ANTICIPATED CHANGES IN CLERK'S ORGANIZATION

Mr. FAZIO. Is Doug here, by the way?

Mr. ANDERSON. No, Doug is not here today.

The chart reflects the offices operating under the Clerk at the close of 1992. However, changes are expected in the coming months and I will be conferring with you and Mr. Lombard regarding such changes that will affect personnel and other resources.

Among the first changes will be that of the General Counsel's Office, which will be transferred to operate under the Speaker and become the Office of General Counsel to the House. Although this office has been a part of the Clerk's operations since its inception a number of years ago, it has provided services and representation to the entire House institutionally and the Members individually.

Mr. Steven Ross, who has directed this office for a number of years, is here and will discuss the immediate plans for the General Counsel's new operations.

STATEMENT OF HOUSE GENERAL COUNSEL

Mr. FAZIO. Steve, why don't you have a word with us.

After we finish with Steve, we will get back to some further introductions within your organizational structure. People here should know who and what we are talking about. Steve, go ahead.

Mr. Ross. Mr. Chairman, as you know, the House and the adoption of the rules at the beginning of this Congress created an Office of General Counsel to the House as part of Rule 1, the duties of the Speaker. Our office will in essence be performing the same duties that we have over the last decade or so, and be subjected to the oversight and direction of the Speaker and a bipartisan legal advisory group composed of the Speaker, the Majority and Minority Leader and Majority and Minority Whip.

We have functioned substantively in that fashion, as I said, actually since the late 1970s. We have been administratively placed under the Clerk's office. The effect of the rule is to administratively put us in a different location. One of the immediate impacts is the necessity therefore to come up with a separate budget.

The budget that we submitted can be looked at in two separate parts, the personnel costs and nonpersonnel costs. It was much easier to get an estimate handle on the personnel costs. Essentially, the office has historically functioned with five lawyers. We have for the last couple of years gone with four lawyers, although for a portion of that time, we did have a fifth lawyer on detail loan from the Library of Congress.

Our estimate is that in the future we will need the full complement of five lawyers. We have had five support personnel, that is the number that are in the office now. They are comprised of three secretaries, one of whom functions as the office manager. The other two are legal secretaries, a paralegal who spends a good deal of her time on document production matters, and a law student functioning as a law clerk, a position we have had in the office for a number of years.

GENERAL COUNSEL'S FY 1994 NON-PERSONNEL ESTIMATE

The nonpersonnel expenses were more difficult to estimate. We have, frankly, been sponging off the Clerk for the last decade or so. And so, for example, when we needed to purchase a legal treatise or something, I just wrote up the memo and Donn paid for it. I realize that service will no longer be available.

In order to come up with an estimate, what we did is there is a similar office operating in the Senate, the Office of Senate Legal Counsel, which has been operating as a separate budget matter since the late 1970s. They routinely estimate that their expensesnonpersonnel expenses-would be $90,000 a year, in the hopes of then returning some.

Of course, we won't know exactly what our requirements will be until we see what lawsuits are filed during the year and what the requirements of each suit is.

Mr. FAZIO. Is it fair to say when your budget shows an immediate increase, we are in a heap of trouble here?

Mr. Ross. Or the judges are not interpreting the law correctly. Mr. FAZIO. I see.

Mr. Ross. For a time being. And so, for example, we—we had a suit filed, it was originally filed in D.C., but transferred to Tennessee a number of years ago that necessitated quite a number of trips for discovery purposes, and potentially would have involved a multi-week trial in Memphis, Tennessee. That involved a great number of expenses.

A similar lawsuit if filed today might be able to be dismissed in an initial motion, so it is a little difficult to estimate. What we have done is we have taken the Senate estimate, and because we have 435 direct clients as compared with their 100, and because there may be certain start-up costs that are difficult to anticipate, in terms of computers and other equipment at this point, I have for the initial estimate estimated 150 percent of the nonpersonnel cost of the Senate office, which resulted in an estimate of $135,000.

DISCUSSION ON SHARING RESOURCES

Mr. FAZIO. It is probably fair to say, Steve, that we are going to have a period of time to adjust your budget, and we may need to do some reprogramming or transferring in or out, depending on how closely we come. But I think anything you can do to continue to borrow and to share overhead would be ideal. We don't need to recreate equipment that will sit idle.

Mr. Ross. Right. It is my intention-and the Clerk and I have had some discussions and will continue to the extent that we can share resources, either with the Clerk or the Speaker's office or someone else, it has always been my hope to do so, and like my counterpart on the Senate, I would anticipate that barring an unforeseen avalanche of litigation, that we would be able to return a significant portion of that nonpersonnel cost.

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman?

Mr. FAZIO. Mr. Young?

GENERAL COUNSEL UNDER DIRECTION OF SPEAKER

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Ross, on the organizational chart that we had for last year, you are here under the Clerk of the House. Now, under the new diagram, your box will move over to the Speaker's? Mr. Ross. In essence. It is similar to the House rules to the Office of the Historian, which was created as an independent entity under Rule 1.

