[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS
FOR 2026
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
______________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
DAVID G. VALADAO, California, Chairman
NICK LaLOTA, New York ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York,
DALE W. STRONG, Alabama Ranking Member
CELESTE MALOY, Utah STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
RILEY M. MOORE, West Virginia, MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
Vice Chair
NOTE: Under committee rules, Mr. Cole, as chairman of the full
committee, and Ms. DeLauro, as ranking minority member of the full
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.
Lori Groves Rowley and April Lyman
Subcommittee Staff
____________________
PART 1
Page
Capitol Complex Public Safety and Security................... 1
U.S. House of Representatives................................ 23
Architect of the Capitol and Library of Congress............. 109
United States Capitol Police................................. 165
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______________________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
62-507 WASHINGTON : 2026
_______________________________________________________________________
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
----------
TOM COLE, Oklahoma, Chairman
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky,
Chairman Emeritus
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,
Tennessee
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida
BEN CLINE, Virginia
GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
TONY GONZALES, Texas
JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana
MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
MICHAEL GUEST, Mississippi
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana
ANDREW S. CLYDE, Georgia
STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
JUAN CISCOMANI, Arizona
CHUCK EDWARDS, North Carolina
MARK ALFORD, Missouri
NICK LaLOTA, New York
DALE W. STRONG, Alabama
CELESTE MALOY, Utah
RILEY M. MOORE, West Virginia
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut,
Ranking Member
STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
JAMES E. CLYBURN, South Carolina
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
GRACE MENG, New York
MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
PETE AGUILAR, California
LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
NORMA J. TORRES, California
ED CASE, Hawaii
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
JOSH HARDER, California
LAUREN UNDERWOOD, Illinois
SUSIE LEE, Nevada
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
MIKE LEVIN, California
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana
MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ,
Washington
GLENN IVEY, Maryland
----------
Susan Ross, Chief Clerk and Staff Director
(II)
C O N T E N T S
----------
March 25, 2025
Capitol Complex Public Safety and Security
Page
J. Thomas Manger, Chief, U.S. Capitol Police..................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 8
April 2, 2025
House of Representatives
Hon. Kevin McCumber, Acting Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. 24
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Hon. William F. McFarland, Sergeant at Arms, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 34
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Hon. Catherine Szpindor, Chief Administrative Officer, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 42
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Submitted Material
Matthew Berry, General Counsel, Office of General Counsel, U.S.
House of Representatives
Submitted statement.......................................... 70
Christen Stevenson, Acting Inspector General, U.S. House of
Representatives
Submitted statement.......................................... 74
Brian Lindsey, Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of
Representatives
Submitted statement.......................................... 82
Warren Burke, Legislative Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives
Submitted statement.......................................... 89
April 8, 2025
Architect of the Capitol and Library of Congress
Thomas E. Austin, Architect of the Capitol....................... 110
Prepared statement........................................... 114
Answers to submitted questions............................... 158
Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress.............................. 117
Prepared statement........................................... 119
Answers to submitted questions............................... 160
Submitted Material
Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director, U.S.
Copyright Office
Submitted statements......................................... 138
Karen E. Donfried, Director, Congressional Research Service
Submitted statement.......................................... 146
U.S. Capitol Police
J. Thomas Manger, Chief, U.S. Capitol Police..................... 166
Prepared statement........................................... 170
Answers to submitted questions............................... 188
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS.
FOR 2026
----------
Tuesday, March 25, 2025.
CAPITOL COMPLEX PUBLIC SAFETY AND SECURITY
WITNESS
MR. J. THOMAS MANGER, CHIEF, UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE
Mr. Valadao. The subcommittee will come to order.
I would like to thank Ranking Member Espaillat and the
ranking member of our full committee, Ms. DeLauro, for joining
us today. I would like to extend a particularly warm welcome to
the new members of our subcommittee--Representative Nick
LaLota, Representative Dale Strong, Representative Celeste
Maloy, and our new vice chair, Representative Riley Moore, and
Representative Steny Hoyer.
