Intercom, Volume 14, Number 1, July 1980 Page: 5 of 50
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a sizable one that many people in government as well
as business today feel could be cut back significantly.
At Martin Marietta headquarters, and in locations
around the country, government paperwork is an ever-
present fact of life. That's not to say it's all bad; some in
various fields is clearly necessary. And in the conduct
of government contracts, it's an essential of doing business.
On the other hand, in recent years the government
paper workload has reached proportions that hardly seem
credible to the average individual whose experience
derives mainly from an annual income tax exercise and
a driver's license renewal every few years.
For example, recently the corporate finance depart-
ment compiled a partial list of business and financial
reports the corporation provides to government units
at one time or another, many annually, others monthly,
quarterly, or at less regular intervals. This list alone
includes 150 separate documents submitted to federal and
state agencies. The tabular roll call, with brief descriptions,
covers 38 legal-size pages and attempts to estimate the
number of man-hours required in each case to gather
the material and send it on its way.
Not included in the listing, which was restricted
to only one busy segment of the corporate reporting
burden, were such extremely heavy areas as taxes, pensions,
equal opportunity, safety and health, the environment
and Securities and Exchange Commission requirements.
Even the segment that was compiled, however, yielded
a conservative estimate of 34,400 man-hours expended
on an annual basis. That's about 17 man-years.
Experts differ on how to translate government-paper-
work man-hours into dollars, .and the most candid
conclusion probably is that it's difficult to do so with
maximum accuracy. The figure $30 an hour does, however,
appear to provide reasonably for managerial, planning,
professional and clerical time-and-benefits. By that
yardstick, then, the admittedly fragmentary list of 150
reports costs Martin Marietta something like $1 million
a year.
How much is the corporation's overall bill for govern-
ment recordkeeping and reporting? Nobody can say with
certainty, although some estimates have been made. So
extensive and all-pervasive is the workload that few
corporations have undertaken the awesome task of
analyzing it in detail. Most figures available were
developed in hearings and surveys by the government's
own Commission on Federal Paperwork, set up a few
years ago in response to stentorian cries of anguish from
the business community and others.
The commission developed a rule of thumb, which
it called "an imprecise measurement," for estimating
typical costs for businesses of various sizes. The
estimate for Martin Marietta comes to $6.5 million a
year. Kaiser Industries, a diversified corporation farther
down in the Fortune 500, conducted a painstaking two-
year study and came up with its own price tag of $4.5
million, about 20 percent above the commission estimate
in its case.
INTERCOM. JULY 1980Stephen Laycock, Martin Marietta's corporate director
of accounting policies and procedures, is responsible for
many of the business reports that go to government
agencies. His office prepared the existing million-
dollar listing and also took a general look a while back
at other reporting requirements.
"From our own experience," says Steve Laycock,
"and what we've seen in other parts of the corporation,
we estimate the total cost could be as high as $10 million
a year. Some of the reporting seems unnecessary, some
duplicates material we've already submitted in another
form so we have to reprocess it, and the volume increases
year by year. It's a real problem."
It's hard to find anyone who disagrees these days.
"Businesses rightly complain that more information
than necessary is collected," concludes the paperwork
commission. "As a result, they are drowning in a sea
of paperwork and red tape."
The business community-led by such organizations
as the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Com-
merce and the National Association of Manufacturers-
has been calling for some measure of realistic relief
before the tide rises even higher. Trade associations and
other industry-supported groups such as the Business
Advisory Council on Federal Reports and the Citizens
Committee on Paperwork Reduction have been working
with government agencies on a case-by-case basis in
an effort to pull in the reins.
Now Congress, where some people feel the primrose
path of paperwork begins, is taking a hard look at the
problem. Some 20 bills have been introduced, embodying
a variety of approaches including the revolutionary con-
cept that government should pay the costs for material it
requires.
The bill most likely to become law, experts say, takes
a less radical approach. Sponsored in the House of
Representatives by Rep. Frank Horton (R., N.Y.)
with the co-sponsorship of Reps. Jack Brooks (D., Tex.),
Tom Steed (D., Okla.), and Richardson Preyer (D.,
N.C.), it establishes (1) a central office to hold the lid
on federal information requests, which come from a
multitude of separtate agencies, and (2) a computerized
"information locator system" to keep track of information
that's already in the files somewhere and so, supposedly,
doesn't have to be asked for again. The Department of
Defense is running a system of this kind that could be
swung into action for the government as a whole.
Sen. Lawton Chiles (D., Fla.), who is expected to
introduce a companion bill in the Senate, has been
conducting a paperwork crusade including insistence
on the inclusion of red-tape "impact statements" in new
legislation.
Even with these efforts, however, neither Senator
Chiles nor anyone else sees a quick or easy solution to
a widespread problem that has grown over many years.
"It is kind of like fighting a pillow," he says. "You
take a lick at one side and it just puffs out on the other. The
task of cutting red tape and reducing paperwork has more
political support than any activity we could possibly get
into, and yet we find it more and more tremendously
difficult to try to do anything about it."
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Tandy Corporation. Radio Shack Division. Intercom, Volume 14, Number 1, July 1980, periodical, July 1980; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1764407/m1/5/?rotate=90: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.