we do in print, from the Capitol to the Government Printing Office has been replaced. Legislation is now transferred electronically to GPO via a Y2K-compliant gateway.

The last major Y2K projects include a mainframe used by our stationery room and our gift shop, which is not a part of the Senate computer center. The mainframe will be replaced by servers. The Sergeant at Arms will provide Y2K-compliant hardware and software for the Office of Printing and Document Services, and this will be the last major replacement. That is on course for completion not later than the end of September 1999.

Further details on Y2K are in the full statement, in the information systems section of the annual reports.

CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER

The last topic I want to touch on is the Capitol Visitor Center. The 105th Congress took an important step by authorizing the visitor center and appropriating $100 million for the Architect of the Capitol to use for planning, engineering, and designing and to construct the visitor center.

At that time, the best cost estimates of the Architect for building it, furnishing it, and finishing the exhibits and addressing security enhancements totaled $159 million. The legislation that was passed last year anticipated that the $100 million would be supplemented by a private fundraising plan. The Secretary and the Clerk of the House were to develop that, and recommend it back to the Congress, and we have been working on that.

We have had the Pew Charitable Trusts, which recently took the lead in giving and successfully raising funds to improve the Independence Mall region in Philadelphia, and which has contributed to many projects of major educational and cultural importance to the country, and other trusts and other individuals contact our two offices—that is, my office and the office of the Clerk of the Houseand have offered on an unsolicited basis their financial support and expertise and other support to help with the Capitol Visitor Center project.

With the level of interest in the visitor center that has been apparent, a private fundraising campaign could readily raise, in my opinion, $70 million.

If you combine the $70 million and the $100 million that is appropriated, for a total of $170 million, that would cover the last best estimate of $159 million that the Architect provided last fall for the cost of the project, and would leave us an $11 million contingency.

In addition, the Capitol Preservation Commission at the present time has a balance of $26.6 million, which was raised privately, and which could be made available for the visitor center project, if the commission voted for that and it were needed. And to the extent that a fundraising campaign raises more than what is needed for the initial cost, which I believe could be done, the excess could be reserved for expanded exhibits or for an endowment for longterm maintenance and future educational programs and new visitors' services. If we got aggressive in a fundraising campaign, we could even pay back the $100 million appropriation to the extent that was the will of the Congress.

PREPARED STATEMENTS

With the project being authorized for the first time, with the $100 million appropriation this past year, and with a successful fundraising campaign, the vision of the Senate for a modern visitor center to receive the public and provide accurate and complete information about the Congress and how it works, and to meet modern security requirements, is well within reach. I am committed to help fulfill this vision at the direction of the Senate, and work with the House to make a visitor center a reality.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[The statements follow:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GARY SISCO

FISCAL YEAR 2000 BUDGET REQUEST

As the Committee is aware, the Office of the Secretary has requested freeze-level budgets, except for (COLA's), each year since fiscal year 1997. The fiscal year 2000 request again maintains level funding, excluding inflation, even as the responsibilities and workload of the Office have become greater than ever.

I respectfully propose an operational budget for the Office of the Secretary for fiscal 2000 of $15,713,000, consisting of $14,202,000 for salaries and $1,511,000 for expenses.

The requested budget is an increase of $508,000, or 3.3 percent, over the fiscal year 1999 appropriation of $15,205,000. The entire increase is to the salaries side of the budget, and is accounted for by a projected cost of living adjustment (COLA), as follows: $104,000 for the annualization of the 1999 calendar year COLA (3.1 percent for October through December 1999); and $404,000 for the calendar year 2000 COLA estimate (3.9 percent for January through September 2000).

The amount requested for expenses is the same as the fiscal year 1999 budget of $1,511,000, and this figure has been maintained for the past three fiscal years. While the Office of the Secretary has held the line on administrative expenses, the change in format adopted last year is carried forward and will be permanent. Before 1999, line items were based on expense categories (some for as little as $500). The fiscal year 1999 budget grouped expenses by department, using the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) object classification codes that are standard throughout the Federal Government. The new format is necessary for FMIS, and also facilitates management within the Office of the Secretary by making it easier to control the expenses incurred by the users in particular departments. There is no change from fiscal year 1999 to fiscal year 2000 in the budget figures submitted by department.

