[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF THE CLERK, SERGEANT AT ARMS, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER,
AND INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
ADMINISTRATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
Held in Washington, DC, Wednesday, April 28, 2010
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration
Available on the Internet:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/administration/index.html
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57-844 WASHINGTON : 2010
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COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania, Chairman
ZOE LOFGREN, California, DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California,
Vice-Chairwoman Ranking Minority Member
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts KEVIN McCARTHY, California
CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas GREGG HARPER, Mississippi
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
Jamie Fleet, Staff Director
Victor Arnold-Bik, Minority Staff Director
OVERSIGHT OF THE CLERK, SERGEANT AT ARMS, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER,
AND INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2010
House of Representatives,
Committee on House Administration,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:17 a.m., in Room
1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Robert A. Brady
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Brady, Lofgren, Capuano, Davis of
California, Lungren, and Harper.
Staff Present: Tom Hicks, Senior Election Counsel; Matt
Pinkus, Professional Staff/Parliamentarian; Kyle Anderson,
Press Director; Joe Wallace, Legislative Clerk; Greg Abbott,
Professional Staff; Darrell O'Connor, Professional Staff;
Shervan Sebastian, Staff Assistant; Victor Arnold-Bik, Minority
Staff Director; Karin Moore, Minority Legislative Counsel;
Salley Collins, Minority Press Secretary; Katie Ryan, Minority
Professional Staff; and Mary Sue Englund, Minority Professional
Staff.
The Chairman. We now will convene the House Administration
Committee oversight hearing with the officers of the House and
the acting inspector general. They will have the opportunity
give us an overview of current activities and plans for new
initiatives.
Each of them reports to and meets with members of the
committee on a regular basis in their weekly staff meetings to
keep us apprised of ongoing events which may require direct
oversight involvement by this committee.
The House has developed a strong professional staff for its
internal management. And the institution, as it operates today,
has the flexibility to respond to new challenges and to
incorporate new technologies while retaining its historical
identity and traditions.
I would like to ask our ranking member, Mr. Lungren, if he
has any statement before I introduce our panel.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I think this is an important and appropriate hearing, and I
thank you for holding it. We do have a responsibility to have
these hearings to find out from the officers of the House about
their operations and to raise questions that may have been
raised by other Members with us and that we have raised, as
well.
One of the things that I think is important for us to do is
to make public those things that we have done, all of us, in
attempting to be good fiscal stewards. And I think it is
important for us to say on the record those things that we have
done in our various capacities and the various officers of the
House in terms of ensuring that we have been trying to operate
budgets in as prudent a way as possible. We owe it to
ourselves, we owe it to our constituents to do that.
I have been concerned about some of the comments I have
received from some other Members about some of the services
that they have received. One of the things that I have been
concerned about is the level of staff training that is going
on, the way financial counselors have been assigned. And one of
the things that concerns me is how we moved some of our
training away from here in the Capitol complex to the--I call
the Ford Building the outreaches of the Capitol complex, making
it considerably difficult for us to attract staff people over
there because of the difficulty that they have in coordinating
that with the work that they have.
We all know that our staff oftentimes need to respond to
particular requests, immediate requests that they receive from
Members of Congress. And it is very helpful to have them as
close as possible in those circumstances. And I have been
informed that, in May alone, staffers interested in attending
11 of the 36 courses offered will have to go over to the Ford
Building and have it there, when, in the past, we have had
those particular courses offered right here.
And among those classes that are sent over there is one
that I think is extremely important to Members of Congress, and
that is instructing our staff on how to manage the MRA. There
is nothing that can get a Member in more trouble than
mismanaging the MRA. And there are some very specific nuances
that, frankly, are not caught anywhere else except here in the
House of Representatives. The new employee orientation, staff
assistant 101 and intern 101, those are essential programs.
One of the things I would bring up--and I wonder if there
is any attention to this with respect to the interns--is, I
have at least heard anecdotally that we have had an increase in
the number of--well, I don't know if I would call it an
increase. There have been a number of instances in which staff-
led tours have become only staff-led tours to the film that is
available over at the CVC. And then some people have come out
with groups as large as 50 and found out whoever the staff
person was that brought them over there is no longer there, and
then we have our folks that I affectionately call the ``red
coats'' trying to pick up the slack.
And I just wonder in the program that we have, in terms of
intern orientation, whether or not we are--or whatever it is,
staff orientation--whether or not we are making it clear that
when we in this committee decided that we wanted to ensure that
staff-led tours continued, we meant staff-led tours, not staff
leading them over to the film and then leaving them and then
causing difficulty not only with the red coats having to then
try and pick it up, but, as I understand, then, the flow that
we have created for those tours is interrupted.
And this has just come to my attention. So I think it is
one thing that we need to do.
I would like to specifically commend the efforts of the
Office of the Inspector General. I think that that office has
been very diligent in assisting us in attempting to eradicate
what we call waste, fraud, and abuse. Their audit, advisory,
and investigative services have helped to ensure the efficiency
and effectiveness of the House.
The Clerk of the House, that office is charged with
carrying out a lot of things that are important to Members. And
I look forward to hearing your testimony.
Mr. Livingood, thank you for being here. I understand you
had to do some travel to make sure you got back here in time.
We appreciate that.
And, Mr. Beard, we appreciate your attendance here, as
well. And I look forward to hearing from all of our officers at
this hearing.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Anybody else want to make a statement?
I noticed our dear friend, our technical director, Sterling
Spriggs, is here. I understand that we were going to be sent a
note, but I would rather put you on the record. I am on Armed
Services with about 72 Members, and there are 72 monitors. We
authorized that. Can we authorize maybe, like, nine more
monitors here?
I feel embarrassed that I am the only one that can see what
is going on. And I learned a long time ago that knowledge can
be a horrible thing. I would like all my colleagues to know
what is going on on the House floor. So it can't be that much
more expensive to get about eight more monitors for us.
Mr. Spriggs. Consider it done.
The Chairman. Thank you. Thank you so much.
I would like now to introduce to everyone our panel here.
The Clerk of the House, Lorraine Miller, who was elected to
that position in 2007. Madam Clerk, I know that this week marks
a significant milestone in your efforts to increase access and
transparency to our House proceedings by introducing HouseLive,
an interactive tool providing live stream of the House floor. I
look forward to hearing your testimony on this and other
initiatives to better increase service to Members, staff, and
the general public.
Wilson--I didn't ever know that--Bill Livingood is a
neighbor of mine, grew up right near where I grew up in
Philadelphia, and then left on to much better things, unlike
me. But anyway, Wilson Livingood, Bill Livingood has served as
the Sergeant at Arms for the House since 1995.
Let me take the time to say that your office did a great
job in maintaining security for the House and its Members by
providing access to visitors seeking to lobby and communicate
during recent events which generated strong public interest in
our legislative activities. And I am eager to hear about
continued security improvements.
We will then hear the testimony from Chief Administrative
Officer Dan Beard, who has served in that post since 2007. As
the House moves forward to provide greater transparency to the
public, the Office of the CAO has taken a significant recent
step by providing the statement of disbursements, SOD, online.
And I look forward to hearing about this and other methods to
provide greater efficiency within the House.
