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Pennsylvania Department of Community Affairs

DCA: The Beginning*

By the middle of the 1960’s, the idea of an agency at the state level to provide assistance, including funding, to local governments to address various issues confronting them was under discussion around the country. The pros and cons of such a state agency were also under serious consideration in Pennsylvania. Discussion produced action. In mid-1965, Senate Bill 1144, sponsored by Senators Frame, McGregor, Pechan and Sarraf, proposed among other things the creation of a Department of Community Affairs. The bill spelled out the department’s powers and duties, provided for appointment of a Secretary of Community Affairs, and transferred certain powers and duties of the Department of Internal affairs to the new department.

The bill moved relatively quickly through the legislature and was signed into law by Governor William Scranton on February 1, 1966. Act 582, as the law was designated, provided that the new department would become operational July 1, 1966, and those transferred responsibilities of the Department of Internal Affairs would take effect January 17, 1967.

Following passage and signing of Senate Bill 1144, work began in earnest in developing a budget for the new Department as well as arranging for staffing, including administrative staff. Joseph W. Barr, former mayor of Oil City and a strong advocate for DCA, was nominated as Secretary of Community Affairs and Daniel Rogers, Director of the Bureau of Community Development in the Department of Commerce, was selected to be Deputy Secretary.

When the Department became operational on July 1, 1966, not all of its designated responsibilities commenced. Those which did were located in the Bureau of Community Development in the Department of Commerce. The entire staff of that

bureau, consisting of housing and urban renewal, recreation, community planning, and mass transportation – each in respective divisions – transferred smoothly to the new department. The bureau name was changed to Community Programs.
 * This paper is not a complete history of the Department, but a compilation of information covering the period mid-1965 to mid-1968.

In addition, staff members in the Office of Economic Opportunity located in the Department of Commerce, responsible for operating the federal antipoverty program, were transferred to the new department. With the assumption of various Commonwealth-instituted responsibilities – including the Neighborhood Assistance Program, Community Action Grants, and the Training Employment and Assistance for Management (TEAM) Program -- this office became the Bureau of Human Resources.

Along with the central office Commerce staff transferred to DCA, Commerce staff in the various regional offices – Erie, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Scranton – became DCA staff. Later a Harrisburg regional office was established.

DCA got off to a fast start. On June 30, 1966, the Bureau of Community Development held its annual conference, focused on community planning, at Allenberry. Daniel Rogers opened the meeting as bureau director in the Department of Commerce. On July 1, he opened the meeting as the first to be sponsored by the Department of Community Affairs.

In January 1967, the transferred responsibilities of the former Department of Internal Affairs became operational in DCA. These included municipal statistics and records, consulting services, information services, research, and legal and fiscal services. Later, municipal employee training was added. Together these constituted the Bureau of Local Government Services, initially Community Services.

In 1968, the various divisions and offices were elevated to separate Bureau-level status. This action strengthened the new bureaus, enabling them to provide more comprehensive and expanded services to communities throughout the Commonwealth.

Act 582 creating the department also spelled out in two separate itemizations of powers and duties that DCA “shall. . . coordinate the many programs of grants and subsidies paid to political subdivisions by various agencies of State and Federal government”. . . and again “to coordinate and wherever provided by law to supervise or administer the various programs of State and Federal assistance and grants. . . .” This delegation of authority greatly enhanced the potential of the new department, which was ably staffed by trained professionals and others with significant experience in local government.

The powers and duties of the Department of Community Affairs were spelled out in Act 582 as follows:

a.	To coordinate the many programs of grants and subsidies paid to political subdivisions by various agencies of State and Federal government.

b.	Provide for a central clearing house for information concerning local government problems between local governments and the various State agencies; and to direct inquiries about specific problems of local government to the proper State agencies for solution.

c.	Maintain close contact with all local governments to help them improve their administrative methods and to foster better municipal government and development.

d.	To review State policy and Federal programs with respect to major local governmental, metropolitan and area problems; and to determine their impact on local units of government as they pertain to community affairs.

e.	To conduct general research for various units of local government on problems affecting community affairs in the field of municipal administrative management, comprehensive planning, municipal forms of government, State-local relationships, fiscal procedures and generally to do any and all things necessary as an aid to better local and area government and community development; and upon request of a specific political subdivision to conduct under contract mutually agreed upon, extensive and continuous research on general problems of local and urban government and analysis of specific problems of the political subdivision.

f.	Provide direct consultive services to political subdivisions upon requests and staff services to special commissions, or the Governor, or the Legislature as directed.

g.	Provide technical assistance and research to political subdivisions participating in various operational programs affecting political subdivisions on the State.

h.	To coordinate and wherever provided by law to supervise or administer the various programs of State and Federal assistance and grants, including but not limited to housing, redevelopment, urban renewal, urban planning assistance, Project 70, area development, revitalization of central city cores, mass transportation, river basin studies, port development, air and water pollution, land and soil conservation, economic opportunity, and public works and community facilities and Appalachian assistance; and to furnish comprehensive planning and technical assistance on any program set forth in this subsection (h).

i.	To furnish assistance to political subdivisions in the preparation of and advice on enforcement of codes and ordinances.

j.	To aid in the preparation of and to distribute handbooks, research, financial and other reports derived from the activities of the department.

k.	To generally do any and all things necessary to make this act effective.

l.	Subject to the limitations of this act and of law, the Secretary of Community Affairs shall, from time to time, establish rules and regulations to better carry this act into effect.


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