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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION  1245

bill to extend the benefits of Civil Service Retirement to the privately paid officers and employees of the Smithsonian Institution. Such a bill was introduced in Congress but never reported out of Committee. Recently the matter of Federal retirement has been canvassed informally with the Department of Justice, which takes the position, informally, that the officers and employees of the Smithsonian Institution, paid from trust funds are already covered by the Retirement Act, if they so desire, so that a special act of Congress for them is not necessary.

The Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Art considered this problem at a meeting held January 7, 1947, and are now in agreement that the employees in question may be considered as coming under the Federal Retirement Act, if this has the approval also of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.

It is proposed now that the Secretary of the Smithsonian address a letter to the Civil Service Commission indicating the view that personnel paid from trust funds in the Institution are entitled to the benefits of the Federal Retirement Act, in the language of that Act, being under, if not in, one or all the branches of the United States Government for the purpose of retirement under existing law.

The Secretary stated that if the proposal outlined met the approval of the Board, and the employees now paid under trust funds go under the Federal Retirement System, then it would appear that the money now in the Smithsonian Retirement Fund, contributed both by the employees and the Institution, should be used to give these same employees the maximum protection under Federal Retirement that they have now earned

A.W.