With the approval of the Committee on Appropriations, the Office of the Secretary has utilized administrative expense savings to help fund annual expenditures for the FMIS and LIS strategic planning initiatives. The Office of the Sergeant at Arms has also contributed to LIS. Utilizing existing budgetary resources has made it unnecessary to request additional funds for these mission-critical projects. FMIS and LIS will continue to be funded using existing budgetary resources to the greatest extent possible for the remainder of fiscal year 1999 and for fiscal year 2000.

IMPLEMENTING THE MANDATED SYSTEMS OF FMIS AND LIS

With respect to both systems, two points are key: (1) No new funds were requested for fiscal year 1999 or are requested for fiscal year 2000; and (2) Year 2000 compliance is being engineered into the new systems.

Financial Management Information System (FMIS)

FMIS, a mandated update to the financial management systems of the Senate, is consolidating and replacing a conglomeration of stand-alone financial systems located throughout the Senate, none of them Year 2000 compliant, with a single financial management system that is warranted to be Year 2000 compliant, while converting the general ledger from cash-basis accounting to obligation- and accrualbasis accounting based on the Standard General Ledger of the Federal Government, and having the capability to produce consolidated, auditable financial statements.

The mandate is being implemented on schedule, the result of considerable effort by the entire staff of the Disbursing Office, many staff members of the Sergeant at Arms, and the primary outside contractor, KPMG Peat Marwick.

There are four major phases of the FMIS strategic initiative: Replace, Rollout, Report, and Reengineer. The main components of the Replace phase include the replacement of the Disbursing Office general ledger system (DÖVES), the upgrading of the Sergeant at Arms mainframe core financial system to support the financial management operation for the Senate on a single, Year 2000 compliant platform, and the replacement and deployment of an automated procurement system within the Offices of the Secretary and the Sergeant at Arms. These tasks were completed October 1, 1998.

The selection of the Senate for the core financial and procurement systems are the KPMG Federal FAMIS 4.0 and ADPICS 4.5 products that are both warranted by KPMG to be Year 2000 compliant. Federal FAMIS (Financial Accounting Management Information System) is the general ledger system that replaces a conglomeration of more than a dozen existing systems. ADPICS (Advanced Purchasing and Inventory Control System) is an upgrade to the purchasing system used by the Sergeant at Arms, and replaces purchasing capabilities of several other systems throughout the Senate. The FAMIS and ADPICS products are being integrated so that the Senate may instantly record the procurement activity as a financial event on the general ledger. The ADPICS product is also being used as the front end voucher preparation system that will replace the systems currently being used by the Member Offices and Committees.

The Rollout phase of FMIS involves the distribution of the financial and purchasing systems throughout Member Offices, Committees, and other administrative offices of the Senate. The two main tasks in this phase are the training of functional staff and technical support of the offices once they are online. The third phase of FMIS is Report, referring to financial reporting. The Disbursing Office has developed a classification structure that will enable entity level reporting and the general ledger structure necessary to create proprietary financial statements. One of the major tasks in the reporting phase is the development and integration of a fixed asset module that will provide timely asset valuation and allow the financial staff to depreciate the value of equipment used by the Senate. Another major reporting task is the complete revision of the Report of the Secretary of the Senate to extract data from FMIS more efficiently than was the case in previous systems. Development and distribution of financial reports to FMIS users will also be a major focus of the reporting phase of FMIS.

The Reengineer phase will be the final phase of FMIS. Consistent with the strategic initiatives adopted by the Senate, the Disbursing Office intends to implement the FMIS vision for a secure, paperless, fully integrated financial system complete with signature authentication, optical scanning, storage and retrieval of documents. Several financial policy decisions have been made during the implementation that will have an immediate impact on the financial reporting capabilities of the Senate. The Disbursing Office has adopted the Standard General Ledger used by the Federal Government. This decision will enable the Senate to prepare standard financial statements consistent in form and content with other federal agencies. Also adopted is the object classification for expenditures of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This decision will enable the categorization of budget authority and expenditure reporting consistently throughout the Senate and consistent with the other federal agencies.

