Program Management Years 1974 – 1981

Under President Gerald Ford, in 1974, the Community Services Amendments were passed. The OEO was renamed and the "new" Community Services Administration (CSA) was born. The OEO employees became CSA employees and continued to administer the programs. Community action had found a new home in the federal government, and apparently, a new supporter in President Ford. (Former President Ford was on the advisory committee for the Friends of VISTA for many years.)

From 1974 to 1981, CSA continued to fund CAAs. CAAs continued to help communities and neighborhoods to initiate self-help projects such as gardening, solar greenhouses, and housing rehabilitation. They also helped create and support federally funded senior centers and congregate meal sites. Home weatherization and energy crisis transfer-payment programs were invented by CSA and the CAAs and turned into large-scale programs. However, most of the growth in federal spending for anti-poverty purposes flowed directly to individuals, through programs like Food Stamps and Medicaid.

Due to a half-dozen well publicized scandals of fiscal mismanagement in a few (mostly big city!) CAAs, the emphasis was on improving fiscal administration and program management. "Good management" was the mantra for all federally-funded programs. Each time an anti-poverty agency had a management problem the people who had never liked the idea of federal funding for antipoverty programs anyhow would raise a cry to eliminate the entire program.

The federal statute for CSA had a set of very general "standards of excellence" and each CAA was supposed to describe how it was achieving them. In the late 1970s, under prodding from Congress, the administration of President Jimmy Carter initiated a large-scale effort to strengthen the role and management systems of both CSA and the CAAs.

The "Grantee Program Management System" required all CAAs to create strategic plans and to specify the outcomes and impacts of their efforts. By 1981, it had been largely implemented in Regions 1-8 (but not in 9 and 10).
This resurgence of a federal commitment to supporting local antipoverty efforts came to an end with the passage of the Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act of 1981. ("OBRA" — rhymes with COBRA)

This paper was originally written by Jim Masters of the Center for Community Futures and published by NACAA for the 25th Anniversary of Community Action in 1989. He updates it here for the 40th Anniversary.

Questions or comments? Contact him at jmasters@cencomfut.com.

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