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to meet inventory and security requirements.  The next several years will show great expansion in this area as the demand for information from computer files grows.  Administrative applications include those in accounting, payroll, procurement, personnel, equal opportunity, library services, materials inventory, maintenance scheduling and reporting, and building security.  The auxiliary activities use automatic data processing extensively for inventory control, sales, subscriptions, registration, tour scheduling, and other essential information to help assure good public services. Major concentrations of effort during the planning period will be in the administrative areas with emphasis on payroll, personnel, and equal opportunity data requirements and in the business management area. To the extent possible, a growing backlog of systems analysis and programming work will be met by using short-term employment and contractual sevices.

Important activities also will take place in the other specialized administrative and technical offices. A revised directive system will be developed and implemented by the Managment Analysis Office, the Institution’s inventory of forms will be completed and catalogued for easy reference, and more assistance will be given in the form of managment studies required by bureaus and offices. The preparation of procurement documents, the transmission of procurement data and regulation will be greatly enhanced by word processing equipment now installed. Continued improvements to the Institution’s property inventory and control system will be made. Closer working relationships among the Smithsonian’s procurement and contracting offices will be established and new guidelines will be issued for use by those offices having delegated authority for certain specialized types of procurement. Arrangements for airline and hotel reservations will be facilitated by the lease of a computer reservation system.

The facilities offices’ resources, totaling $29,670,000 and 923 positions in FY 1980, will grow to $46,989,000 and 1,121 positions by FY 1986. Most of the growth is attributable to the rising cost of utilities and to the staffing and other needs of the Museum Support Center.

The design and construction staff, which provides professional architectural, engineering and related administrative services, will increase attention to the development of long-range maintenance, repair and improvement plans for all the Institution’s facilities. The planning, estimating and budgeting function has assumed greater importance as incresing resources have been devoted to the Construction and Restoration and Renovating of Buildings accounts. The growth in workload reflects the Institution’s priority on adequate maintenance of an aging physical plant, on upgrading fire protection systems, on building modifications to improve access for the disabled and to correct unsafe conditions and on energy conservation. The early assembly of detailed information and funding requirements, well in advance of the annual budget preparation, will continue to be a priority in order both to assure that funded projects can begin within the fiscal year for which funds are appropriated and to plan realistically for the future. Increased reliance on contractual architectural/engineering services and on automated equipment to assist in the administrative function will hold down the need for permanent employees; some additional planners, architects and engineers, however, will be required over the next several years.