STATEMENT
OF

MAYOR FERD L. HARRISON, SCOTLAND NECK, NORTH CAROLINA

ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES

My name is Ferd Harrison. I am the mayor of Scotland Neck, North Carolina, a community of 2,890 people. I am pleased to make a short statement on behalf of the National League of Cities concerning Senate Bill 3277, The Small Communities Act of 1978.

This legislation, if enacted, would change in a fundamental way the relationship between the federal government and small communities below 50,000 population throughout the United States. Although the National League of Cities is not prepared at this time to express a position on specific aspects of this bill, we are very interested in the areas it addresses, and we believe they are worthy of examination. We hope that NLC and its membership will be given the opportunity at a later date to express its position on this legislation in more detail.

I would like comment on some of the general issues with which The Smaller Communities Act is concerned. The National League of Cities is

currently in the process of assisting the Department of Housing and Urban Development with a nation-wide survey of developmental needs of cities under 50,000 population. This survey is part of the study mandated by Congress in The Housing and Community Development Act of 1977, and should provide the most comprehensive information ever collected on small cities, their needs and their perception of the role the federal government should or should not have in helping them meet those needs.

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Many of the areas addressed in Senator Danforth's bill are directly related to this Congressionally-mandated small cities study. It will also hopefully provide some answers to questions that still exist about the role of the federal government in assisting smaller cities.

For example, should cities under 50,000 which are located close to large metropolitan areas be treated in the same manner as such cities in nonmetropolitan areas?

Do cities under 50,000 population vary by size in the types of problems that they encounter and their capacity to deal with those problems?

Is duplication and overlap among various federal grant programs necessarily bad or can it provide a useful service to smaller cities?

How much of federal funds which are funnelled to smaller communities

should be based strictly on need and what amount should be based on their ability and capacity to carry out the legislative intent of Congress? Are there really sufficient funds to meet the developmental needs

of all our communities under 50,000, and if not, how does Congress determine who is to receive assistance and who will not?

How do we balance the needs of small cities and their ability to determine how local problems should be solved, and the desire by the Congress and the Executive Branch to see that their concerns are also

met?

These are just a few of the issues which S.3277 addresses and they cannot be dealt with lightly. These are vital concerns of smaller communities and they have not been handled in any systematic manner in the past.

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It is evident from my experience in a small city and from my discussions with other local leaders that certain needs cut across a broad range of

communities under 50,000 population. Many of these communities are unable to keep up with which programs are available, much less apply for and administer them. Many small cities are frustrated by not having sufficient funds readily available for revitalization of their downtown areas, even though a major thrust of recent legislation is economic development. Many very small communities have needs only for very basic services such as sewer and water, yet many are unable to match enough local funds with federal grants to meet that need.

Small cities and towns are often caught without sophisticated "needs assessment" or "data analysis" concerning inter-city decay or the demands for retrofitting houses in blighted areas. For the most part, we are not able to call on a cadre of planners or consultants to help us qualify for many federal grants within the required funding period.

Quite simply we are encouraging the federal government to recognize the needs and opportunities of small cities as well as the need of our large cities. In my home state of North Carolina there are 450 active cities and towns 440 of which are less than 50,000 in population. Also, nationally 66% of our population resides in small municipalities. We hope through a thorough discussion of this bill that Congress will better appreciate the needs of the nation's smaller cities and towns.

Many of the problems associated with smaller cities, especially in non-metropolitan areas, deals with urban conservation. Too often in the past, federal programs have not provided a consistent policy for dealing with this and other issues of concern for smaller cities. The federal role should be to assist smaller cities in bringing their growth under their control. It should also stimulate growth where stagnation and

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deterioration may be occurring.

The proposals included within The

Smaller Communities Act must be considered in light of these goals and

objectives related to urban conservation.

All of these issues need to be addressed so that smaller cities throughout the United States no longer have the feeling that they are being left out or left behind in their quest to fairly compete with larger cities in making their concerns known to their duly elected representatives in Congress.

We want to be included and have the right not to be excluded from any balanced national growth policies and economic development programs enacted by Congress.

It is my hope and the hope of the National League of Cities that our discussions here today will be a step toward reassuring smaller cities and towns that they are receiving this consideration from Congress.

Thank you.

Senator DANFORTH. The next panel consists of three people from the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.

Do you all want to say something? If so, why don't you all come up, first, and then we will get to the National Governors Association and the State Auditor Coordinating Council.

This group consists of Mr. Stenberg, Mr. Walker, and Mr. Mitchell, of the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Gentlemen, thanks for being here.

TESTIMONY OF A PANEL CONSISTING OF DAVID B. WALKER, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR; CARL W. STENBERG, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR; AND MICHAEL C. MITCHELL, FEDERAL RELATIONS ASSOCIATE, ADVISORY COMMISSION ON INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

Mr. WALKER. Sir, if it meets the pleasure of the committee, we would like to insert the full statement in the record and, perhaps, give an informal precis on the matter.

Senator DANFORTH. That will be fine. The prepared statement will be printed in full in the record at the conclusion of your testimony. Mr. WALKER. Thank you.

Our focus of attention in the legislation that you have introduced is title V of the measure.

We are focusing on it because it represents, we think, a vital, indispensable addition to the points we made a few weeks ago testifying on the earlier legislation of Senator Roth, yourself, and Senator Muskie S. 3267.

The Commission at this point in time has developed a five-point strategy about how to cope with the Federal grant system, and one of the fundamental points in that pentagon is the consolidationist approach.

It is our belief that most of the problems you have heard here this morning are, in one way or another, a series of gigantic footnotes to the problem of numbers cited in your opening statement.

We will serve only to fotnote your comment and to respond to the questions posed in your opening statement regarding the number of grants that now are available to State and local governments.

Now, on the question of numbers-nobody should be boggled by the numbers per se. Yet, we must deal with what they convey by way of administrative, fiscal, managerial, and recipient difficulties, Federal agency problems, and, I would say from the congressional angle, the impossibility of any real oversight.

The total number, as you have indicated, comes to nearly 500. We came up with a fairly accurate count of 481 programs funded and operational to State and local governments as of December 31, 1977. That figure, much less than some of the figures tossed around, encompass, we think, a number of very, very fundamental problems about how the entire Federal system at this point in time is operating. If one were to go back to President Kennedy's period, you would have had about 160 as a counterpart figure and by 1968, 390.

During the Nixon-Ford period, there was an addition of about 100, sometimes over vetoes of Presidents, sometimes at the behest of Presidents, and more times than not as a result of congressional initiatives. The categorical component for fiscal 1979 will be 79 percent of the total aid package. It is still the behemoth in the picture.