therefore cannot be met. In a time when the burden of the judicial business is heavy, the lack of adequate facilities adds materially to the difficulty of handling it. The aim in the estimates for 1956 is to correct these harmful deficiencies in the appropriations for 1955 and improve the provision for travel and miscellaneou expenses of the courts. For proper service this support is needed, and an increase of $113,000 over the amount of the appropriation allowed by the House is requisite. Page 32, line 7, strike out "$1,650,500” and insert in lieu thereof "$1,750,500", or an increase of $100,000. HOUSE REPORT (P. 13) "The full amount of the budget estimate, to wit: $1,151,400 is provided for salaries of referees in bankruptcy while the sum of $1,650,500 is provided for the expenses of these referees. This represents an increase of $172,375 over the amount in the current fiscal year and $100,000 below the amount of the budget estimate for their expenses. The committee was advised that approximately 65.000 bankruptcy cases will be filed in 1955, that a total increase to 75,000 in 1956 can be expected. This would be the highest number of bankruptcies recorded in the history of the country. On the basis of the estimate presented to the committee the income for the referees' salary fund during fiscal year 1956 will exceed estimated expenditures by $560,600. Likewise, the income for the referees' expense fund in that year will be $1,796,000 or $145,500 more than the amount recommended in the bill. JUSTIFICATION The report of the House committee does not show the reason for the reduction of $100,000 from the estimate in the amount of the appropriation allowed by the House for expenses of referees. This appropriation, as is known, is paid not from the general funds of the Treasury but from the referees' expense fund derived from charges paid by the parties to bankruptcy proceedings. A surplus of $226,420 accrued in this fund in 1954 and an estimated surplus of $165,062 in the first half of the current year. The total accumulated surplus as of December 31, 1954, was $1,581,425. The condition of the special expense fund therefore warrants an appropriation of the amount deemed reasonably necessary to provide for the effective dispatch of the bankruptcy business by the referees. The present is a time of increase in the number of bankruptcy cases being filed. In 1954 there was an increase in the number over 1953 of 13,049 cases, or 32.55 percent. In the first half of the current year there was an increase over the corresponding period of last year of 5,019 cases, or 21.6 percent. While the rate of increase in the quarter ended March 31 last was less than the rate in the previous quarters, still the indications are that the number of cases filed in the quarter will be greater than in any previous quarter since the third quarter of the fiscal year 1941. The number of bankruptcy cases terminated in the first half of the current year is 4,741 less than the number of cases filed, so that the backlog of pending cases rose from 48,428 on July 1, 1954 to 53,169 on December 31, 1954, and it is expected that the number as of March 31, 1955, will be still higher. This rise in the backlog of pending cases causes concern because delay in closing cases increases the proportion of costs of administration to assets realized in asset cases and decreases the proportion whien can be distributed to the creditors. The estimate of expenses of referees for 1956 was prepared not only with reference to the continuing increase in the number of bankruptcy cases being filed, but with a definite aim of providing clerical help in the offices of the referees which would enable them to close a larger number of cases and bring down the backlog of cases pending. Of the items in the estimated increase of $306,950 in the expenses of referees shown in the table on page 122 of the House hearings, $203,700, or approximately two-thirds, is for personal services, that is the compensation of clerks in the referees' offices. There is a large amount of clerical work connected with the closing of bankruptcy cases, and the principal obstacle toward increasing the present rate of disposition is the lack of sufficient clerical personnel. A considerable part of the cost of the impersonal items shown in the table is uncontrollable, so that if the decrease of $100,000 made by the House stands, the greater part of it will have to come from the allotment for personal services in the referees' offices and will necessarily retard the closing of cases. In order to permit an effective effort to reduce the backlog of pending bankruptcy cases, the full amount asked in the estimate for expenses of referees is needed and I would earnestly ask that it be granted. This would be only to provide for the parties to bankruptcy proceedings service for which they have paid and which they ought to have. The The Congress has recognized the need to reinforce the Federal courts by providing from time to time for additional judges, as it did last year in Public Law 294, approved February 10, 1954. But also important is reasonable provision year by year in the appropriations for the operating expenses of the courts. increases above requested in the pending appropriations as passed by the House are minimum requirements for that purpose. I therefore trust that they may be approved by the Senate and included in the bill as enacted. Respectfully submitted. HENRY P. CHANDLER. THE JUDICIARY Comparative summary of permanent positions and appropriations, fiscal years 1954 and 1955, and estimates and House allowances for fiscal year 1956 Supreme Court: Customs Court: Salaries and expenses. Court of Claims: Total, Court of Claims. Court of appeals, district courts, and other 1 Unobligated balance continued available. 2 Estimates revised downward by $49,705 during House hearings. 3 Apparent reduction below 1955 appropriation results from the inclusion of provision for recent judicial pay increase in 1955 amounts whereas no provision is made for this purpose in 1956 estimate and bill. Comparative summary of permanent positions and appropriations, fiscal years 1954 and 1955, and estimates and House allowances for fiscal year 1956—Continued + $65,000 of this sum represents provision for salaries of 23 clerical employees and the remainder $35,000 represents provision for office expenses and equipment. * Includes $13,300 under "Salaries and expenses, Court of Customs and Patent Appeals" and $850,000 under "Salaries of judges" in S. Doc 19 and Second Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1955. |