Clerk and his office, but will be executed under the supervision of the Director.

TRANSFER OF FUNCTIONS

On December 28 of last year, I officially assumed my duties as Director. On January 3rd this year, the House Post Office transferred to my jurisdiction. Mr. Shinay, the former acting House Postmaster and now Director of House Postal Operations, whom you have already welcomed this morning, Mr. Chairman, and I have been meeting for the past few weeks to review the operations and administration of his organization. I must say I have been very favorably impressed with the direction that he and his staff have taken to improve operations and employee morale. Mr. Shinay has instituted, I believe, the necessary controls to ensure accountability of funds and efficient management of assigned personnel.

I have submitted a request to the Committee on House Administration for the House Finance Office to transfer to the Director's supervision by the end of January, and with it responsibility for oversight of the budget and financial services for the House. To date, I have received several briefings from the Chief, Mr. Heny, and the staff of the House Finance Office concerning the financial operations of the House. I have been briefed on the laws, rules, regulations and those policies that govern the appropriation of funds for the operation of the House, as well as the internal operations of the House Finance Office. Mr. Chairman, from what I have seen so far, I really am pleased with the controls that are in place governing the expenditures and accounting for taxpayer's money in that office. I believe the House Finance Office is well managed, well organized and delivers a quality service to the House, the Members and our employees.

I will continue to work with the Committee on House Administration to plan for the transfer of the remaining functions and activities over the next several months. This will be accomplished in an orderly fashion to ensure the continued provision of services to the House and to its Members, with due consideration for having the necessary management controls in place at the time of transfer. It is my expectation that with the concurrence of the Committee on House Administration, most of these transfers could be accomplished and completed by September of this year. Thus, while the budget before you reflects only the postal operations and a small three-person staff under the direct jurisdiction of the Director of Non-legislative and Financial Services, by the time of budget execution, a majority of the functions and activities identified for transfer will have transferred to the supervision of the Director.

Mr. Chairman, in closing, I wish to assure you and the Members of this subcommittee that all of those involved in establishing this new organization are fully committed to an orderly transfer of functions, concern for the employees involved, and continued efficient and effective service to the institution of the House and its Members. Everyone with whom I have worked over the past weeks has been cooperative and helpful; and in particular, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the assistance and gracious cooperation of the Clerk, Mr. Anderson, and his staff. The operations

under his supervision that are scheduled for transfer are well-managed and staffed with many dedicated and loyal employees. Mr. Anderson, I believe, has gone out of his way to prepare them for a smooth transfer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Members.

Mr. FAZIO. Thank you for your comments. It is reassuring to hear that, even on first blush, you think things are being run well in the operations of The House of Representatives, particularly in the Clerk's Office and some of those other agencies that fall under the purview of the House Administration Committee. It is very reassuring and good news for all of us who have had our share of bad news in recent years. It is nice to have you with us and we look forward to working with you. Do you want to continue, Donn?

Mr. ANDERSON. First, I want to thank General Wishart for his remarks, particularly for his comments regarding the management and employees of the Clerk's Office. If I may speak out of order for just a moment, Mr. Chairman, I would like to briefly address myself to that point. There has been a strong suggestion, mainly from the public media, that the House lacks professional managers and employees. It has been suggested that in the United States House of Representatives, unlike any other sector of American endeavor with which I am familiar, it is impossible for one to start at the bottom and successfully achieve higher levels of responsibility together with commensurate professionalism through hard work, experience, understanding, study, loyalty and patience. By implication, one who is already here is not professional and can never become professional, which I find absurd.

I have just begun my 34th year as a servant of the House and am immodestly proud of every year and every job which I have held. I have approached my career in the traditional values with which my parents prepared me for life: start small, do my best, and hope that someone will notice and consider me for advancement. Never did I expect or receive any guarantees. My own experience has been repeated thousands of times amongst the staff of the House of Representatives. I am proud to be in the service of this institution and to be part of a work force which identifies so strongly and so loyally with this institution. In that respect, Mr. Chairman, perhaps we really are different.

Thank you for indulging me.

Mr. FAZIO. I appreciate your comments, Donn. I think you speak for many, many other people who have taken a similar career path. Parenthetically, the people of your old hometown of Sacramento, California are proud of you, too.

INTRODUCTION OF FINANCE OFFICE STAFF

Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Our usual veteran team of Clerk's staff accompany me. You already mentioned the presence of Mr. W. Raymond Colley, Deputy Clerk, Mr. Michael Heny, Chief of the Office of Finance; his Assistant Chiefs, Mrs. Jane Mattoon and Mr. Art Smith; and our Assistants for Budget, Mr. Michael Buckley and Ms. Patricia Mattimore.

I will introduce other members of my staff or directors of various offices when we reach the Clerk's Office in this testimony.

All of the information in this statement, in your subcommittee print and the additional information we will provide from time to time has been assembled, organized and reviewed by the Finance Office group. Although we collect and prepare the financial details for all House offices and we disburse the funds that will be appropriated, we do not obligate such funds. Obligations are made by many persons—such as Members, Committee Chairmen, leadership, and House officers. Many laws, rules, regulations and policies govern the appropriation of the budgeted funds and their eventual obligations and disbursement.

Before proceeding with my remarks regarding the fiscal year 1994 budget proposals, I would like to advise the Subcommittee of the situation regarding fiscal year 1993 expenditures. As you know, the 1993 budget was reduced and funds for House activities will be carefully managed to insure that all anticipated obligations can be met. We are reviewing the expenditures for the first quarter to determine where any potential problems will emerge. I will give the Subcommittee a careful analysis at the end of six months into the fiscal year, and advise you at that time what must be done to reduce obligations, transfer funds to meet needs, et cetera. For now, I can advise that we will need some transfers to make payments that are authorized but for which funds will not be adequate.

