Witnesses at Unemployment Hearings Seek Cooperation in Federal Funding

Speakers testifying before a special legislative commission on unemployment at the State House yesterday called for increased cooperation between state and federal bureaucracies in administering a proposed federal public employment program.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) led off the testimony by announcing he has been "assured" that President Ford will sign a bill which he says will create an estimated 540,000 new public service jobs nationally and as many as 24,000 new jobs in Massachusetts.

Kennedy said the program would not work without more "economic leadership," which he said should be "our number one economic priority."

State Senator Jack H. Backman (D-Brookline) warned against proposed cuts in the state budget which he said could eliminate as many as 15,000 workers from the state payrolls.

Backman, who is chairman of the commission, said that such cuts would "nullify the whole federal program."

In brief testimony near the end of the hearing, Attorney General-elect Thomas P. O'Neill III said that Governor-elect Michael S. Dukakis has never proposed such cuts in state employment.

Instead, O'Neill said, Dukakis was considering the possibility of transferring the workers from state to federal payrolls.