Mr. YOUNG. Has this transfer already taken place? Just practically, are you functioning now as the

Mr. Ross. Yes. As a legal matter it occurred when the House adopted the rules on opening day. As a practical matter, for substantive purposes, we have been functioning for as I said well over a decade under the direction of the Speaker and the bipartisan and legal advisory group.

Mr. YOUNG. For budgetary purposes, when you moved, was there a budget transfer? Did you transfer your personnel from the Clerk's account to your account, or to the Speaker's account?

Mr. Ross. You would really have to ask Mike Heny.

Mr. HENY. Mr. Chairman, we have not presented a request yet. Mr. FAZIO. So we will focus on that in our markup.

Mr. Ross. We have been showing up to work and hoping to get paid.

EXPLANATION OF BUDGETS RISING

Mr. YOUNG. The reason I ask the question is because as I look at the proposed bill, your dollar figure is $794,000, which is the estimate that you required. But the Clerk's office didn't go down to account for moving personnel to your account. As a matter of fact, the Clerk's budget went up considerably, and I just wondered if we get any credit for moving the personnel from one office to another.

Mr. HENY. If I could answer that question. The Clerk's estimate did show a reduction for the General Counsel's Office, but the Clerk has additional requests that brought the level up. So in 1994 we have requested a separate estimate for that. 1993 is the year we will be reprogramming funds for his office.

Mr. FAZIO. Last year we anticipated a number for these transfers. In fact, the language relating to the Counsel and Inspector General and the other newly created entities is included in the Director of Nonlegislative and Financial Services budget.

Mr. Ross. And the office will continue to provide legal support, not only to the Clerk, but all of the House officers as well as the Members and Committees of the House.

Mr. FAZIO. Shall we move on?

Mr. Ross. Thank you.

INTRODUCTION OF CLERK's chiefs and DIRECTORS

Mr. ANDERSON. I have mentioned Mr. Heny from Finance. I would like to introduce to the subcommittee the replacement as Chief of Office Systems Management Mrs. Mary Ann Wise.

Mary Ann served for many years as assistant chief to Mrs. Byrd in her earlier incarnation. Mary Ann has considerable experience in this office and will provide effective management and leadership.

The other chiefs and directors-and I have the answer as to the difference between chiefs and directors this year, Mr. Chairman, if you want to revisit that issue-are Mr. John Kostelnick in Office Furnishings; Ms. Susan Zeleniak, Telecommunications, and Mr. Bill Kinter, her assistant; Mr. Ray Young, Office Supply Service; Mr. John Jenkins, Legislative Operations; Mr. Charles Gustafson, Official Reporters of Debates; Mr. Ray Boyum, Official Reporters to Committees; Mr. Joe Simpson, Printing Services; Mr. William Moody, House Recording Studio; Ms. Patricia Bias, Records and Registration; Ms. Deborah Jo Turner, Office of Legislative Information, who was promoted to head this office when Ms. Anne Bartlett retired last year; Mr. Thomas Hawk of Legislative Computer Systems; Mr. John McDermott, Placement Office; Mr. Emmanuel Lewis, House Library; Mr. Bernard Beidel, Office of Employee Assistance, who spoke to the committee last year; Mr. William Baranowski, Office of Fair Employment Practices; Ms. Deborah Jans, Special Services; and Mrs. Natalie Gitelman of the Child Care Center.

Time does not are permit all of these chiefs or directors to appear before the subcommittee, Mr. Chairman. If there is particular interest in any individual office, I shall certainly have its manager appear and answer your questions. I have always endeavored to bring new operations to your attention such as last year when Mr. Beidel discussed the Office of Employee Assistance. Each of my offices and departments prepares an annual report on the past year's activities, including proposed plans or activities for the new year. I have always offered these reports to the subcommittee for confidential review. They are not public reports, but are a management tool for use in reviewing operations, planning and development of future work and activity.

ACCOLADE FOR RELOCATING MEMBER OFFICES

I cannot complete this statement without paying special attention to the very various efficient and massive amount of work done by three of my departments, with the coordination of the Superintendent of Buildings Mr. Bob Miley, in relocating offices of House Members and readying the offices of new Members. My offices of Telecommunications, directed by Ms. Zeleniak; Office Systems Management, directed by Ms. Wise; and Office Furnishings, directed by Mr. Kostelnick, literally worked day and many nights, weekends and holidays, starting on December 15th to relocate and install telephones, equipment and furniture. After the 110 retiring Members moved out, approximately 202 incumbent Members moved their offices to new locations. When this was completed, the vacant offices were readied for the new Members, and a total of 110 new members-an historic number-arrived on January 3rd to assume their roles as Representatives to their constituents.

I wish to commend every staff person involved in this activity and to offer my congratulations to Mr. Miley his overall coordination of this incredible project. Planning for this undertaking started late last summer, and the efficient accomplishment of all this work deserves great commendation.