What is it that defies all attempts at simplification? Federal aid process!
WHENEVER they get together, state
and local officials always commiserate
about the chronic pains that come with
federal grants. Although there has been
some consolidation of federal assistance
programs into broader purpose block
grants that give more spending discretion to the recipients, Congress is
actually creating new categories faster
than old ones are being merged. In the
current fiscal year about 75 per cent of
the $60 billion in federal aid to states
and localities is contained in at least 975
categorical programs administered by
52 federal agencies. Of the remainder, 15
per cent is in block grants and about 10
per cent in revenue sharing.
Like the weather, everyone talks
about the paperwork horrors of the
federal grant process, but nobody seems
able to do anything about them. New
programs are enacted piecemeal with
little regard for existing ones. Congressional committees identify national
objectives and issue reports on how they
want the problems attacked. Federal
administrators then devise a maze of
inconsistent regulations and application
procedures in an effort to guarantee that
the money is spent accordingly. For
example, in 1916 the first of what is now
a patchwork of federal highway acts
provided funds for construction of
public roads expressly for transportation of the U. S. mail with the jointly
financed projects to be supervised by the
federal government.
Last year the General Accounting
Office (GAO), an arm of Congress,
reviewed the problems of "delivering"
federal aid yet another time. GAO
concluded that the problems were
"directly attributable to the proliferation of federal programs and fragmentation of organizational responsibilities."
Complaints about federal aid vary
according to the size of the governmental body applying for the money. Most of the bigger states and metropolitan units have trained grantsmanship specialists who have learned to cope with the administrative details. For them, the question is whether the federal
resources any longer are worth all the
extra paperwork and management
complications. The GAO report described the elaborate grapevine that a
large municipality must erect to keep
informed about the changing rules and
avoid missing out on anything. Daily
issues of the Federal Register — over
35,000 pages a year — are must reading.
Specifically, a local government official
must be alert for amendments to the
Code of Federal Regulations by consulting the cumulative "List of CFR
Sections Affected" and updating the
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. One city pays a $28,000 annual
fee to the National League of Cities for
the halftime services of a man-in-Washington. Sometimes, according to
GAO, the representative is able to
acquire and disseminate information to
the city before the regional office of the
particular federal agency receives it. The
same city also staffs an office of
legislative liaison costing $50,000 a year; purchases information services from a
private firm for about $600 a year; and
the city's public works department
employs its own grants coordinator in
Washington. Several cities either maintain their own offices in Washington or,
as in the case of Chicago, rely on private
consultants to look after their interests
there. Smaller municipalities simply
cannot afford to spend the money for
expert information and advice (see
Dec., 1975,"Smalltown grantsmanship: Roadblocks and opportunities").
Often by the time local officials discover
an available source of federal funds the
deadline for applications has passed or
the funds are depleted. By the time they
master the rules, the rules have been changed.
For yet another time GAO recommended that more duplicating and
overlapping programs be consolidated.
Moreover, funding uncertainties could
be eliminated, GAO said, if Congress
appropriated aid for longer than a year
at a time. The President's Office of
Management and Budget accused the
GAO report of "lacking federal perspective." Not only do longer appropriation commitments increase the uncontrollable outlays in the federal budget, but congressmen enjoy the
political leverage over state and local
officials that is created by the uncertainty.
Another study to be completed later
this year by the Advisory Commission
on Intergovernmental Relations
(ACIR) in Washington already casts
doubt on whether the block grant
conversions are working as they should
be. Issues of state control versus a pass-through to the cities; of the division of
authority between the governor and the
legislature; and of congressionally
determined national objectives being
ignored, were observed in the Partnership in Health program that consolidated 16 categories in 1966. What is more surprising is ACIR's finding that the federal regulations attached to block
grants appear to the recipients to be
more complicated, onerous and arbitrary than when the money dribbled out
in categorical streams. Technical requirements imposed by several different
federal agencies were replaced by a
variety of government-wide requirements mandated by Congress relating,
for instance, to civil rights, equal
employment opportunities, and environmental impact. Call them formula
grants, discretionary grants, block
grants, or whatever. Congress is not yet
ready to drop the strings that are tied to federal dollars.
March 1976 / Illinois Issues / 31