Last but not least, Terry Grafenstine is our acting
inspector general for the House. We appreciate the seamless
continuity that you have provided since Inspector General
Cornell's retirement in 2009. Your office overview and
evaluation provides greater efficiency and management of our
House operations. And I look forward to your testimony.
And now I would like to ask the Honorable Lorraine C.
Miller if you would please pull that microphone, push that
button, and you are on.
STATEMENTS OF THE HON. LORRAINE C. MILLER, CLERK, U.S. HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES; THE HON. WILSON LIVINGOOD, SERGEANT AT ARMS,
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; THE HON. DANIEL P. BEARD, CHIEF
ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; THERESA
GRAFENSTINE, ACTING INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES
STATEMENT OF THE HON. LORRAINE C. MILLER
Ms. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Brady and Ranking Member
Lungren and the members of the committee. Good morning. It is
absolutely my pleasure to be with you this morning to give you
a snapshot of the operations of the Office of the Clerk.
Let me begin by--as you know, our organization supports the
legislative activities of the House. And so I wanted to give
you kind of a brief overview of how you guys have been
operating. It is kind of illustrative of what we are doing.
In the first session of the 111th Congress, you held 2,190
hearings. In the second session, as of Friday, April 16, the
House held 648 hearings.
Roll call votes: In the first session of the 111th, we held
991 roll call votes. In the second session of the 111th, as of
last evening, we held 226 votes.
For bills and resolutions introduced in the House: We have
introduced 6,805 bills and resolutions. We have passed, in the
111th, 1,235 bills. We have enacted into law, public laws--in
the 111th, 160 bills have been enacted into law.
So you can see from that we have been pretty active as a
legislative body.
For funding year 2011, our budget request to the
Appropriations Committee is $29,299,000. On the personnel side
of that, we are requesting $23,284,000, which includes two new
FTEs for software development, which will bring our total FTEs
for the Office of the Clerk to 263. On the non-personnel side,
our request is for $6,015,000. That will take care of our
operational--our licenses that we have to pay for, all of the
equipment that we use.
I want to kind of highlight some of the accomplishments
that we feel that we have done over the last 3 years.
We have hired a new deputy clerk for our page program,
Maria Lopez, who is here in the audience.
Maria, raise your hand.
Maria has the oversight of our page program.
As the chairman mentioned, on Monday of this week we went
live with our HouseLive, as I like to call it, which is a beta
Web streaming service that will offer online realtime video of
the House of Representatives sessions.
Last year, you will remember we installed new LED
technology on the summary board in the Chamber. We expect to
complete that project upon adjournment of the House this year.
And we will continue to work with the committee on the timing
and the installation of that new LED technology on the main
display boards.
The Office of the Clerk launched a new oral history Web
site in December of last year. Our Web site includes interviews
with our former clerk, Don Anderson; the first African American
page; Irving Swanson, who was the reading clerk who took the
roll call votes to declare war on Japan, Germany, and Italy in
1941. We will upgrade those and more oral histories will be
displayed on our Web site.
We also coordinated the hosting of the World e-Parliament
Conference in November of last year. Approximately 25 secretary
generals of parliaments around the world convened here at the
House of Representatives to learn more about technology and the
innovations occurring. Many of the members on this committee
participated in that.
I also wanted to bring to the committee's attention some of
our operational activities that you might find of interest.
Lobbying disclosure: As a result of the Honest Leadership
and Open Government Act, the Office of the Clerk implemented a
new lobbying disclosure system that now has approximately 5,000
lobbying registrant entries, representing some 20,000 clients
currently registered with the Office of the Clerk. Furthermore,
there are approximately 15,000 individual lobbyists now
registered in the Clerk's new lobbying contribution system.
The new law requires that each lobbying registrant, as well
as each individual lobbyist, file a quarterly report with the
Office of the Clerk disclosing certain contributions. In the
second half of 2009, we received over 50,000 electronically
filed forms.
We have been very vigilant about the records of the House.
In 2009, our archival staff processed 3,150,400 official
records of the House of Representatives. In addition, the first
large-scale transfer of electronic records was completed last
year when a committee transferred all of its records--all of
its records--of the 110th Congress, which was about 19.7
gigabytes, electronically.
Our legislative computer services: We will purchase
additional hardware and software to meet the increased demands
on the Clerk's server form. More people than ever rely on the
Clerk's Web site for legislative information and updates. Our
Web site currently averages about 300,000 to 500,000 hits per
week, depending on the legislative schedule. And with this
increased traffic and expanded information, new services that
will be available on the Clerk's site, we must ensure that our
hardware and software are sufficient to meet these needs.
We are working on trying to upgrade the House Library. We
are working with the Architect of the Capitol to find a
suitable space. We have records in three different locations--
here, in the Cannon, in the Madison Building--and we are trying
to combine that. And we are trying to do something that is
digital. Not that we need large stacks, but we need an area
where we can--one-stop shopping for anything you want to know
about the House of Representatives.
We are engaging in one new project with the Document Room,
and that includes the shelving of it. During the fiscal year
2011, the first phase of the project is planned to purchase and
install a high-density mobile shelving system in the House
Documents Room. This will increase our storage for our House
Documents Room and hopefully for the Library. We anticipate
that this will remove all of the antiquated and cumbersome
metal boxes that we have been using in the Documents Room for--
it seems like centuries, but years.
At this point, we are--we have a lot of projects that we
have ongoing. And I think, at this point, I would like to stop
there and welcome any questions that the committee may have.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Miller follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you.
Wilson Livingood. You know you are going to hear that all
the time from me.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. WILSON LIVINGOOD
Mr. Livingood. I have to stop and see who that is.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lungren, and members of
this committee. It is an honor to speak to you this morning.
And, before I begin, I would like to express my sincere
gratitude to each member of this committee for their support
for our office and to the Capitol Police. You enable us to
provide a safer and more secure environment for Members, their
staff, visiting diplomats, world leaders, and the many
thousands of visitors who come here each year. And no one
entity can do that alone, and I appreciate that support. It
makes a difference for all of us.
As an overview, the Sergeant at Arms consists of the
following divisions: administrative and immediate office;
police services and special events; Chamber security;
information services; House garages and parking security; the
new House Security Office; and the newly created Office of
Emergency Management.
We administer the distribution of the Members' pins, spouse
pins, Member congressional plates, the staff identification
badges. Then we oversee security on the House floor and
galleries, and administrate all ticketed events taking place in
the House Chamber. Additionally, we oversee security in the
House garages and administer the distribution of parking
permits at the beginning of each new Congress.
Working in conjunction with the United States Capitol
Police, my office coordinates logistics for all major events
involving Members of Congress. As the chief law enforcement
officer of the House of Representatives, I am tasked to review
and implement all issues relating to the safety and security of
Members of Congress and all the visitors, staff that come to
the Capitol complex, including the Capitol complex itself. Most
of our efforts are focused in this direction.
This morning, I would like to provide you with a summary of
some of the efforts that the Office of the Sergeant at Arms is
currently working on.
In the administrative and immediate office, our staff has
begun work for the preparation for the 112th Congress, to
include designing and producing the Member and spouse
identification pins for distribution in January of 2011.
In addition, we are developing a more robust outreach
program for gathering Member emergency contact information. We
collect this vital information at the beginning of each new
Congress so we can reach out and advise Members in an emergency
situation. And we deeply appreciate each Member's timely
response to our request.
