STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN REED HUNDT August 17, 1995 Since becoming Chairman two years ago, we have taken significant steps to reinvent the FCC. We have reorganized our bureaus, streamlined procedures, reduced backlogs, and begun to bring the agency into the 21st century with computers and electronic mail capabilities. However, in view of the budget realities in Washington today for the FCC, and every other agency, we need to accomplish even more. It is time to move onto a new chapter of how the FCC can best conduct its duties and responsibilities in Washington and around the country. Today I am announcing budget, personnel and FCC office actions in a number of areas: 1. Overall Personnel ceiling: Our authorized personnel ceiling, including Washington headquarters and field offices around the country, is 2,271. We have taken voluntary steps in the past to slow down replacement of departed or retired employees, so that we have actually been operating under that ceiling. I am announcing today our intention to take steps that will keep our employment level on average during the next year at about 2,050, a reduction of about 10%. This does not take into account the necessities of any new legislation. 2. Compliance and Information Bureau: (a) Monitoring Stations: We currently conduct national frequency monitoring operations in 9 separate monitoring stations, and in 4 additional monitoring sites within FCC field offices. Fortunately technological advances will permit us to replace these monitoring stations with a national automated monitoring network by the summer of 1996. Accordingly, I am proposing to the full Commission that we will close all 9 monitoring stations and the monitoring functions within field offices at that time. The monitoring will be done electronically. No monitoring function will be impaired. We will retain one facility in Laurel/Columbia, Maryland, as our central station. (over) -2- (b) Field Offices: We currently maintain 25 other field offices. I am recommending that we keep 16 field offices open; we will close 9 field offices by July 1996, but retain two technical staff in each location as resident agents. This plan will allow us to continue carrying out the FCC's important enforcement and interference responsibilities around the country. No reduction in enforcement personnel is planned at this time. (c) Regional Offices: We will close half of our six regional offices, closing offices in Atlanta, Boston and Seattle, and allowing their functions to be absorbed by the 3 remaining regional offices in Chicago, Kansas City and San Francisco. (d) New Call Center: We will add a new centralized FCC Call Center, where for the first time, members of the public anywhere in the United States will be able to call one toll- free number to reach the FCC for information or assistance. We can handle this function more efficiently, and with greater convenience to the public, through this center than we can currently in the dispersed field offices. It will be staffed in part by about a dozen dislocated employees from the Field offices. 3. Personnel Actions: (a) Retirement/buyouts: Many of the personnel reductions necessary to meet our target 2,050 average employment level are already being met through early retirement and buyout options. We have offered these options to more than 130 employees; and 81 employees, 48 from field office staffs, and 33 from headquarters staff in Washington, have already signed up. This program will help us meet our goals with a minimum of negative impact. (b) Involuntary Separations: We will be reducing our regional and field offices by approximately 120 positions, of which approximately 50 will be through involuntary separations (RIFs). These will be the first RIFs in FCC history. 4. Washington Headquarters Restructuring: To insure that we trim down and beef up to meet our priorities, I am also announcing adjustments to the permanent ceilings of a number of Bureaus and Offices in Washington. None of these ceiling adjustments will require employee terminations. (a) The Cable Services Bureau will decline from 223 to 190, reflecting its success in working through the initial phases of Cable Act rulemaking and complaint resolution, including the negotiation of a number of innovative social contracts. This is a 15% reduction. -3- (b) In addition, the Mass Media Bureau's ceiling will be reduced by 6%, the Office of Managing Director's ceiling by 9%, the Office of Public Affairs by 7%, and the Office of Engineering and Technology by 5%. (c) At the same time, 50 slots will be added to the permanent ceiling of the Common Carrier Bureau, and additional slots will be moved to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, to reflect the increased workloads of these Bureaus. While any employee cutbacks are painful, I believe that we have devised a responsible plan to reduce our operating force level, modernize our operations, minimize the impact on employees, and insure that the FCC can effectively and efficiently carry out our duties in the public interest within the budget limit that Congress has set. -FCC- August 17, 1995 FCC Field Office Restructuring Regional Office Consolidation: Chicago, Kansas City and San Francisco regional offices remain and absorb functions of the Atlanta, Boston and Seattle regional offices, which will close. Field Offices to Remain Open: Chicago Atlanta Detroit Tampa Boston New Orleans New York Dallas Philadelphia Kansas City Laurel/Columbia, MD Denver San Diego Powder Springs, GA (ECIB: equipment development facility) Los Angeles San Francisco Seattle Field Offices to be closed, but location staffed by two technical staff as resident agents: Buffalo Miami St. Paul Norfolk Portland Houston San Juan Anchorage Honolulu Current Monitoring Stations to be closed: Vero Beach, FL Ferndale, WA Belfast, ME Grand Island, NE Allegan, MI Kingsville, TX Douglas, AZ Powder Springs, GA Livermore, CA -FCC-