I look forward to working together in a bipartisan fashion
as we begin the fiscal year 2026 process. The purpose of
today's oversight hearing is to review the status of public
safety and security of the Capitol complex, learn about recent
breaches to the campus, and hear about the new actions that the
United States Capitol Police chief of police and his leadership
team are taking to address these lapses. I want to begin by
welcoming Chief Manger and congratulating him on his upcoming
retirement.
Thank you, Chief, for your years of leadership and service
to the Capitol community. We appreciate your dedication and the
work you have done to enhance the safety and security of each
Member, our families and staff, and especially our constituents
while visiting the Nation's Capitol. I also want to thank each
and every officer in the United States Capitol Police. Each
Member of Congress is keenly aware of your diligent efforts and
that many of your heroic actions are never made public, but
please know that you are seen and appreciated. We appreciate
your recent successes in multiple back-to-back National Special
Security Events, such as the 60th inaugural ceremonies and the
most recent Presidential joint address. While we certainly
appreciate and have come to expect these successes, we also
recognize that continued success in your mission requires some
change, some refocusing and retraining, and especially
increased consistency and vigilance. We will learn in more
detail from Chief Manger in his testimony over the past months
the Capitol complex has experienced several security lapses in
which members of the public and even staff members have entered
our buildings with items that are prohibited but have gone
undetected by our officers. These breaches are unacceptable and
cannot be permitted to continue. That being said, we do not
want the few human errors to wipe out your record of success in
keeping our community safe. Additionally, I want to note that
the safety and security of the Capitol complex does not solely
rest on the shoulders of our Capitol Police officers. As
Members, staff, and visitors, we have an obligation to
understand the safety protocols of the Capitol complex and to
follow them. Recently, the House Sergeant at Arms shared a
communication reminding all of us of our responsibility to
cooperate with law enforcement by ensuring that we do not
attempt to bring prohibited items onto the premises and follow
other security practices.
We have copies of this document at the hearing today, and I
encourage Members and their staff to reinforce these
expectations with your colleagues as well as your constituents.
It is when we all work together that we can have and ensure the
greatest level of safety for us. Chief Manger, we appreciate
your partnership as we have worked to ensure the Capitol campus
remain secure and safe for Congress' essential legislative
operations and for the millions of visitors who come to see
democracy in action in the United States Capitol. I look
forward to your testimony. I now yield to the ranking member,
Mr. Espaillat, for his opening remarks.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Chairman Valadao. Thank you for
your work and your desire to continue to work in a bipartisan
manner.
I also want to thank our ranking member, Rosa DeLauro, for
joining us today, and extend my gratitude to the officers of
the Capitol Police for their service.
And of course, you, Chief. You have been tremendous. You
have been someone that has never said no, always came when we
asked you to come, always transparent with your answers, a
leader among the men and women of the Capitol Police, someone
that I acknowledge implemented 103 IG recommendations and 6 GAO
recommendations, an achievement that reflects your commitment
to the institution and the security of the campus.
Congratulations on your retirement. Well deserved.
And whereas my chairman acknowledged the work that you have
done in the inaugural and other ceremonies, I also want to
acknowledge perhaps the one moment where the men and women of
your Department showed the leadership and the patriotism that
we are all very proud of, and that was January 6, when you
defended our lives, you defended the lives of visitors and
staff working in our offices, but most importantly,
irregardless of what party we are with, you defended all of us.
The other day I was walking through Longworth, just outside
of the Ways and Means Committee, where Members of Congress, of
the House of Representatives, huddled--both Republicans and
Democrats, I might add. They were kept safe there. And I saw
one of the aggressors there that was arrested and released
having a major press conference. I felt appalled about that.
But I wanted to distinguish your service today. And I want
to express also my disappointment that a plaque honoring the
officers who protected us in the Capitol has not yet been
installed. This is really inexcusable.
Today we are here to discuss Capitol safety. Chief, since
2022, we have increased your budget to enhance the safety of
the Capitol complex.
Recent security breaches, particularly in building
entrances, have been unacceptable. I am sure that both of us
are working here to improve on that. We cannot allow weapons or
ammunition to enter campus, and we cannot tolerate lapses in
security protocols or everybody's life will be in danger--
again, visitors, people that work for us and for the country,
as well as Members. And the Capitol campus, although better
secured under your leadership, still has many challenges.