Our appointments desk: In cooperation and coordination with
the Senate appointments desk and the Capitol Police, we have
implemented a new official business visitor badge for the
Capitol. Standardization of these badges with the Senate and
the Capitol Police provides the Capitol Police with a much more
visible way to verify and enforce official business visitor
policies with one type of badge instead of two or three
different types.
Chamber security: We are currently preparing for the
upcoming joint meeting with the President of Mexico on May
20th. In addition, we continue to review emergency evacuation
plans and procedures from the House floor and galleries, and we
will shortly be having an evacuation drill.
Since the opening of the Capitol Visitor Center, the CVC,
we have been able to accommodate an increasing number of
visitors going to the House Gallery. The CVC has accommodated
over 3 million visitors since its opening in December of 2008.
In the same span of time, we have accommodated nearly 500,000
visitors into the House Gallery. The opening of the CVC has
allowed our Gallery visitors to be staged in a comfortable,
climate-controlled, and secure environment. The process of
staging the House Gallery line, instead of outside, where it is
now--it is in the CVC--has allowed us to maintain a higher
level of security in and around the House Chamber.
Our House garages and parking security: The office is
currently coordinating with the Architect of the Capitol in
their upcoming renovation of the East Underground Garage.
Additionally, we are in the process of reviewing and evaluating
the design of the 112th Congress parking permit. As always, we
look to enhance the security features on these decals and will
work closely with the committee in the upcoming months.
Our House Security Office: The Office of House Security is
currently implementing a classified document management system
to securely manage, track, and store all classified materials
maintained by this office.
Additionally, we have commenced an introductory operational
security--that is called OPSEC, operational security--briefing
for all House staff, which is designed to educate staff on
protecting sensitive material and sensitive information. This
introductory briefing is our initial approach to bolster OPSEC
awareness throughout the House of Representatives.
The Office of Information Services: We are continuing with
the installation and configuration of a new ID badge production
system. This will be a more secure system and will enable ID
Services staff to more effectively process and issue
identification badges to House staff and contractors.
Information Technology has also begun the initial work on a
complete redesign of the House Sergeant at Arms Web site.
Changes will include incorporating a content management system
to better manage the data on the site, integrating the former
OEPPO Web site into the Sergeant at Arms Web site, and
providing additional online forms for common requests made by
the House for Sergeant at Arms services.
Our police services and special events: Over the past
several months, the number of reported threats against Members
has increased, but overall for the past year we are running
just about where we did last year. I continue to monitor this
on a daily basis and consult and coordinate with the United
States Capitol Police on all of these issues to ensure the
safety and security of all Members.
Preparations are being made for the 29th Annual National
Peace Officers Memorial Service, to be held on the west front
of the Capitol at noon on May 15th. This solemn service honors
the 116 law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty
in 2009.
We are preparing to receive, as I said earlier, the
President of Mexico in a joint meeting of Congress on May 20th
at 11:00 a.m.
Initial meetings have been held for the annual Memorial Day
and July 4th concerts, which are held on the west front of the
Capitol. Both of these events are large-scale and well-
attended.
Our Office of Emergency Management: On February 1st, 2010,
at the direction of this committee, the former Office of
Emergency Planning, Preparedness, and Operations was
reorganized within the Sergeant at Arms Office and renamed the
Office of Emergency Management. This transition is expected to
help clarify roles and responsibilities for emergency
management. Specifically, this transition clarified the
Sergeant at Arms' responsibilities regarding coordination of
life safety and continuity of government programs within the
House after coordination with the other officers.
I have been charged to make sure that procedures are in
place and personnel trained for emergencies that may require
Members, staff, and visitors to evacuate, shelter, relocate, or
take other action based on scenarios ranging from accidents to
natural disasters to criminal or terrorist events. I have
assigned OEM the duty to ensure that effective plans are in
place, coordinated, and appropriate information is provided and
communicated to Members, staff, officers, visitors, leadership,
to all.
Similarly, I have been requested to coordinate House
planning to ensure that the essential government functions,
given any contingency, are coordinated with the other House
officers, as well as my office. In addition, I ensure that the
House Sergeant at Arms Office functions are able to continue in
an emergency. I have directed OEM to actively implement
strategies to coordinate the House continuity program,
including the effective integration of leadership, committees,
Members, House officers, and all other House offices continuity
planning and preparedness efforts. I have directed OEM to
ensure the House program is coordinated with the rest of the
legislative branch and the executive branch continuity
community.
OEM has been fully engaged in implementing the House
Sergeant at Arms' continuity program responsibilities; is
beginning to re-implement a comprehensive, coordinated House
continuity program; and is engaged with the Senate and other
legislative branches, executive and judicial branch elements,
House organizations, and even local jurisdictional authorities
through a variety of life safety and planning processes.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lungren, and members of the
committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before this
committee. Let me assure you of my longstanding commitment to
provide the highest-quality support services for the House of
Representatives in the safest and most secure environment
possible.
It has always been my goal and that of the House Sergeant
at Arms to remain vigilant and security-conscious at all times.
I will continue to keep the committee informed of all my
activities.
I will be happy to answer any questions you may have at a
later time here.
[The statement of Mr. Livingood follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you. I thank the gentleman.
The Honorable Daniel Beard.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DANIEL BEARD
Mr. Beard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to submit my testimony for the record and make
some observations about the past year for the Office of the
Chief Administrative Officer.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Beard. I am very proud of the work performed by the 675
individuals who work in the office. They work for everyone and,
in a sense, are kind of service agnostic. They work long hours,
provide incredible service, and they are very proud of the role
that they play in the legislative process.
Over the last year--the Clerk mentioned a snapshot of her
activities. Well, I would like to highlight four areas where I
think that we have had some challenges and some successes in
our activities.
The first is in the area of employee benefits. We, as an
institution, are better off if we have an employee base who has
been here for a long time and there isn't a high turnover rate.
We can't compete with the private sector in the area of salary,
but we certainly can provide a good benefit package to our
employees.
So I have been very pleased to work with the committee to
raise the student loan repayment level over the past year and
to work to establish a tuition and professional fees
reimbursement program, as well as the Child Care Affordability
Program.
I would also like to point out that we have initiated this
year the Wounded Warrior Program, which provides a program to
provide assistance to Members. We have placed 31 wounded
warriors, veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, in Member
offices. One works in my office. And we have 15 working in
Republican offices and 15 in Democratic offices, so I would
call that a very bipartisan program.
The second area that we have invested considerable time and
energy in is in greening the Capitol. The Speaker gave us a
challenge to reduce our energy consumption by 50 percent over
10 years and to try to eliminate our carbon footprint. We have
worked to do that by purchasing wind energy for all of the
electricity. All the electricity comes from wind energy
projects. We have switched from coal to natural gas in our
power plant. We have consolidated servers. We have renovated
data centers. And we have, as Mr. Lungren mentioned, moved to
compostable food service waste, as well as banning Styrofoam
and plastic in our food service operation.
But I think equally important, over the last year, we have
invested a considerable amount of time and energy and effort to
the My Green Office program, where we have reached out to 272
offices here in Washington and 177 district offices to
encourage them to adopt 15 actions which ultimately will help
save energy and save operating costs.