These changes are essential. In addition, however, to replacing non-Y2K systems, the Disbursing Office has had to replace a conglomeration of stand-alone financial systems located throughout the Senate. Member Offices currently utilize the SOAS99 system to prepare vouchers and Committees use the Senate Committee Expense Accounting System (SCEAS). These systems were developed internally by the Senate to provide offices with a front-end capability to create vouchers and track individual budgets and they were, for the most part, easy to use. The Disbursing Office, however, is carrying out the two-fold mandate of the Senate to: Implement a single financial management system with COTS technology that is Year 2000 compliant; and account for funds on the obligation and accrual basis, with the capability to produce auditable, consolidated financial statements.

It was therefore necessary for the Senate to move in a new direction.

The successful implementation of FMIS to date has depended on the outstanding cooperation and dedication of the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Rules and Administration, the Office of the Secretary, the Office of the Sergeant at Arms, and the Member and Committee offices.

Legislative Information System (LIS)

LIS is a mandated system (2 U.S.C. 123e) with the objective of providing desktop access to the content and status of all Senate legislative information and supporting documents.

One of the early accomplishments in the LIS project was the 1997 implementation of an Amendment Tracking System (ATS). This system enables the Bill Clerk to scan floor amendments as received at the desk. Within twenty minutes, Senators and staff can view the text of an amendment from their personal computers. During the past year, this system had two major enhancements implemented. These enhancements offer status and statements of purpose when provided by the sponsors and enable users to perform detailed searches for particular amendments by amendment number, bill number, date introduced, or sponsor. System reliability was improved and a method was implemented for easier printing of the entire amendment (a frequently requested requirement). During the coming year, the Amendment Tracking System will be interfaced with the new Document Management System that is being implemented as a core component of LIS.

An anecdote related by a staffer tells how ATS has proven to be timely, accurate, and authoritative: The staffer had received a copy of an amendment via fax from one of the policy groups, but when the staffer printed it from the LIS Amendment Tracking System, it was clear that the faxed version was already out of date. (On their way to delivering amendments to the clerks, Senators sometimes make handwritten changes.) ATS provided a timely and accurate scanned photographic reproduction of the amendment copy as the Senator filed it.

Also in 1998, a new Committee Scheduling application was developed and implemented, replacing the old, difficult to use system. The committee scheduling capability enables the Daily Digest Office to better schedule committee and subcommittee meetings and to allow all Senate users to retrieve information about committee meetings and hearings. Reports available from the new system include: Today's Meetings/Hearings, Scheduled Meetings/Hearings, Member's Individual Schedules, Specific Committee Schedules and Conflicts, and Combined Schedules for Members of a Specific Committee. The web-browser implementation provides convenient access from all Senate user PC's. In the coming year, the Committee Scheduling application will be interfaced with the new Document Management System. The LIS Document Management System (DMS) development began in August 1998. The DMS is to provide a central repository for all Senate information including legislation and support documentation. The system will collect, manage, store, retrieve, and report various types of data by providing accessibility, management, and tracking of information in various formats. The LIS DMS, by transmitting data to the Library of Congress retrieval system, will serve a wide user base, often with different, and sometimes unique, sets of requirements: clerks of the Secretary of the Senate, Senate Library, Senate members and staff, the House of Representatives, Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Government Printing Office, and the public. The primary objective of Phase I, initiated in 1998 and to be completed in June, 1999, is to deliver a Year 2000 functional replacement for the existing LEGIS system with the ability to support document attributes, external interfaces, legacy data conversion, and reporting. Phase II, also to be completed in 1999, is to incorporate textural data and ad hoc reporting in the DMS. Interfaces to the Senate Amendment Tracking System and the Committee Scheduling System are to be established.

As the Legislative Information System and Document Management System (LIS/ DMS) are intended to serve varied groups of users, many with unique requirements, the Office of the Secretary and Senate Office of Education and Training provide LIS training with the primary objective to prepare Senate staff to test, use, maintain, and support the LIS/DMS. Training is provided for Senate clerks, system administrators, and end users; since each audience has distinct needs, the training approach is highly customized. It might be noted here that although every effort is being made toward a comprehensive training program, many end users have reported that the LIS is so "user-friendly" and the published materials are so helpful that they do not feel the need to take time from the job to attend training sessions.

