FEDERAL SPACE NEEDED, BUT PORK-BARRELING ISN'T

One doesn't have to look far to encounter the fruits of a burgeoning federal bureaucracy. The Public Works Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives at the request of U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson last week authorized the General Services Administration to conduct a study of space needs for all federal agencies based in Cape Girardeau.

It seems there is simply not enough space to accommo~date the imminent expansion of the federal judicial and law enforcement services here. Crime often prospers when economic times are tough. The GSA study is warranted.

As the largest city in a region that includes portions of five states, Cape Girardeau is the justifiable site for a number of federal agencies. The Federal Building on Broadway has 28,590 square feet of usable space, of which courts and related court agencies occupy about half. However, courts could easily use all the available space within a few months.

Last fall the U.S. attorney of the Eastern District of Missouri opened a satellite office in Cape Girardeau staffed by two assistants and two secretaries. About the same time, a full-time federal magistrate was placed here. By mid-March, court officials hope to impanel a full-time federal grand jury in Cape Girardeau, which will further clog space.

But congestion isn't the only problem associated with expansion of federal services here. Judicial security regulations require that with the placement of a full-time magistrate everyone who enters the Federal Building be subject to security screening. Such measures wouldn't be a problem except that law enforcement and judicial services aren't the only agencies that share the building.

People wanting to visit offices of the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security, or Emerson's 8th District office also are sent through a metal detector and are subject to full security screening. The situation is, at best, inconvenient.

Officials are hoping to resolve the problem by eventually grouping all court-related offices into a single building separate from other agencies. Emerson also said last week that should federal offices be segregated, he wants them situated in the same general area in downtown Cape Girardeau.

Undoubtedly such questions will go into the GSA study, which is expected to take at least six months before it is sent to the Public Building Service for its recommendation to Congress. It's unlikely any funding would be earmarked for the project until at least fiscal year 1994, which begins Oct. 1, 1993.

The danger with any federal study is that the longer it drags out, the less likely it is to culminate in recommendations that are thoughtful, practical and cost-efficient. More space is needed for federal agencies in Cape Girardeau, particularly if such provision will permit the segregation of judicial services from other public-access government offices. What's not needed is a pork-laced study that fully indulges, at taxpayers' expense, each and every agency involved.