A third area where we have had significant challenges in
the last year is in the area of IT security. Most people don't
realize that the House handles approximately 1.1 million e-
mails a day. And we have hundreds of thousands of attempts on a
monthly basis to get into our systems. And it is a challenge to
work to defend and keep that system vibrant and reliable.
I want to especially thank the Speaker and the Republican
leader. The chair and Mr. Lungren have been very supportive of
efforts over the past year. We have upgraded hardware and
software, encrypted information, and better protected sensitive
House information. We are scanning equipment before and after
Members go overseas and improved security training for House
employees. These changes benefit every Member because our
system is only as secure as our weakest link.
Finally, the fourth area I wanted to highlight is the
improved accessibility for Members and staff to new technology.
I can't think of a more difficult and challenging activity than
keeping up with the ever-changing technology, electronic
technology, IT technology that is coming out. It is simply--it
is like a race where we are running on an treadmill, trying to
stay ahead of the technological developments. It is a constant
challenge for us.
Seven years ago, we didn't have any of these BlackBerrys,
and yet today we have 9,000. We not only have to make them
secure, but we have to be able to assist Members and support
them. Last year, iPhones weren't used in a business setting,
and yet over the past year we have explored with a number of
different businesses ways to make iPhones secure. And we will
be able to help Members use iPhones, enable Members to use
iPhones, going forward.
We have also improved the access of technology and the
accessibility of technology to Members and to district offices.
I think it is important to remember that we serve district
offices from Pango Pango and Guam all the way to, you know,
Anchorage and Honolulu and Bangor, Maine, and Florida and
everywhere else. So we have 900 district offices, and we have
worked hard to link those into our IT systems so that they have
the capability to be able to participate in an effective way.
I think today that we are better wired, better equipped,
better protected, and better served in the technology area. But
it is a race, and it is one that will be ongoing and will be
very difficult for us to keep up with over the next few years.
So those are some of the highlights of the past year. I
would be more than happy to answer questions as we go forward.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Beard follows:]
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The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
Ms. Theresa Grafenstine.
STATEMENT OF THERESA GRAFENSTINE
Ms. Grafenstine. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Brady,
Ranking Member Lungren, and members of the committee. I am both
pleased and honored to appear before you today in my capacity
as the acting House inspector general.
I submitted my written comments for the record, so I will
only take a few minutes to highlight some of the key points on
the topic of governance and the administrative and service
functions of the House and how the House Office of the
Inspector General, or OIG, is an organization dedicated to this
purpose.
The OIG's mission is to provide value-added recommendations
for improving the performance, accountability, and integrity of
House administrative operations. We do this by performing
independent audit, advisory, and investigative services in a
nonpartisan manner. In carrying out this mission, the House OIG
has established a track record of providing quality products to
assist the Committee on House Administration in its oversight
and governance responsibilities.
Oversight serves a number of overlapping objectives and
purposes. It helps improve the efficiency and effectiveness of
operations, and it helps provide a means to evaluate
performance. It helps prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. It helps
ensure that entities are operating in compliance with
organizational policies and best business practices. And it can
be a catalyst for positive change.
As such, the OIG has an important role in the general
oversight of the administrative activities of the House. Over
the past 16 years, the OIG has added value by working closely
with the Committee on House Administration and the House
officers to improve the operations of the House. In addition to
providing traditional audit services, the OIG provides
proactive analysis and guidance through its management advisory
services. These advisory services have included work in the
areas of emerging technology, systems development, business
process improvement, and risk management.
Over the years, the Committee on House Administration has
also asked the OIG to perform various investigative inquiries
to respond to concerns of issues to the House. Recognizing this
broader mission, your committee helped facilitate changing
rules to the House at the beginning of the 111th Congress.
Changes to House Rule 2 now formally recognize the OIG's
advisory and investigative services and grant the OIG
appropriate authority to carry out its mission. It also allows
the OIG to better implement guidance and standards published in
the GAO's government auditing standards.
Additionally, dividing the OIG into two branches, audits
and advisories, provides the House with unique advantages.
Audits and investigations help to ensure that administrative
operations that are already in place operate in compliance with
established rules and regulations. This supports the overall
governance objective by ensuring that processes are working as
intended. Advisories, on the other hand, look at processes that
are ongoing; as decisions are being made. This helps to ensure
that things like security, internal controls, and risks are
considered upfront; before systems are put into place or as
administrative policies are being considered.
Whether audit, advisory, or investigation, we view it as
our mandate to perform our reviews in such a way that they
truly add value to our customers in the House. We focus on
finding the cause of problems and working with the House
officers to develop solutions that make sense. We do not
perform our work in isolation. Instead, most of our work is
collaborative, where we leverage the expertise of the House
staff we are auditing to help ensure the recommended actions
will achieve the desired results.
We also consider it noteworthy that many of our reviews
were initiated at the request of our customers. You will rarely
see such requests in other OIGs. And, in my opinion, the fact
that our auditees come to us and ask for our assistance or to
participate in their projects is the greatest measure of the
value we are adding to the House.
So far, during the 111th Congress, the OIG has issued 27
audit and advisory reports. The OIG's objective, value-added
reviews have helped managers to significantly improve House
financial management, House administrative processes, House
workplace safety and security, and the security of House IT
infrastructure and data.
In addition, through the use of our Lean Six Sigma advisory
services, the OIG has provided formal training to over 100
legislative branch employees. This training helps to create a
sense of continuous improvement. It creates an environment
where House employees are aware of process and inefficiencies,
and it arms them with the ability to fix them on their own.
Currently, the OIG has 20 ongoing audits and advisories in
various stages of completion. In addition, the OIG has made
significant progress in streamlining its own processes and
procedures to make its operations even more productive and
efficient as it strives to be an example of high standards and
cost-effectiveness. I believe that the OIG's efforts in all of
these areas help contribute to the governance of House
administrative processes.
Chairman Brady, Ranking Member Lungren, and members of the
committee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you today. Please be assured that we will continue to
focus on issues of strategic importance to the House and its
ability to efficiently and effectively conduct its operations
safely and securely.
At this time, I would be happy to answer any questions you
may have.
[The statement of Ms. Grafenstine follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you.
Without objection, following the hearing, the record will
remain open for 10 days so that Members may submit additional
questions in writing to the witnesses appearing before us
today, and hopefully we will receive your responses.
I have just a few questions real quickly.
To the Honorable Lorraine Miller, how much does it cost--
and I don't expect you to be able to answer this, but what does
it cost to keep the House open per hour?
Well, I am around, you are around. You can tell me later. I
was just curious what it costs with all the--I know that the
building is always secured somewhat, but there must be many
more people on staff--the elevator operators, the Sergeant at
Arms, yourself, the clerks, you know, everything that has to
happen. I am sure that the offices are--there are more detailed
offices when we are in session, when that light is lit, when
Lady Liberty is lit.
I mean----
Ms. Miller. Mr. Brady, to be perfectly honest with you, I
don't have a good idea. We could try to find out. I know that
there have been inquiries about the amount, but I can't give
you a good answer at this time. But I can find out.
The Chairman. I appreciate that. It was just a curious
thing. I would like to know what it costs us to work here, you
know, how much it costs per hour, just so I can--I would just
like to know. Thank you.
