and we ought to be talking about those fundamentals and the major, necessary changes that you want and the Council wants. The House and Senate would like to get some agreement on those major points. We sit here and look at line items on each budget detail and that is a waste of time in my opinion. INVITATION TO TOUR CITY Mayor BARRY. Let me just say that in terms of the way the city is developing, I'd like it very much if one day we could take a trip around the city for 3 or 4 hours. I think you will find that in the Barnard areas, 14th Street and 7th Street, you will see major construction going on. We just opened up a new supermarket, the first one in 10 years at 8th and Ō Streets, N.W. We are looking at neighborhood development, as to how you can get more businesses there; how you can build more housing. I think you will see the face of our city, with the exception of H Street, which has not changed nearly enough, but we have some plans to move that ahead too, that we will look back in 5 years and see a significant amount of new housing for people The other thing, Mr. Chairman NEED FOR LONG RANGE PLANNING Mr. PURSELL. You don't have to defend that; I am making the point that we ought to see that development here before this committee, what the long range 5, 10 year plan is and how we are making progress in phase one, phase two. We need to see how we can fundamentally support a federal budget to support those increments in order-within our scarce resources to make those things really happen. Then we can go back to the floor and say, fundamentally this is what is happening in D.C. and gain support for a substantial policy rather than this continual bickering back and forth of who has more positions than Detroit, Houston or someplace else. I tend to share that overall philosophy. RECENT AUDIT BY ARTHUR ANDERSEN With regard to one other point earlier you indicated the need for an audit. The previous Mayor, if I remember, had one central financial operation and you have broken it out into three separate agencies. I do not object to how it is done. Are you talking about an internal or external audit? Mayor BARRY. External audit. Arthur Andersen and Lucas Tucker, the auditors, in 1979 did what is called a balance sheet audit. They took our figures, and gave us a balance sheet audit. This year, they are doing it externally. CURRENT AUDIT BEING PERFORMED If you mean by an outside auditing firm, they are now doing a full-fledged audit of the District's books. addressing ourselves to the major substantial changes that it is going to take to make the City of D.C. viable in the next 10 years. You and I are going to come back here, or those that are around this table 10 years from now, and we are going to be in the same place that we are today. We ought to minimize our detailed committee process here and look at some oversight in terms of planning, development and rehabilitation where we could be helpful as members of Congress, to talk to HUD and other groups to say this is the kind of 10 point or 5 point program that we need here in D.C. to make it really a viable city. This is what we all want. I just get very frustrated. We, as members of the committee sit around here and hold committee hearings on minor points and do not address ourselves to the big issues. That bothers me. From that point, let me ask another question—— Mayor BARRY. If I could comment on that, let me agree with you on one point and disagree on the other. Let me agree that it may be that the committee ought to look at the major program areas as opposed to one position here, or four positions there. I certainly agree with that thrust. CONSTRUCTION OF NEW OFFICE SPACE I would strongly disagree with you that the character and composition of our city is not being greatly improved. Let me just indicate a couple of things. One is that in 1979, and the city government certainly has been pushing this, in the District of Columbia, we constructed more new office space than all of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago and New York combined. Mr. PURSELL. Is that outlined in your budget? Mayor BARRY. We didn't pay for that, so we are in a unique situation where we were not asking for 18 positions. Mr. PURSELL. The private sector is doing that? Mayor BARRY. With the help of our licenses, and our sewer hookup process. We have to give sewer certificates. Mr. PURSELL. I realize that is a partnership. We have built up Detroit too, but that was all private money. Basically it took some leadership on the part of the mayor and other people to help encourage it. I think that partnership is important but is the growth and development reflected in the budget documents presented to us? Mayor BARRY. I have to check and see. In the sense of what we have done, which I think to some extent has been a mistake, we are trying to get out of that. We have only brought items to the committee that were directly funded by appropriated funds as opposed to saying actually here is what we are trying to do now. That is why I gave you an overview of our city and here is what part the Federal- Mr. PURSELL. You don't hesitate to go to OMB and talk about new fundamental policy changes in the funding formulas and long range planning. I think that is a responsibility that this committee ought to share and look at too, to help you along in developing a Home Rule concept. Louis Stokes and I sit on the Labor/HEW committee-we should be down there at ten o'clock and we are here out of courtesy to you and we ought to be talking about those fundamentals and the major, necessary changes that you want and the Council wants. The House and Senate would like to get some agreement on those major points. We sit here and look at line items on each budget detail and that is a waste of time in my opinion. INVITATION TO TOUR CITY Mayor BARRY. Let me just say that in terms of the way the city is developing, I'd like it very much if one day we could take a trip around the city for 3 or 4 hours. I think you will find that in the Barnard areas, 14th Street and 7th Street, you will see major construction going on. We just opened up a new supermarket, the first one in 10 years at 8th and O Streets, N.W. We are looking at neighborhood development, as to how you can get more businesses there; how you can build more housing. I think you will see the face of our city, with the exception of H Street, which has not changed nearly enough, but we have some plans to move that ahead too, that we will look back in 5 years and see a significant amount of new housing for people The other thing, Mr. Chairman NEED FOR LONG RANGE PLANNING Mr. PURSELL. You don't have to defend that; I am making the point that we ought to see that development here before this committee, what the long range 5, 10 year plan is and how we are making progress in phase one, phase two. We need to see how we can fundamentally support a federal budget to support those increments in order-within our scarce resources to make those things really happen. Then we can go back to the floor and say, fundamentally this is what is happening in D.C. and gain support for a substantial policy rather than this continual bickering back and forth of who has more positions than Detroit, Houston or someplace else. I tend to share that overall philosophy. RECENT AUDIT BY ARTHUR ANDERSEN With regard to one other point earlier you indicated the need for an audit. The previous Mayor, if I remember, had one central financial operation and you have broken it out into three separate agencies. I do not object to how it is done. Are you talking about an internal or external audit? Mayor BARRY. External audit. Arthur Andersen and Lucas Tucker, the auditors, in 1979 did what is called a balance sheet audit. They took our figures, and gave us a balance sheet audit. This year, they are doing it externally. CURRENT AUDIT BEING PERFORMED If you mean by an outside auditing firm, they are now doing a full-fledged audit of the District's books. Mr. PURSELL. When would it be completed? Mayor BARRY. I would have to ask-I assume 3 or 4 months. Mr. GERARDI. By law, it has to be done by February 1, following the year end. Mayor BARRY. This is Mr. Gerardi, a managing partner. Mr. PURSELL. Too late for this budget process? Mrs. MACK. That's right. They are going to audit the Fiscal Year 1980 actually. Mr. PURSELL. Doing a complete, detailed audit of the entire operation? Mayor BARRY. We could give the committee the financial report, balance sheet that they did and we would like to enter it into the record. Mr. PURSELL. Are you asking for that as Mayor in conjunction with the Council or with Congressional encouragement? Mayor BARRY. All three. The Temporary Oversight Commission mandated that by a certain date we have three successive audits before the Commission goes out of business. I am a member of that commission. FINANCIAL REPORT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1979 Mr. Chairman, this is a copy of the Annual Financial Report for fiscal year 1979. With your permission I would ask that it be entered into the record. [The report referred to follows:] |