DISCUSSION ON REPROGRAMMING

Mr. FAZIO. May I interrupt at this point? I want to underscore the question of reprogrammings. It became rather controversial, as you know, last year. Before we go on into the rest of this fiscal year, and talk in terms of what readjustments are needed, could you give us some understanding of what we did in fiscal year 1992. I want people to understand this is on the record, it is available, and I think it is pretty benign, personally. But I think that is a matter each Member must judge. If you could, generally run through the reprogramming requests that occurred during fiscal year 1992.

Mr. ANDERSON. I am going to yield to Mike Heny, Chief of the Office of Finance, to respond to your question, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HENY. Mr. Chairman, the reprogramming requests we submit to the subcommittee are of a routine nature. Funds are authorized for Members to expend by the Committee on House Administration. As you know, the subcommittee then appropriates dollars for those authorizations. In fact, this subcommittee does not always appropriate full funding of the authorization, so we may have a gap between the authorized level and the funded level.

Mr. FAZIO. A good example of that is Members' clerk hire?

Mr. HENY. That is correct. Members have an authorization to expend on a monthly basis. We see from time to time some Members expend all the dollars in that authorization; others do not. In the request process, when we come to the committee for funds, we try to estimate the expenditure level of those funds. Oftentimes, we are right on target; othertimes we are not. The routine nature of

the transfer is to bring the funding level up to the expenditure level as long as we do not exceed the authorized amount. That is the routine nature of our reprogramming requests. It is to get those dollars in line with the expenditures that have been underfunded because of the funding restraints placed on the appropriation process.

Mr. FAZIO. We have always had a tradition on this Subcommittee that the Ranking Member of the Minority and the Chairman must always agree to proceed with requests to reprogram funds. If we don't agree the request is not processed. We have never had a reprogramming take place that didn't have support on both sides of the aisle. Sometimes that issue might be controversial enough to elevate consideration to the leadership; but, in general, these are routine matters and they are good business practices.

FISCAL 1992 CLERK HIRE REPROGRAMMING

Mr. HENY. That is correct. If I may add one more line, Mr. Chairman. In fiscal year 1992, for instance, our appropriation amount provided in the appropriation bill was $218,500,000. The expenditure level that was required was $227,000,000. So we requested reprogramming authority through the subcommittee. But at the end of the fiscal year, we had an actual balance of only $7,000 remaining in the account.

Mr. FAZIO. That was Clerk hire?

Mr. HENY. That is correct.

Mr. FAZIO. Ron?

Mr. PACKARD. These are reprogrammed within the budget category, not requests for additional or new funds through a continuing resolution or something of that nature or supplemental?

Mr. FAZIO. That's correct. Mike, why don't you explain how a reprogramming request might typically emerge and come up to us, the need for it, and then what you do to try to resolve it by finding funds in some other area.

Mr. HENY. If we could go back to the example of Members allowances: the Clerk hire allowance and the official expense allowance. The Committee on House Administration has given Members, individually, authorization to transfer money between these two accounts, up to $75,000 either way, by submitting a transfer form to my office. In our budget projections, we try to estimate what the Members will transfer between their allowances. Some Members opt to use more of their allowances for personnel expenses; some Members would rather use more of the allowances for non-personnel expenses. That is typically what causes a shortfall in one allowance or the other.

In the example I gave, in 1992 we requested a transfer from the Subcommittee to move money from Official Expenses of Members to Members' Clerk Hire. We used funds appropriated to support Members' allowances to transfer from one appropriation account to the second appropriation account.

Mr. FAZIO. In that case you specifically were dealing with the same two accounts?

Mr. HENY. Same type of money.

Mr. FAZIO. You misestimated what the level of transfer would be?

Mr. HENY. That is correct.

DISCUSSION ON REPROGRAMMING SIMILAR ACCOUNTS

Mr. FAZIO. In another area, would you take from another House item to transfer?

Mr. HENY. We would typically do that. We try to keep like amounts the same. Members administrative expenses from the administrative accounts, supplies, materials, administrative costs within that allowance, government contributions, the government contributions account depends upon the level of personnel ex

penses.

So when personnel expenses rise, then obviously the government portion of the funding is understated, also. So we need to add additional dollars there.

Mr. FAZIO. For example, health benefits, and so on?

Mr. HENY. That is correct.

Mr. YOUNG. You mentioned that you had only $7,000 left in the account last year. Which account was that?

Mr. HENY. Members' clerk hire. In the appropriation account.

UNOBLIGATED, UNEXPENDED BALANCES DISCUSSED

Mr. YOUNG. What about the Members' official expense accounts? What kind of balance did you have there?

Mr. HENY. Right now we have approximately less than $2 million remaining in that account. That was out of $82 million.

Mr. YOUNG. Are there unexpended balances in any of the other

Mr. HENY. There are unexpended balances. I have to remind you we have obligations incurred during that fiscal year that remain unpaid that continue to come in.

Mr. YOUNG. I understand that. I am thinking about unexpended balances that just continue to be unexpended without being obligated.

Mr. HENY. There probably are funds that are unobligated balances, yes.

Mr. YOUNG. Do you know if they go back any lengthy period of time?

Mr. HENY. Normal progression is after three years they are returned to Treasury. The 1993 appropriations after three years will be returned to Treasury.

Mr. FAZIO. Unless we act, as we did in the rescission legislation, to foreclose going back? In fact, I think we eliminated any unobligated funds?

Mr. HENY. We did $21 million in the fiscal year 1993 bill.

Mr. FAZIO. At the moment, there is probably less than in recent years?

Mr. HENY. Typically we have two percent of the total appropriation unexpended. The balance in FY 91 is currently $2.9 million, less than 1% of the $642.8 million appropriated.