SALARIES, OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES Mr. FAULKNER. Turning then to the actual salaries for officers and employees, total salaries for the House in general, page 22, salaries and expenses for officers and employees of the House as authorized by law will be $101,989,000. Included in this amount is $56,900,000 for personnel, and $45,089,000 for nonpersonnel items. The offices funded under this heading include the following: Office of the Clerk, Sergeant at Arms, Chief Administrative Officer, the Inspector General, the Chaplain, Parliamentarian, Law Revision Counsel, Legislative Counsel, and other authorized employees. The Clerk of the House, Sergeant at Arms, Inspector General, Law Revision Counsel and Legislative Counsels are here today to testify on behalf of their own organizational budget requests. Page 23, then, is a spreadsheet reflecting the differences between 1995, 1996 and 1997 in the fiscal years. If there are no questions on the broader area, we can then turn specifically to the Clerk of the House. Before we do so, I'll submit pages 22 and 23 for the record. [The information follows:] SALARIES, OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES For salaries and expenses of officers and employees, as authorized by law, $101.989.000. Included in this amount is $56,900,000 for personnel and $45,089,000 for non-personnel items. The offices funded under this heading include the following: Office of the Clerk Office of the Sergeant At Arms Office of the Chief Administrative Officer Office of the Inspector General Office of the Chaplain Office of the Parliamentarian Office of the Law Revision Counsel Office of the Legislative Counsel Other Authorized Employees The Clerk of the House, Sergeant At Arms, Inspector General, Law Revision and Legislative Counsels are here today to testify on behalf of their organizational budget requests. Mr. PACKARD. All right. Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, might I ask one question here on page 23. The unexpended balance for 1995 was $24 million, and the unexpended balance for 1996 was $72 million. Why is there such a difference in the numbers there? Mr. ANFINSON. We are still in the middle of 1996, and so it represents one-fourth of the year's expenditures. Mr. YOUNG. Oh. That is a very good reason. Mr. PACKARD. That is why you have one on one. It is even higher than 1997 you noticed, Bill. Mr. YOUNG. You are 2 weeks out of here, you forget all of the good stuff. Mr. PACKARD. You thought we were saving money, didn't you? Mr. YOUNG. But still, that is still a low number, considering the fact that we are 5 months through the fiscal year. That is still very low, compared to FY 96 EXPENDITURE TRACKING Mr. FAULKNER. In fact, I think one thing which it is reflective of is the prudence and good management on the part of the officers of the House. In fact, our own CÃO budget, which we will be speaking to later, we are already tracking a full 10 percent lower than what we have planned. I have a document which I will submit for the record at a later point, but for this point, we literally are tracking at our half-year budget mark. We should be let's see here, looking at the operating costs. We are tracking at almost full $6 million lower than we thought we would be at this point last year. So again, as we start to see the full impacts of running the House on a business basis and seeing the full impacts of some of the administrative reforms, we are already seeing savings in this fiscal year that we had not anticipated, and we are hoping to see that trend continue. OFFICE OF THE CLERK Mr. PACKARD. Ms. Carle, on your presentation, we would like to do it, with your permission, the same way we have been doing with Mr. Faulkner, and that is as questions come through your presentation, if you would not mind, I hope it won't interrupt your presentation too much, but it does help us not to overlook something. So if you will proceed with that understanding. Ms. CARLE. All right. I will start with just a formal statement. Chairman Packard, other members of the subcommittee, I appreciate having the opportunity today to appear at this time to present the 1997 appropriations requests related to the operations of the Offices of the Clerk. Before I present the general outline regarding the 1997 request, I must first state that certain significant expenses of the House now contained in the Clerk's budget were previously not itemized or assigned to this particular budget. Now, as requested by the subcommittee last year, several of these expenses have been eliminated from the House's Administrative Account and have been transferred into this fiscal year 1997 request. Items included in this category are the closed-captioning services of the House Floor proceedings and the private stenographic service of the committee hearings. Like all of you, I believe in complete disclosure and itemization of these House expenses, and in that vein we should see a "cause and effect" with the transfer of such itemized expenses in my budget. While these costs have increased the overall size of the Clerk's budget request, they are not new expenses for the House, and should not increase the House budget as a whole. With the exception of the creation of the new Office of House Employment Counsel and the new add-in costs I just mentioned, this request is modest in size and growth. The fiscal year 1997 request for the Clerk's Office is $15,370,000. This figure appears to be an 11.32 percent increase. However, with the removal of new funds for the new Office of House Employment Counsel and the other House expenses that were previously requested in the House's administrative account, this being the sum of $2,146,000, this is a simple request by the Clerk of $13,224,000, an increase of 2.12 percent when compared to the fiscal year 1996 appropriations for personnel and nonpersonnel expenses. INCREASED ACTIVITY OF 104TH CONGRESS First, I should begin by congratulating the House membership on the robust and aggressive first session of the 104th Congress. During the first session, the House was in session 167 days for a total of 1,525 hours. There were 885 recorded votes, the second most in the history of the Congress. There were also 2,191 House committee hearings producing 1,666,528 pages of testimony, and 3,430 bills and other legislative measures were introduced into the House. All of these figures are increases over the 103d Congress and I would anticipate will continue in the second session of the 104th Congress. Simply, such increased activity comes at a cost in my offices' personnel and support costs. I am very pleased with the performance of my offices during this period, and I am seeking to continue to maintain the quality in services and support. Since my previous appearance before the subcommittee, the Offices of the Clerk have been reorganized to focus on the current and anticipated legislative needs of the House. As I outlined in my earlier testimony, computerization and the updating of communication equipment within the Offices of the Clerk is our primary and long-term goal. In many areas of legislative information generation, management and transmittal the House is sorely lacking. The Clerk's offices are central in the creation and handling of this information and I believe what must evolve are processes and procedures to rely more on computer and other advanced technologies. I have not lost sight of the House traditions and the need to allow the House flexibility in a legislative arena; however, I will be recommending in the near future some changes in some of the procedures to help advance our electronic venture. |