Wilson. You know I am not going to let that go. We had some
major activity over the last month or so, you know. Were there
any incidents--and I want to commend you on how you handled it.
You know, I do believe that everyone should have an opportunity
to say nice things or say anything about us. We do work for
them.
But, any incidents that, you know, we need to help you be
able to take care of? I know that there was a lot of activity
out there. And I do commend you again for the way you handled
it. Any comments on that? I mean, is there anything we can do
to be able to help you?
Mr. Livingood. Well, it was----
The Chairman. A challenge.
Mr. Livingood [continuing]. Quite a time, because I think
that Congress----
The Chairman. Excuse me. I was a Sergeant at Arms for 11
years, so I know how hard it is for you to deal with those
issues when they are dealing with the egos of such as us, you
know.
Sorry. Go ahead.
Mr. Livingood. But I think, during that period, Congress
was faced with--all of you and the whole House and the Senate--
just an outpouring, I think, of public opinion as the public
exercised their right to make their opinions known to Congress.
The crowds that came up here were large and, at times, vocal.
Nothing new; we have had that many times in the past.
I think the long lines, a little unusual, materialized at
every door to the House office buildings--long lines, I mean
long--because people came from where they were participating in
their outpour, one way or the other, and went to the House
buildings. And we had to bring in--or the police manned extra
magnetometers to try to get them into the building. And they
were successful. Extra officers were posted throughout the
building to answer questions and provide directions.
I think we were somewhat surprised at the size of the crowd
in comparison to the permits that we had received by the
Capitol Police. I think there was more crowd size than
estimated. And then, additionally, other crowds spontaneously
appeared and converged on the Capitol grounds without permits.
The Gallery access was open, and we brought in extra police
there so that we had more space in the Gallery. We opened most
every sector of the Gallery. And I believe the Capitol Police
did an excellent job, and I am proud of their performance, as
always, and their commitment to ensuring a safe environment.
There were lessons learned. And I think we had three or
four lessons learned during that period, if I may. And we
always have lessons learned after every exercise or every
situation, but that is good. That means that we care, and that
means we want to change. And no two exercises or events are the
same, trust me; they are all different.
I think that we need to be--my office and special events
people--a little more forward-thinking in dealing with leaders
of various interest groups and work with them to gauge crowd-
size intentions and more firmly establish ground rules of
behavior. Based on information gathered from these leaders,
Capitol Police manpower needs to be more flexible and mobile in
dealing with changing crowd dynamics.
And I think one of the important things--and this is what
we have been working on, the last group that we had here, the
last large group--is the outreach to the House community should
be more proactive.
Mr. Livingood. We continue to work towards improving this
outreach, and you will see a change in that. I firmly believe
you can't overcommunicate. People accuse you of
overcommunicating. To me, in certain ways, there is no such
thing. The more they know, the better off everybody is. It is
just a different philosophy, I feel.
Ms. Miller. May I address that?
The Chairman. Certainly.
Ms. Miller. I attended the Secretaries-General of
Parliaments conference a few weeks ago, and this came up as a
huge issue. This is not just a phenomenon that we are
experiencing, but also in Parliaments around the world. I think
if you notice in the Post today, they talk about a disturbance
within the Parliament in Kiev.
So Bill is absolutely right. We have to pay attention to
this, and we have to plan ahead of the curve, because people
are being very active and very vocal in their opinions to their
legislatures.
Mr. Beard. If I could jump in, too, just some numbers that
I found interesting. Normally we receive on a daily basis
approximately 200,000 phone calls. During the one week in
March, we received 500,000 phone calls a day.
The Chairman. Did anybody call anybody else but me?
Mr. Beard. They got me, too.
The Chairman. I feel like I got all of them.
Mr. Beard. During one 6-day period during the debates on
health care, we had 217 million hits on house.gov, which is way
beyond anything we have ever received before. So it is not only
a physical presence, but it also is an electronic presence, if
you will.
The Chairman. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Mr. Beard, while you are speaking, through various programs
with yourself in cooperation with the Architect of the Capitol,
what are the cost savings that you are incurring for the House?
Mr. Beard. Well, I just want to add sort of generally, when
I was here a couple of years ago, we talked about the Green the
Capitol program and getting the Architect and our office on the
same page. I think we have done that, and we have done that
very well. Both the Acting Architect and myself have worked
hard at that, and it is demonstrated by our issuing a joint
report a week ago explaining the state of affairs with respect
to greening the Capitol.
We now undertake weekly meetings with the Architect's
Office to make sure we are working in concert with one another
and not duplicating efforts, and I think we have made
accomplishments in that regard.
I think it would be very difficult to calculate benefits
and costs associated with the greening effort, but I will say
in the IT area particularly we saved a considerable amount of
money and reduced our energy needs as a result of new
technology, consolidation and other activities.
So, I think that net-net, it has been, I think, a very
positive thing. The leadership that we have shown nationally
and internationally, I was just with the Coca Cola Company, who
is going to be installing new vending machines in the House of
Representatives which are the latest in technology, and they
have reduced their carbon emissions by 99 percent in those
machines and reduced their energy consumption by 15 percent
over the energy-efficient machines they already have installed
here in the House.
So this is something that is happening both at the
corporate level and also the government levels as well.
The Chairman. Thank you. I appreciate all of you.
Mr. Lungren.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate this. I wondered before you became chairman and I
became ranking member what these positions were like, and I
have finally figured them out. We are the javelin catchers of
the House of Representatives, because every complaint that a
Member has comes to us first. So I will pass some of them
along.
One of the things I would just like to put on the record is
something that the Capitol Police Chief has told me on several
occasions when he was describing the march on Washington that
took place in September by the Tea Party group. He said it was
the first march he had ever seen in which the grounds of the
Capitol were cleaner after the demonstration than before.
He was out there on the Capitol steps and asked one of the
members of the Tea Party, who was evidently a marshal cleaning
up or policing the trash area, he said, why are you doing it?
And he said, sir, we did not come to our Capitol to trash it.
I thought that was a great comment. The fact that we have a
lot of people coming here or calling us is actually a tribute
to our system, rather than a criticism--not to suggest that any
of you criticized it, but sometimes the press doesn't fully
understand, I think, what we are seeing here.
A couple of things. Mr. Beard, it is kind of difficult
being a Member of Congress these days in some ways in terms of
dealing with some of the problems that are out there with the
economy. When I was going over your, I guess it is semiannual
report, you included in there a copy of an article that
appeared in the Washingtonian Magazine which talks about
something which is great, which is working in the Capitol is
one of the best places to work. But in there they said this:
``Of course, solid pay and generous benefits are also draws
amid the current barrage of bailouts, bankruptcies and
layoffs.''
Frankly, that kind of a statement is not very helpful to
Members of Congress when dealing with their constituency, that
we are bragging about the fact that we pay big time here amid
the barrage of bailouts, bankruptcies and layoffs. I would just
hope that whoever you've got putting that stuff out would pay
attention to that.
The other thing is you mentioned that we had so many calls
coming in. I was here in the Reagan years when our system
crashed at that time, when Ronald Reagan would say, let them
know how you feel, and they did.