Y2K compliance

The Sergeant at Arms ensures Year 2000 compliance in the Senate. The Office of the Secretary can report, however, that Y2K compliance is being engineered in the FMIS and LIS strategic initiatives, and that a Y2K assessment has been made of all other hardware and software within the Office, with a schedule in place to complete the timely replacement or upgrade of all non-compliant systems, programs, and applications.

The FMIS project, as noted above, is consolidating and replacing a conglomeration of stand-alone financial systems located throughout the Senate, none of which was Year 2000 compliant, with a single financial management system that is warranted to be Year 2000 compliant. The current FMIS applications presently used in the Disbursing Office and the Sergeant at Arms consist of two modules, FAMIS and ADPICS, that the vendor, KPMG, has warranted compliant. Y2K compliance will be verified in early summer, 1999, through independent testing, e.g, by a non-KPMG consultant.

Separately, FMIS will ensure that the Senate payroll system is Year 2000 compliant through an upgrade of the existing software supplied by the original vendor. The upgrade package is the Integral 9.5 version of its package now in use. With the upgrade package, Integral supplies step-by-step instructions, and the vendor thoroughly tested the package before released to its customers. Y2K conversion of the payroll is now in acceptance testing, and will be completed before October 1, 1999.

The LIS project, now composed of the Amendment Tracking, Committee Scheduling, and Document Management systems, will replace the current LEGIS mainframe application in August, 1999. Y2K compliance will be ensured by the system replacement.

Other Y2K projects now underway in the Office of the Secretary, scheduled for completion no later than the end of summer, 1999, include the replacement hardware and software for the Office of Printing and Document Services, and the mainframe replacement for the Stationery Room and Gift Shop.

The Office of the Secretary Information Systems Department, in conjunction with the Sergeant at Arms Y2K Project Office, has assessed Y2K readiness and compliance for all existing hardware and software systems installed in this Office. This process began in May, 1998, with a detailed assessment by the Mitretek Group of all computer-related activity. The assessment, completed in December, provides a detailed risk analysis of the mission critical functions. During this same time frame, and in parallel with the assessment, all personal computers within the Office were updated or replaced with compliant hardware. Even more importantly, the outdated network transfer method of transmitting the text of legislation from the Capitol to the Government Printing Office was replaced. Legislation is now transferred electronically to GPO via Y2K-compliant gateways.

Further details regarding Y2K compliance within the Office of the Secretary may be found in the attached annual reports submitted by the departments. Every step in ensuring Y2K compliance within the Office of the Secretary is taken in conjunction with the Sergeant at Arms.

PERSONNEL CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE

As discussed in the reports for the last two years, there are positions in the Office of the Secretary—particularly but not exclusively within the legislative departments that are essential to the constitutional responsibilities of the Senate, and that require institutional knowledge and experience to master, but have little comparability to executive-branch or private-sector occupations. Those positions that especially depend on institutional knowledge and experience will always present the Senate with a major challenge.

The past twelve months have seen the death of the Legislative Clerk, and the actual or announced retirements of the Financial Clerk, the Journal Clerk, the Executive Clerk, the Daily Digest Editor, the Chief Reporter of Debates, and the Director of the Office of Printing and Document Services.

In all cases, the Office of the Secretary has maintained and will continue to maintain the essential functions that these departments perform. All of these positions have been filled with highly capable individuals, and there are now no vacancies in any department head position, nor in any deputy position. This depth is creditable to the concrete steps taken in past years to identify incumbent employees and prospective new hires who are highly qualified, appropriately experienced, and committed to the Senate for the long term to meet the high professional standards the Senate requires and to become qualified to assume greater responsibilities.

The Office of the Secretary intends to continue to focus on skill development, under which highly qualified employees are offered opportunities to learn additional skills. This focus is to ensure that there are trained resources in every function, that all of the legislative departments are fully staffed by individuals who have significant on-the-job training and experience, and that the careers of at least two individuals are developed with the potential to succeed to each department head responsibility. Through the development of additional skills, these individuals may come from within or without the specific departments that they may be asked to head.