Security requires partnership, and I am confident that the
chairman, Chairman Valadao, and I will work together to try to
accomplish that security. Yet, when you requested fewer entry
points for better control, pressure was put upon to reopen
them.
Officers risk their lives daily, yet honoring their
sacrifice remains something important. Millions were spent
repairing damage from January 6, yet those responsible were
pardoned and welcomed back.
And, unfortunately, due to the recent partisan CR, funding
will be frozen for the next year.
Leadership is about accountability. This hearing, Ranking
Member, should be a forum for solutions. Let's give the
Department the support it needs to correct course and secure
the people's House.
Chief, we look forward to hearing from you in the future
and your plans. You are always welcome back here. Thank you so
much for your service.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Espaillat.
And now I would like to recognize ranking member of the
full committee, Ms. DeLauro for her opening remarks.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member Espaillat. Thank you for holding this hearing. There are
so many accolades that we can and will bestow upon you, Chief.
For my purposes, you reassure, all of you, and you reassure my
family, that I am safe here, and you take care of that. And you
have made it your life's work here. And we are all grateful and
we are indebted to you and to the Capitol Police.
Every single day you are there for us, and I can't tell you
what that means. And we don't say thank you enough to people
for their commitment, their courage. They leave their homes,
their families, every day to come here and to protect all of
us. And it is not unnoticed. It is not unnoticed. Please
understand that. And we do thank you for your service.
Sometimes that phrase doesn't mean as much as we would like
it to mean. But you know we wish you well in retirement, and we
hope that you will continue to be an adviser to what our
direction should be here. It is about the dedicated men and
women of the Capitol Police protecting Members of Congress,
protecting our staff, all the workers in this complex, as my
colleague mentioned, official business visitors, millions of
tourists who visit Washington, D.C., annually. You keep us safe
within and around the Capitol grounds.
Keeping Capitol complex buildings secure and the people
within them safe, it is a matter of national security, and thus
a matter of utmost consequence to the American people. The
Department, to you, to the officers, to the support staff,
thanks for protecting all the people and this complex from all
sorts of threats. And you probably know so much more than we do
about what those threats are, but you guys handle it and you
women handle it every single day.
And you know Capitol safety and security is a bipartisan
priority. I look forward to discussing how this subcommittee
can ensure we are making the proper investment in the
Department to ensure that taxpayers' dollars are wisely and
efficiently used to fulfill the Capitol Police's mission.
However, there have been a number of challenges and some
serious breaches of our security that must be addressed. I
applaud the Department for its actions in the wake of January
6, 2021, that breach of the Capitol. And like so many others, I
was one of the Members that was evacuated and again protected
by the Capitol Police. And thank you for implementing many of
the recommendations made to prevent such an event from
occurring in the future.
Meanwhile, though there have been lapses in complex
security that give us all great concern, the tolerable number
of firearms entering the complex that are carried by anyone,
but those explicitly authorized to do, should be zero. Should
be zero.
We need to understand in explicit detail, without divulging
sensitive information, why that has not been the case and what
the Department has done and will do--and what the Department
needs from us--to ensure these security lapses are not just
minimized but completely eliminated.
If there is daylight between what you believe needs to take
place to keep the Capitol complex safe and what you and your
Department are being asked and required to do, we need to
illuminate that, and we need to understand the potential
ramifications and consequences. Finally, I would like to know
how working under a continuing resolution, rather than a full-
year funding bill that addresses current and near-future needs
and issues, affects your operations and the safety and the
security of the Capitol complex. It is regrettable that this
committee failed to finish its job, instead threw in the towel,
in my view, on fiscal year 2025 funding bills.
We were--and I can say that with some knowledge--we were on
the brink of a bipartisan agreement between the four corners of
the Appropriations Committee when the House majority decided to
upend the process and pursue a partisan bill that does not meet
the needs of any department or agency across the government and
that instead handed a blank check to Elon Musk and to President
Trump.
I implore this committee, let us get back on track to work
towards bipartisan consensus for this subcommittee's bill and
the rest of the appropriations bills for 2026.
I thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Ranking Member DeLauro.
Chief Manger, again, I apologize for the delay and keeping
you waiting, but I appreciate you being here. Your full
testimony has been submitted for the record, and you are now
recognized to provide a summary of your written testimony.
STATEMENT OF CHIEF J. THOMAS MANGER
Chief Manger. Thank you.
Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat, Ranking Member
DeLauro, and members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to provide an overview of the comprehensive steps
the Department has taken in light of recent security incidents.
Any security failure is of grave concern to both me and my
officers. These failures will not be tolerated.
Each year our Department safely and effectively screens
over 8 million staff and visitors who enter our office
buildings, the libraries, the Capitol, and the CVC.
However, in light of the recent security incidents, the
Department is implementing new measures to ensure security
screening is as effective as possible, addressing human
interactions, technology, and the careful use of artificial
intelligence. The efforts that the Department is undertaking
are being made to ensure that the security failings that we
have experienced do not happen again. After the first security
screening incident, all officers assigned to our Uniformed
Services Bureau received mandatory training briefings related
to security screening, to reinforce the importance of always
complying with training and policy.
In addition, sergeants are now responsible for checking all
of the posts under their supervision three times per shift and
documenting these checks. This ensures that our officials are
getting out to directly observe the officers performing their
screening functions.
These same supervisors have already completed a post-by-
post review of all of the screening sites to remove any
potential distractions from each post.
We are also implementing a new security screening virtual
audit via our USCP cameras. The goal of this program is to have
officials randomly select a security screening post that would
be monitored virtually during random times each day for a
period of 1 week.
In addition, the Department has assigned a lieutenant as
the security screening program manager, and this person is
dedicated to ensuring the success of all of our security
screening program initiatives. Starting this summer, all of our
USB officers will have to take an updated security screening
refresher training with an associated test. All USB officers
will have to pass the test twice a year to maintain their
certification to do security screening. The Department is also
in the process of restructuring some of the USB post rotations
to ensure that officers are moving around and not standing at
the same machine for a long period of time, leading to
complacency. And the Department has a team that is working on a
best practices review of similar mission agencies, such as U.S.
Secret Service, TSA, and the Federal Protective Service, so
that we can benchmark our training, equipment, testing
procedures, and other items as a baseline to identify any
additional opportunities to improve. We anticipate the
completion of that assessment by April 4.
In addition to all of these efforts, the Department is
revamping its pre-screener officer training. This training is
centered around detecting abnormal behaviors in people as they
approach our screening points. This will be a mandatory 2-hour
class, and that began yesterday. The Department's Security
Services Bureau is responsible for the security equipment and
infrastructure. It is important to note that none of these
screening failures that occurred this year were as a result of
technology or equipment failures. They were human error. In
each case, our technology correctly identified the prohibited
item that was being brought through the screening process.
Starting in 2024, the Department installed artificial
intelligence, or AI, software on all of our X-ray machines.
This AI software assists officers with identifying prohibited
items and weapons. This effort was completed in 2024 as a
proactive measure to identify another way of assisting our
officers who are visually looking at the X-ray machines.
We continue working with the AI software vendor to
incorporate functionality that will provide a more dramatic
visual alert and automatically stop the X-ray belt when a
prohibited item is identified.
The development of an additional enhancement called ``Image
Projection'' is also being planned. This will add a
nonthreatening image onto the X-ray screen that officers will
have to observe and acknowledge.
This will allow the Department to collect data on how many
times these images are detected so that the Department can
assess how well the officers are paying attention to the X-ray
screens.
The Department anticipates completion and implementation of
these enhancements to the AI technology in May of this year.
The Security Services Bureau is conducting an overall
assessment on the use of all of our screening equipment,
including enhanced screening portals at the CVC screening
entrances.
At the end of the day, these security lapses were not an
equipment failure, not a training failure or a policy failure.
They were, in fact, the hardest kind of failure to address--the
human failure. In this threat environment, we don't get to have
a bad day or make a mistake at our screening. I can assure you
that I believe the efforts that I have described will address
both human and technological errors that can cause these
failures in the first place.