As a matter of fact, I recall a time when I was waiting to
go to the floor of the House, I was waiting for the elevators,
and someone you folks may have heard of, Charlie Wilson, was
standing next to me. Charlie Wilson said--and I will clean up
his language a little bit--Charlie Wilson said, that President
of yours, if he comes out against making love, I will have to
vote for him. For Charlie Wilson, that would have been the
greatest sacrifice in history. But the point was our telephone
system collapsed, the mail did.
When we had it this time in terms of all of our systems
being overloaded, your press guy says to the press about the
inability of constituents to get through on the phone, well,
for everyone who doesn't get through, they will just say to
themselves, I will try again tomorrow.
I will tell you, if a member of my staff said that to a
constituent who said they couldn't get through, I would be
pretty upset. I am concerned that that reflects a lack of a
sense of urgency about what we are about, and that kind of a
comment either was totally off base, or it reflects an attitude
that I find very difficult to accept, because then I have to
go, or every other Member has to go, and distance themselves
from the comment from your chief press person about how this
place operates.
Were you aware of that statement?
Mr. Beard. No. But I think that the important thing to
remember about the phone system is the phone system didn't melt
or not work. It worked, but 20 to 30 percent of the time,
people that were phoning were getting busy signals. But when
they phoned back, whether that was 5 minutes later or an hour
later or the next day, they did get through eventually.
It is not only a limited capacity on the part of the
physical infrastructure of the phone system, but it also is the
inability in Member offices to have enough people to answer the
phone. Like you, we had during that period hundreds of phone
calls into our office simply because they couldn't get into
Member offices or couldn't get the phone answered.
So I think it has caused us to do an after-action report of
that period of time to see what it is we need, and we need to
explore things like voiceover IP as a possible alternative when
we have large volumes of calls into the House.
Mr. Lungren. That would be helpful. It just doesn't help
when someone cavalierly says, well, if they don't get through,
they will call again tomorrow. I just want you to know that. If
my staff member said that, I would be very upset.
Again, I say I am a javelin catcher; I receive complaints
of every type. Somebody complained the other day that we have a
sign on the east steps of the Capitol going up saying ``Members
Only,'' and it is corroded. So I have to deal with that as well
as people talking about whether they are getting reimbursed for
certain payments.
But one of the groups that I pay attention to is the House
Chiefs of Staff Association, and they sent a letter to you
April 5th, which they copied to me and to the chairman, raising
several concerns about the operation of the CAO's Office and
the relationship with Member office operations as reflected in
their membership, that is the Chiefs of Staff Association.
Let me just ask you, have you received complaints prior to
this letter?
Mr. Beard. I am sorry, from whom? Anybody?
Mr. Lungren. From the organization.
Mr. Beard. From which organization, the Chiefs of Staff?
Mr. Lungren. That is the one I am talking about.
Mr. Beard. Yes, I got their letter, and they said that
they--I think there was an offhand reference in there that they
were having difficulty meeting with me. I phoned them
repeatedly and told them I am ready to meet with them at any
time. But, yes, they wrote me about a year ago, I think, and
they wanted to talk about financial counseling and
reimbursement. And I am more than willing to meet with them at
any point. I think I am scheduled at this point to meet with
them.
Mr. Lungren. Well, let me ask you, are you engaging with
them on their proposal on creating a working group with the
CAO?
Mr. Beard. Since I haven't met with them, I am not engaged
with them, but I am more than happy to work with any working
group. We work with a group of administrators, office
administrators, and we work with the financial contacts in the
individual committees who I will be meeting with, and also the
Chiefs of Staff as well.
Mr. Lungren. Okay. I guess I don't understand. You have or
have not met with the Chiefs of Staff Association is my
question?
Mr. Beard. I have not met with them, but I have a meeting
scheduled.
Mr. Lungren. Well, I hope you would, because I appreciate
your meeting with members of the committee, but Chiefs of Staff
represent Members in their personal offices, and I would
believe that they might have some effective and important
observations about the inter workings between their offices and
your office, and I would hope you would be open to that rather
than being resistant to it.
Mr. Beard. I am not at all resistant to it. I think it is
important to point out we have 503 or 504 individual employing
authorities in the House of Representatives. So, yes, I do have
to listen to the Chiefs of Staff organization, but also we have
committees, and then we also have all the officers. And in our
financial counseling area, it is important for us to maintain a
certain integrity and internal controls that are important to
the IG as well as the auditors here.
Oftentimes we are asked to do things that we simply cannot
do or aren't in the best interests--aren't the best business
solution to a particular item. This is a unique environment
where our customers are very close to us, so we have to be
careful with that.
Mr. Lungren. Okay. It sounds like you are rendering a
criticism on the Chiefs of Staff.
Mr. Beard. No.
Mr. Lungren. And, frankly, if that is your view, that is
your view. I would not only resist that, I would take umbrage
at that. To suggest that somehow you can't listen to the Chiefs
of Staff because they are asking you to do something illegal or
improper or in some way wrong, frankly, I just don't accept
that at all.
According to the Chiefs of Staffs Association, they have
asked you on numerous occasions to meet, and you failed to meet
with them. Now you tell me you are going to, but then you turn
around my question and suggest they are asking you to do
something they are not supposed to do. There is no suggestion
of that in my question at all.
Frankly, the last time I looked, Members of Congress are
elected. We make up this House of Representatives, and I
thought the CAO was to work for the Members to make their job
better, to serve their constituents. That is what I was elected
to do. That is what I look to your office to do.
Frankly, I don't look to your office to tell me that you
won't even meet with me, and I am talking about that generally,
because somehow you are afraid that I am going to ask you to do
something you shouldn't do. That is not the suggestion in this
letter at all. There is nothing in this letter that suggests
that. And to suggest that somehow the IG sitting next to you is
the person making it difficult for you to respond affirmatively
to a request by those of us--the Chiefs of Staff are the people
that we have determined are our top people running our staffs.
I am just sorry, but, frankly, I find your response not
only odd, I find it insulting to Members and to their staffs.
And I would hope you would be a little more willing to work
with Members and not then question what it is they are asking
you to do before you even meet with them, and to put that on
the record here.
I am finished, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
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The Chairman. Ms. Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a couple of
questions.
Obviously we are all here and will look at the transcript,
but I don't think Mr. Beard was suggesting that the Chiefs of
Staff had asked anything improper. I think he is just noting we
are all elected, but if we ask for something that is not
permitted within the rules, we can't do that, and we all know
that. So that is how misunderstandings, I think, get started.
I want to talk about the House Child Care Center, if I
could, Mr. Beard. We have, I think, a waiting list. I saw an
article in one of the local Hill rags recently talking about
the inability, actually the glass ceiling for women in staff
positions. A big issue about that is child care.
So I would like to know how many are currently enrolled, if
you know that; how long is the waiting list; obviously there is
a need for additional capacity. How would we increase the
capacity; what would be the cost implications? Could we recover
it through fees or even through grants?
I know recently someone not on my staff who was expecting.
They put their name on the list as soon as they found out they
were expecting, and they still hadn't made it into the center
by the time they gave birth. So can you respond to that?
Mr. Beard. The capacity of the child care center in the
Ford Building is 70 children.
Ms. Lofgren. Seven-zero?
