Colonel BETZ. There are many items in Springclean not known to this depot. There are 1,200,000 items to think about. The other part of that program was to enable the determination of excesses on aircraft parts that I spoke of.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. But how about the common-use items, or are they not considered in that type of program? When the commanding officer goes out and sees 10,000 kegs of nails which have been there ever since he has been on the base, how does he know whether that 10,000 kegs of nails should be 5,000 or 1,000? He looks at it and sees it there, how can he determine he has too much?

Colonel BETZ. With the beginning of this new program this year it will include all of the common-use commercial items as well as the aircraft. We have not had any way to determine requirements to date, but there is a program now being developed that will do that on all these items.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Won't that involve a lot of work?

Colonel BETZ. Yes, sir. That is going to involve a tremendous amount of paperwork.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Do you carry it on individual items?
Colonel BETZ. On each individual item; yes, sir.

Mr. BALWAN. When you have a financial account of inventory, won't that assist you in knowing what the turnover is, and where there are no items going out at all you would know you have too much stock?

Colonel BETZ. No, sir; not particularly. A financial inventory sometimes gives the wrong impression of quantities of items on hand. For example, a base may have $10 million worth of stock and still need a million dollars more because it does not have the items needed, which must be purchased with additional money. Financial accounting will help us manage our property, but it will not give any idea of the turnover of individual items.

Mr. BALWAN. You have 1 million items. In order to control the inventory you have to resort to dollar control for financial purposes. Colonel BETZ. Yes, sir; but of course we supply and dispose of items instead of dollars, and we must therefore compute items individually for disposal action.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. That is the problem of all manufacturers and merchandisers, balancing items against the dollars. The dollar value and the inventory value would probably be out of balance and it would be a matter of getting into balance. I can see where your dollar item would not reflect the need, nor reflect the balance inventory or reflect your need to resupply.

Colonel BETZ. We have the stock balances, and record of movement of property by item, and if we find stock of certain items not turning over, then it is either out of balance with consumption or may be entirely inactive and excess to our needs. That is why we have to look at each item in our computations. We have to pick out the specific items, no matter what the money value.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Mr. Lane just suggested that I ask if you have had on this base or have at the present time on this base any items which are excess from the standpoint of being inactive or not having appreciable requisitions for the past year and which you have not yet been given the authority to declare excess. Will you answer that? Do you have an active items in inventory in your opinion which should be

declared as excess and for which you have not been given the authority to declare excess?

Colonel LEE. We think we do have but we cannot make that determination ourselves, as we have no authority to do so. Higher headquarters have to determine the excess items for us.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. You are helpless.

Colonel LEE. We have no authority. We report it to the prime depot.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. You know what you have here and that is always reported to the prime depot? The responsibility lies with the prime depot whether or not that is declared excess?

Mr. LANE. Do you have difficulty in getting material declared? Colonel LEE. I don't know whether our system has been in operation long enough, but there is an effort being made to report those known excesses, and the prime depot gets at them as rapidly as possible.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Let me ask you a specific question. From the standpoint of your actual knowledge in walking through warehouses, do you have knowledge of the fact that there are large stocks of supplies which you have reported to be in excess, but for which you have not received any orders of any kind.

Colonel LEE. We have stocks we have not used for some time, but when we request disposition on a certain item it sometimes turns out that it is required in the war reserve plan.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. As I understand it, Colonel, (This is important as far as your depot is concerned), you have no authority to recommend that certain portions of materials are excessive. It is the responsibility of the prime depot. As commanding officer it would not be out of line for you to make a notation on it to say to the prime depot that this is excess and should be moved off of the base.

Colonel LEE. We are making a special effort on requests of disposition on certain items.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. If the commanding officer felt there were any items excess, when the new program is under way he would undertake to alert the prime depot with this information. They are in the process of informing the other depots that is what is under way. I am not taking the sides of the services. When the Korean conflict started, everything was held in abeyance. We are in a period of tension at the present time. Now, we are beginning to relax the stringent regulations and see the great need for really cleaning house. All of the services have their programs.

The only high point we can clarify, this depot has it-we have seen a lot of it, and we have been upset about a lot of stuff we know is obsolete and standing in these depots a long time. It is at a standstill, but the time has arrived where this program should get under way and see some definite measures taken.

I make that statement for your benefit, Mr. Holifield. We can assume then that the responsibility must be at a higher level than this base or a similar one, that the responsibility for moving this material and for determining that which is excess must be at the prime base.

Mr. BALWAN. When we get to McClellan, they are a prime depot for several classes, and order other depots to do these things. At San Bernardino, which gives these people instructions as to what is available across the country, it will be a different picture.

Mr. MORRIS. We do know that this base has no prime responsibilities for any items.

Mr. HORTON. I would like to clear one point, Mr. Balwan, Cheli is no longer under San Bernardino after October 1.