With the continued support and the assistance of Congress
we will continue to meet our mission.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Chief Manger, for testifying before
this committee today.
I will now call on members based on seniority of those
present when the hearing was called to order, alternating
between the majority and minority, and then we will call on
members in order of their arrival. Each member will have 5
minutes.
I now recognize myself for my 5 minutes. Given the recent
human errors that led to the breaches in security that you
mentioned in your testimony, what is the level of confidence
that such failures will not happen again in the future?
Chief Manger. On the part of, I think, the Capitol Police,
I think there is a fair amount of confidence that we are
addressing these failures. Any time you look at--when we looked
at the three different failures--and they were all different--
we analyzed how did this occur. You look at through the lens of
training, through policy, through equipment, and through
supervision.
And as you look through you say: Where was the single point
of failure? Where did it occur? And what can we do to eliminate
that single point of failure?
So the training that we are doing, the technological
enhancements that we are incorporating into the screening
process, we are confident that this will eliminate those single
points of failure.
Mr. Valadao. As you noted both in your testimony and your
response to my prior question, you have taken a number of
actions both for immediate change and near-term actions to
improve the focus of the frontline officers at screening
locations to address complacency and lack of attention.
However, these issues seem to be systematic within the
Department. In a November 2023 U.S. Capitol Police Office of
Inspector General report titled ``Top Management Challenges
Facing the United States Capitol Police Fiscal Year 2024'' it
was noted that strong, integrated internal control systems are
still needed.
Further, the report noted that the U.S. Capitol Police has
historically tended to resolve individual issues rather than
strengthening the underlying systemically weak controls causing
the issues.
With this observation in mind, what supervisory controls
are you implementing to ensure that security breach issues do
not reappear in the next 2 or even 6 months?
Chief Manger. So all of these actions that we have taken
have either already occurred or will be in place in the next
month or two. So we are not--this is not something that we are
going to implement a year from now. I think what the Inspector
General's report talked about was looking at the issues more
globally rather than, well, in this case, it was the officer
was distracted; in this case, the officer was on their phone;
or the officer missed this or that.
So we are trying to, again, look at how we can use
equipment, the equipment to help us. When the artificial
intelligence alerts on a prohibited item, it is still up to the
officer--I mean, it is doing its job by alerting on that image.
The officer still has to notice it.
Even when--if a prohibited item comes through and the belt
on the X-ray machine stops, the officer still has to take--it
still requires an officer to take some action. So we think that
all of this is trying to assist in that sort of single point of
failure where one person could miss something and then you have
a breach. Whether it is getting equipment where you have more
than one set of eyes on a monitor or just having backups where
the equipment is helping you, all of this, in our view,
addresses the IG's recommendation that look at this as a bigger
issue, not just, well, what was wrong in this case or that
case.
Mr. Valadao. All right. As you know, this committee has met
the request for some of the newer security technology with X-
rays and magnetometers. Is there anything else out there that
can improve screening efforts? We have seen that not all the
enhanced screening portals are in use.
Chief Manger. Yes, there is always improving technology,
and I think that long-term, I think that that is something that
we need to take a serious look at. But we also--one of the
problems we have is that many of the screening locations
throughout the campus are not ideal. They are too small really
for doing an adequate screening.
When you look at the way things are laid out in the CVC,
that is as close to ideal as we can get. You have enough room
and you are able to place officers in the positions where they
need to be. You don't have people congregating at an elevator
that are mingling nonscreened people with screened people.
There are a lot of locations that it is not ideal. So even
if we had better equipment, the equipment is either too heavy
or too big or it just won't work.
So long term, I think we do need to look at all of the
screening locations and see how we can improve them so that
they are laid out better for a better result.
Mr. Valadao. Well, thank you.
My time is expired, and I now recognize Ranking Member
Espaillat for his questions.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief, as you mentioned in the statement, the recent
security breaches, particularly at building entrances, have
been unacceptable.
During your testimony you discussed the use of artificial
intelligence to ensure security screening is as effective as
possible. As you may know, I support the use of advanced
technology, particularly artificial intelligence, to secure the
campus. And so it is somewhat mind-boggling that as we move
forward with artificial intelligence and other technologies,
that we cannot really adopt them and be more secure. Can you
update us on how advanced threat detection over open areas can
help further secure our campus in this season of increased
threats from lone actors?