Mr. Beard. Seven-zero. But it is important to recognize--
and then we have to staff that operation. The demand--the
largest demand that we have has been for the youngsters under 2
years old. We have currently 170 people on our waiting list,
170 families I should say, because in some cases they may have
a request for more than one child to participate.
Ms. Lofgren. So about three times the number--assuming you
have families with more than one child, three times the number
of people on the waiting list as we have in the facility.
Mr. Beard. Yes. And in 2007, we did a very thorough study
of the backlog, the waiting list. I think what is important to
observe about the waiting list is you can't buy yourself out of
the waiting list. It costs in capital costs somewhere between
$2.7 million and $5 million to build a new daycare center, and
that doesn't even count being able to staff the center. The
ratios for kids under 2 is greater than others.
Ms. Lofgren. I would like to take a look at that study. But
one of the things I have always done, I have served on a school
board, I served in local government, and now I have served here
in the House, and every place I have served, I have opened
child care centers. In every place I have served, I have been
told it is too expensive and these very high capital costs, and
every place I served I found out you could do it for a lot less
and end up with something that is quite nice.
So I would like to take a look at that study and follow up
with you. I know that staffers who have children or are
expecting are putting their names on waiting lists at the
Library, at the Senate, everywhere. People are desperate. It
really has not only an adverse impact, but it means that we
can't really fully usually take the benefit of female staffers
as we could, and that hurts the House, and it hurts the
country.
I would like to talk a little bit, if I could, about the
network, House network drives. My staff has told me that there
have been more network drive disruptions these past few weeks
than usual, and it has prevented staff from accessing
constituent mail databases, sometimes for hours at a time.
Do you know what the sources are of these disruptions, and
what are you doing to resolve them?
Mr. Beard. We have two sources of disruption. One has been
power supply, which is under the jurisdiction of the Architect
of the Capitol. We have been working with the House
Superintendent on that. But in our drives in the consolidated
area, we have encountered a number of problems. We pulled in
both the companies and our engineers have been working on it to
identify the problem. We think we have identified the problem,
and everything is up and running now, and we have recovered any
data that may have been lost. We have recovered it, so it isn't
lost. But it is a constant challenge to make sure that we have
a reliable system and that we don't go down. It is just one of
the things that we can't do.
Ms. Lofgren. I would like to follow up with you if I could,
too, especially from the district office, it is just hellacious
to get into the system. It is just a waste of time for the
staff. I find it myself where you can wait an hour to get into
the system. So I have got my staff trying to do constituent
services, but it is just really very frustrating. To me, I just
can't understand why it would be that way, and I think we need
to fix it.
If I can just do two more quick questions. First, and again
to follow up, we do need to scan--Bill, I think this is your
issue on scanning the BlackBerrys after the overseas trips for
security purposes. Is that you, Dan?
Mr. Beard. Yes.
Ms. Lofgren. That is happening with government CODELs, but
I don't think it is happening with privately sponsored trips,
and it needs to. That is ultimately all publicly available, it
is reported, but it is reported once a year.
I am wondering if we could do some kind of coordination;
every single trip has to be approved by the Ethics Committee,
that maybe we could do some collaboration just for the purpose
of BlackBerry scanning upon return. I will make sure that the
Ethics Committee follows through with you, if you are willing
to do that.
Finally, Ms. Miller, thanks for HouseLive.Gov. I am just
wondering, will this be available to the public ultimately to
view, and when will it be available for viewing in search of
committee proceedings?
Ms. Miller. Yes, it is available for the public right now,
and we have had about 450 folks that are already using the
system. Now, committees, I am not quite sure. We are working
with HIR and House Administration to see what we need to do to
get that.
Ms. Lofgren. I think that would be very, very helpful,
because, as we know, much of the work of the House does, in
fact, go on in its committees. C-SPAN, when it was first
brought in, played a tremendous service, but I think there is a
little redundancy now. You can Webcast anything, and they don't
cover all the hearings. Storage is cheap. There is no reason
why the public should ever be precluded from watching a
committee proceeding. We should take that upon ourselves.
Ms. Miller. But HouseLive is available. Committee staff
have access to it.
Ms. Lofgren. I know. But of committee proceedings.
Ms. Miller. Committee proceedings. That is kind of not my
bailiwick.
Ms. Lofgren. Let's talk further about it if we could.
I thank the chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Harper.
Mr. Harper. Mr. Beard, if I could ask you a couple of
questions. It is my understanding that when the House entered
into a contract with Restaurant Associates to provide for food
services, one of the stipulations you requested after the
contract was signed was to provide, I guess, greener utensils
and containers.
Mr. Beard. Yes.
Mr. Harper. I know that was agreed to with the provisional
condition that additional costs would be deducted from the
commission that they were required to give back to the House
under the contract. So a couple of questions relating to that.
First of all, can you tell us approximately how much in
commissions the House has lost as a result of these deductions?
And as a follow-up to that, have there been any other
deductions in vendor contributions to the House revolving fund
that has resulted in a loss to the House?
Mr. Beard. I think the answer to the second question is no,
but I don't have the cost figure in front of me right now. The
question was how can we initiate and bring in new compostable
containers? That wasn't part of the contract that was
negotiated with Restaurant Associates prior to my arriving, and
I felt if we were going to demonstrate leadership, it made
sense for us to provide compostable materials, and that we had
sufficient potential revenues and commissions to be able to
afford that.
Mr. Harper. Will you provide us with those figures at your
convenience, sir?
Mr. Beard. Sure. Yes.
Mr. Harper. Another thing that I was looking at was the
statement of disbursements that had been placed on line, both
the on-line and printed versions. They displayed to me a less
complete disclosure of those public expenditures.
For example, details concerning office equipment purchases
had been scrubbed to make the SOD less transparent. I wondered,
was there any directive on that or instructions given to change
that in what appears to diminish the transparency of those
reports?
Mr. Beard. No, there weren't any instructions. I think when
we decided to put it up on line and make it publicly available,
we decided to use the codes that are used by OMB to make sure
that there was some consistency and clarity with the executive
branch. So we did change it. There were some changes in the
descriptions of some of the equipment from what we used before,
which was published in a three-volume set, but they are not
inconsistent with what is used in the Federal Government.
Mr. Harper. Why were those changes made in the
descriptions?
Mr. Beard. Just to make sure they are accurate, to make
sure that they--we can go into a great deal of detail on every
entry if we want, but we have got 40,000 or 60,000 lines of
code that we are trying to handle and put up on line, and we
decided to just use the standardized codes to be able to
identify the expenditures. It makes it easier for us.
Mr. Harper. So those changes that were made were done
before we went on line with the reports; is that correct?
Mr. Beard. They were made at the time we went on line. As a
result of going on line, we decided to change the codes we used
in some of the areas.
Mr. Harper. But the codes were changed before the first one
was posted on line?
Mr. Beard. Yes.
Mr. Harper. This may be a question for the IG office, if I
could. I do understand that the House has made these
concessions for the greening requirements, and that these
payments are made to the contractor prior to the contractor
submitting the required revenues into the House restaurant
revolving fund.
Because the payments from RA are made through off-the-book
transactions, it sort of appears that this kind of skirts the
typical requirements for review and approval of those revolving
fund expenses by this committee and Appropriations.
So, why were the transaction processes structured in this
way? And I would like for IG to comment as to whether such a
system is appropriate, or whether it lacks transparency, or
this lack of transparency leads to perhaps some type of
accountability and potential issues?