[Continuing presentation on Disposal Division functions:] They screen the excess property in the warehouses. Property then goes to Surplus Property Branch, who receive it and review the market prices, if scrap or waste, and determine what a good asking price is. Here at Cheli we not only use bidders' lists, we contact people who might be interested by telephone, where there is a potential market. Surplus Branch also implements the policy on sales.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Do you use different methods?

The

Mr. HORTON. We will cover that in later charts. They classify and segregate property for highest value and merchandise it, which is important, that is, lay out the property so customers can see it in the best light.

Mr. BALWAN. May I ask this? When we take a look at surplus property, can we go to the salvage yard and pick a certain item in your account; is that right?

Mr. BUTLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALWAN. Then suppose we pick 2 or 3 items and determine how long they have been on 120's and how long it was since you first received word you had to drop it from the inventory. That will give us an idea as to how long it takes for this end product to go through the processing.

CHELI AIR FORCE DEPOT EXHIBIT No. 9

CHELI AF DEPOT

PROJECT" SPRING CLEAN"

CHELI TRANSFERS FROM ACCOUNT CODE I TO ACCOUNT CODE 7

SUCH ITEMS AS PRIME DEPOTS DETERMINE TO BE EXCESS TO

CHELI AIR FORCE DEPOT EXHIBIT NO. 10A

P-400-Springclean-Preparation for sale or salvage of military property

FISCAL YEAR 1953

Annual budget authorization (Feb. 15 to June 30, 1953)
Fiscal year 1953 allotment received___

Obligations:

$55, 000. 00

55, 000. 00

$54, 650. 16
263.80
54.39

54, 968. 35

31.65

Hours

Graded__

14, 510

AMC has advised that further funds are not available until received from USAF.

Mr. HORTON (continuing the presentation). Here we see an indication of the status of project Springclean. Cheli does not have any prime responsibility. We transfer from account code 1 to excess stock such items as are determined excess by the prime depot. We have been instructed to transfer 325 items under Springclean. To date we have transferred to account code 7, 286 of these items. There are 29 items yet to be transferred to account code 7 by the end of the month.

Mr. BALWAN. 296 transferred are valued at $3 million?

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Would you say that was a year's declaration? Mr. HORTON. The project started January or February of this year. Mr. HOLIFIELD. That was not made at one time? Those instructions have come in gradually during the year, or did they all come in at once?

Mr. PORTER. Gradually.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. It isn't a one-shot deal?

Mr. PORTER. This is a result of a special program set up as the Colonel told you. This is the first time we have had this program since the Korean outbreak.

Mr. BALWAN. It is a result of this program to a big degree.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. I was trying to compute back, you actually have about 1 percent declaration of excess with your inventory, 342 million. You have about 1 percent declaration of excess on this base to date for the year? Why is that so small?

Colonel BETZ. Perhaps I can clarify that, sir. The instructions for Springclean were mainly to clear out parts for World War II aircraft and other old material. This year's disposal program will include other military and commercial-type items.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. This would be much greater. How much do you expect to realize in this new program?

Colonel BETZ. I can't estimate, sir. It might go to as high as 10 percent at this depot. Many military and commercial items handled here will be affected.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Have you had any experience on other bases?
Colonel BETZ. No, sir.

Mr. MORRIS. Are you doing a computation or is that completed?
Colonel BETZ. This is the original computation which has to be

gone over every year.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Then this original part of Springclean was handled on a different criteria?

Colonel BETZ. Right, sir. Additional items will be disposed of this year. It is no longer a project Springclean but will become an annual disposal program for excess material.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Of the 342,000 total inventory here, how much is represented by aircraft parts?

Colonel GREEN. I would estimate $1 million.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. All right. What does this represent?

Mr. PORTER. This represents items that project Springclean has affected. Clothing, 25B class, 43 packaging materials and even some in office areas.

Mr. HOLIFIELD (to Colonel Betz). Then your observation doesn't apply. I want to know what this item means?

Mr. PORTER. Special clothing, some of the old-type army clothing, tents, and office supplies and packaging material. Right, Colonel

Betz?

Colonel BETZ. This is all World War II obsolete items.

Colonel LEE. I think when we go down to the warehouse where we are consolidating class 27 you will see the different items. Class 64 which is kitchen equipment for instance.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. See where we are getting. As I understand it we have had testimony that this program which we had in the past was along the line of airplane parts and no program for the declaration of excess material. How did that occur?

Mr. PORTER. Project Spring Clean was across-the-board cleaningup program. As far as aircraft is concerned that is an exception to the rule. As far as aircraft is concerned they only affected project Spring Clean on old-type aircraft. Now, I believe, what they are getting ready to do is on newer type aircraft where they find they have overstock.

Colonel LEE. I think Colonel Betz should answer that question. Mr. RIEHLMAN. The situation is being confused. Apparently they are not using the same yardstick at all bases. We were told at Warner Robins that Spring Clean was for aircraft parts. If we can get it

41957--54-39