 damaged by over

turning of locomotive crane.

Repairs to railroad siding, Melville, damaged by

derailment of locomotive and cars.

Disposal of temporary store-houses.

Furnishing material for use in constructing water

supply system at Culebra.

Removal of dangerous steel stack.

Move telephone exchange and remodel part of

building No. 14 for truck storage.

3, 105.00 Replacement of elevator, building No. 30. 1,670.00 Additions for safety of employees and plant.

294.52 Raising dangerous mooring block.

1,352.00 Emergency dredging.

241.49 Unloading and storing three motor generator sets. 1,499.68 Additional emergency plumbing equipment in

latrine building.

250.00 Relocation of mooring.

10,015.00

Repairs of damage to dry dock crane.

856.98 Replacing dolphin damaged by Government craft. 270.58 Repairs to fender system damaged by Government

washing away.

421.60 Riprap banks near U. S. S. Hancock to prevent 750.00

Move building to Moanalua camp for marine guard.

1,200.00 Construct incinerator, due to outbreak of foot-and

Two fire pumps and two circulating pumps for
emergency use.

1,500.00 Repairs to Pier 5A damaged by storm.
1,500.00 Repair dock damaged by tug.

4,980.03 Emergency repairs to foundations of coaling plant

Replacing broken casting 50-ton dry dock crane. Repairs of damage caused by accident 50-ton dry dock crane.

SALARIES, BUREAU OF YARDS AND DOCKS

Mr. FRENCH. We now take up the item of salaries in the District of Columbia, under the classification act. The estimates for 1926 call for $238,000 as against $237,480 appropriated for the current year. Admiral Gregory, we will be glad to have you make any statement touching that item that you desire to make.

Admiral GREGORY. I would to invite the attention of the committee to the fact that, as stated in hearings in previous years, the number of employees, and particularly technical employees, was so limited by the appropriations that it became necessary to send out a great deal of work in connection with the planning and the prep aration of specifications to be done at outlying stations, rather than at the bureau, where a great deal of it could be done better. For the current year the Congress appropriated a considerable increase ($48,790) in order that we could bring back to the bureau a great deal of the work which had been farmed out prior to that time and also take care of the reclassification costs, including replacement of the bonus, which amounted to approximately $20,000. The estimate for 1926 agrees quite closely with the appropriation for 1925, but under the reclassification act we have not been able to make quite all of the adjustments in accordance with the act that we think ought to be made with respect to some employees.

Therefore, we have asked for a slight increase in order to bring that about, but without changing the number of employees in the bureau. The amount that is covered in the Budget provides for the retention of the number of employees now employed, and for applying the reclassification. The condition of the work at the bureau is such that, while we are catching up and cleaning up as we go, we are not yet up to date to the extent that I think any further cuts can be made. The amounts asked for in the Budget are necessary to continue the work of the bureau in carrying out its functions. and to insure that the work is placed under contract promptly and expeditiously.

Mr. FRENCH. You are down to bedrock in this regard? Admiral GREGORY. I think we are down to bedrock for the purpose of handling our work promptly. For a number of years we were getting behind. You will probably recall from previous hearings that we showed you how far behind we were, but we are catching up on that work, and it would be unwise to make any cuts below the Budget recommendation for this year.

PUBLIC WORKS

CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS COVERED INTO THE TREASURY

Mr. FRENCH. We will now take up the items under public works. Bureau of Yards and Docks. Admiral, do you care to make s general statement touching the whole subject before we go into the details?

Admiral GREGORY. Yes, sir: I would like to do that in order to give to the committee some idea of what the Bureau of Yards and Docks has been doing the last few months in closing out old

appropriations. Do you not think it might be well right here to make a little statement regarding that?

Mr. FRENCH. I wish you would.

Admiral GREGORY. In accordance with the request of the committee last spring, while you were holding hearings on the 1925 bill, when the suggestion came up that the bureaus of the Navy should turn in the balances of old appropriations, and especially of the war appropriations that were made prior to 1921, and also, in accordance with the understanding had with the committee, the Bureau of Yards and Docks has turned in all of the old balances that were in an inactive status, where the appropriation had been closed up, the same amounting to approximately $5,600,000. A list of that is shown in this pamphlet which we have prepared. I would like to insert in the record those last pages, from 66 to 69, inclusive, which show that we have turned in altogether the sum of $5,529,138.41 up to the 1st of November.

During the month of November we took final action on other appropriations, aggregating about $97,000 in addition thereto. We have retained only a very few of the appropriations, and those only in accordance with the understanding with the committee, those few being, first, that class of appropriations having to do with the acquisition of lands, concerning which the affairs are still being handled by the courts; secondly, certain things which had been in progress for some time and concerning which we have not the final figures of cost; and then, in a very few items, the appropriations at certain stations where work was of exceedingly great importance and should be completed.

Mr. FRENCH. In the aggregate, how much would the appropria- tions that have not been turned in amount to?

Admiral GREGORY. As to the amount not turned in, I would have to insert that in the record. It is a very small amount.

Mr. FRENCH. Probably less than $500,000?

Admiral GREGORY. I should think so. The result of all this is that a lot of old war-time appropriations are being closed up and closed up rapidly. This will clear up our books very materially along about the end of this fiscal year.

There is another thing that I would like to mention to the committee, which has an indirect bearing, if not a direct bearing, on this matter, and that is that we have been also pressing very hard to close out or to come to a final agreement with regard to a lot of old war-time contracts. At the present time practically all of them have been passed on from the bureau, and are in the hands of the General Accounting Office for final settlement. In other words, there will not be, as there was at the end of the Civil War, for instance, an accumulation of war claims that will continue for many years after the war. We are cleaning them all out and are catching up to date on that.

NAVY YARD, PORTSMOUTH, N. H.

IMPROVEMENT TO BUILDING

Mr. FRENCH. We will now take up the individual items. The amount proposed by the Bureau of the Budget for public works is $2,620,500. The first item is for the navy yard, Portsmouth, N. H., for improvements to building No. 138, $20,000.