Ms. Grafenstine. Mr. Harper, I am not familiar specifically
with those transactions; however, we did do a study on that
compostable program and were able to break down a lot of the
costs associated with that. I would be happy to be able to
provide you with that type of information after the hearing,
but I don't have the numbers available to be able to give you
something that is accurate.
Mr. Harper. If you could take a look at that, I would
certainly appreciate that.
Ms. Grafenstine. I certainly will.
Mr. Harper. That will be great.
Mr. Beard, one last question that I had regarding things
that you might help us with. I know that recently you submitted
revised procurement guidelines to the committee. In the
proposed revisions you sought to increase the threshold for
contracts needing committee approval by 100 percent, when
inflation only justified a 40 percent increase.
I am wondering if you could maybe explain that discrepancy?
Mr. Beard. Well, I think for us it was just how many
contract agreements, procurement actions do we send over to the
committee. The large procurement actions, for $500,000 and
above, it is very important to have committee input and for the
committee to play a role in that process.
The limit that we were operating under, which I think was
$250,000, was a limit that was placed over a decade ago, and
our feeling was through our procurement office that we ought to
raise that to a higher level. We had suggested that level
because it was--if you look at all the contracts that we have,
there was sort of a logical break in there. But in working with
the committee staff, they decided that a lower limit was
needed, and that is fine with us as well.
So, there has to be some break in there at some point, and
it is just a question of where you draw the line.
Mr. Harper. Do you feel that that has a positive or
negative impact on accountability and transparency?
Mr. Beard. Well, every expenditure, every contract we have
is a competitive contract, and it also is publicly divulged. So
all of our procurement processes is a very transparent process.
But, no, I don't think that--it really is a question of how
much work the committee staff wants to do and be involved in as
we go forward with these contracts.
Mr. Harper. I know, Mr. Livingood and Ms. Miller, you are
upset I don't have any questions for you, but we do thank you
for your service.
Thank you.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank
you all for being here and for your service. I want to probably
direct most of the questions to Mr. Beard.
I know you have been working hard on the energy efficiency
issues. We have been involved in that with you as well. We
appreciate your responsiveness on that and just your efficiency
in general. But I had a few questions.
I just want to start with the payroll system, because we
have had a number of problems in the office. One of the
explanations that I have heard is there is just a lot of
turnover down there.
I am wondering, what is the problem? Is that true? Is there
just a lot of turnover in terms of employees? Why are people
having so many difficulties in this area?
Mr. Beard. Well, I think there are a number of different
reasons. One is that as a good business practice, and it is
required, we do have to change the financial counselors on a
regular basis. They have to rotate so that they aren't handling
just one account all the time.
We have also had workload balances. The workload has
spiked, and it spiked in January and February. We handled at
least twice as many requests for reimbursements than we
normally have handled because it was the end-of-the-year
requests that came through.
We haven't had that great a turnover. What we have had is a
change in the assignment of individuals, and I think some
financial counselors are uncomfortable with that. But we had to
rearrange the financial counselors to handle the workload
balance and also to make sure that we don't have single points
of failure. We have to make sure if a financial counselor is
out, we have somebody to cover that. We are also realigning our
staff to be able to handle a transition to a new financial
system on October 1st.
I think that I would add to that that when this committee
issued or passed a resolution requiring increased standards for
reimbursement, we have struggled with instituting those new
standards, and there has been a learning process for those new
standards. We now have the turnaround time on vouchers back
down to the level where we should be. It is approximately 6
days. But there may be individual vouchers that are longer than
that.
Mrs. Davis of California. Well, I appreciate that. I want
you to stay focused on it, if you can.
Mr. Beard. Yes, I will.
Mrs. Davis of California. I am just not sure of the level
of tolerance and what we should expect. If you can help out
with that, that is fine. But some of the glitches that we have
seen just don't seem appropriate at all. So I want to express
that.
On the technology side, again, I appreciate the move
towards much more efficient technology. We are enjoying some
more technology in the Armed Services Committee, and that is
great. It has been very helpful.
One of the concerns that I think we all sort of scratch our
head and wonder, what about Wi-Fi really throughout the
building? You say in your statement you are looking at about 3
years to have it campuswide. It seems like a long time, since
Starbucks, McDonald's, everybody else has been able to
accommodate that. What should we expect?
Mr. Beard. I don't think it is going to take that. It is 3
years to build out the 700 points in our Wi-Fi system that we
want to have. We now have it available in the Longworth
cafeteria and the Rayburn cafeteria, and we are just bringing
those up on a regular basis.
I think the big challenge for us is to have a Wi-Fi system
that is safe and secure. We had to work with various other
Federal agencies to make sure that we had a safe system, and
that we weren't jeopardizing the IT security of our overall
system.
Wireless is the direction that the industry is moving, and
it is a direction that we are going to have to go as well, but
it presents certain challenges for us.
Ms. Davis of California. Three years, maybe not. But what
is realistic?
Mr. Beard. I would have to get back with you with an
estimate. But certainly it will be less than 2 years, I will
tell you that.
Mrs. Davis of California. Several other questions have been
raised about the difficulty in accessing, whether it is e-mail
or some of the accounts. The space that staffers have on e-mail
seems limited compared to what they can expect in other arenas.
Again, can we increase that space? Is that something that we
are going to be seeing?
Mr. Beard. Yes, we can. I think you are talking about the
space of the individual mailbox. The system we have been using
in the past has had limited space, but we are moving towards--
we now have increased capability, and we are going to begin
rolling that out in the next month or two to increase the size
of the individual mailboxes, so you don't have to keep
deleting, which is a challenge, on a regular basis.
Mrs. Davis of California. That would be helpful.
Finally, if I may, Mr. Chairman, just briefly, I know that
there has been an annual compensation study. You have
reinstated that. That is very helpful. But I really do need a
commitment that you are going to commit to doing that study
again next year, and also that there will be enough staff
involvement and input where people desire to do that in terms
of the kind of questions that are asked, because I think
sometimes we miss the boat on the questions that we ask.
Mr. Beard. We will do it next year, and we will improve the
timing. I want to have that report done so that it comes out in
September or October so it is in time for the Members to make
decisions with respect to year-end bonuses or the salary levels
that they set for their employees, particularly new Members,
because I think that study is important to new Members. They
are able to see what salary levels they ought to be providing.
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you.
And the other issue, of course, is the diversity of the
staff, and particularly some of the higher-paid staff, which I
think we all need to work on. So we want to look at that.
Just finally is access. Getting up to the Rayburn room, we
have visitors that come in or people we need to meet with, and
I don't know what it is right now, but they are just having a
tough time getting access to get through the tunnel and up to
the Rayburn room. So if you can just take a look at that and
see if there is something going on. I am always amazed, because
I wait, and that is the hitch. People are walking fast, but
they just can't get there.
Thank you very much. Continuing to get input for all of us
is helpful.
Thank you.
The Chairman. I thank the gentlelady.
I thank our panel. As Mr. Lungren says, we do catch the
javelin, and I do come to every one of you with some crazy
requests. I appreciate that you always have a smile and handle
them with courtesy and professionalism. We do appreciate that.
I thank you.
I thank our members for your participation.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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