And if there is anything that you can shed on the
artificial intelligence component, we appreciate it.
Chief Manger. So as I mentioned, we installed the
artificial intelligence in our X-ray machines last year.
That artificial intelligence, there are advances every
single day. In fact, yesterday I met with the vendor who
provides us with the artificial intelligence, and he talked
about the testing that they are doing and the improvements that
we will, in fact, incorporate into our--make sure that we
incorporate them into our machines. There is also the ability
to use artificial intelligence in other venues where not just
at screening places, but if you have demonstrations or you have
some sort of crowd that is creating some sort of disruption,
that there is technology that we should explore that would
allow us to have some idea whether the folks in that crowd have
a prohibited item or a weapon on them. So all this is
technology, I think, that we need to continue to explore, and
my hope is that we could get the support of this committee--
and, frankly, of Congress--using some of this technology. I
know that there has been some hesitancy. For instance, one of
the things I would love to see us get to is that as someone
puts their bag on the X-ray machine, that there is a photo of
the person that put the bag on the machine and a photo of the
bag so you can link the two.
Right now we have people--you have got people in line,
people are throwing their stuff on the bag. Half the time you
don't know whose bag belongs to who. And things like that, that
we can, I think, be more precise and use the advancements in
artificial intelligence to help us.
Mr. Espaillat. And I am sure the chairman remembers that
one of my pet peeves is the fact that the cars are swept in the
entrance to the Capitol, but, yes, as the guards are sweeping
the cars, you have dozens of people, runners and cyclists with
backpacks, going right in unimpeded.
And so I am hopeful that this artificial intelligence model
that we are looking to implement could have like a full body
scan of these folks, and the campus itself will be better
protected so that we are not wide open, if you may.
Chief Manger. It is just a matter of having enough room to
put that kind of technology at our screening locations.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Thank you, Chief, again for your service.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Espaillat.
Mr. LaLota, you are recognized for your 5 minutes.
Mr. LaLota. Thank you, Chairman.
Chief, thanks so much for being with us.
Congratulations on your 45 years of service and your
pending retirement. And we appreciate what you do for us here
at the Capitol and all your leadership over the years.
I want to get into some numbers, Chief. Data provided to my
office shows there are just under 2,200 sworn officers in the
Capitol Police. Does that sound about right?
Chief Manger. That is correct, yes.
Mr. LaLota. And of those 2,200 sworn officers,
approximately 1,600 are rank-and-file police officers? Does
that sound about right?
Chief Manger. That is correct
Mr. LaLota. And of the 2,200 sworn officers, approximately
210 are either sergeants or lieutenants. Is that about right?
Chief Manger. I think that number is about right, yes.
Mr. LaLota. I think I have it at about 160 and 50 with
respect to sergeants and lieutenants.
Chief, can you describe some of the interactions between
the sergeants and lieutenants and the police officers they
supervise, what leadership they demonstrate, just generally
speaking, the roles and responsibilities of the sergeants and
lieutenants as they interact with the POs?
Chief Manger. So, first of all, sergeants, I think, are
probably the best barometer of a culture of an organization.
You look at the first-line supervisors, you can tell a lot
about an organization.
And sergeants and lieutenants have both operational and
administrative responsibilities. They are responsible for
scheduling and time sheets and all those kinds of things that
will keep them in the office busy with paperwork. But they are
also responsible for the day-to-day operations of the officers
under their supervision.
And so what we expect is for those supervisors--and what we
have--certainly one of the things we have put into place after
these breaches, is the officers--the officials have to get out
of the office and spend more time at the screening locations,
making sure that the process and the officers are doing exactly
what they are supposed to do. Too often you find first-line
supervisors get caught up in all the paperwork and are not out
doing as much supervision out in the field as they should. But
they have the responsibility of both.
Mr. LaLota. I wasn't a cop, but I was a military officer
for a little while. My dad and both my grandfathers were cops.
So I have an appreciation for that first-line supervisor
concept.
Can you describe a little more in detail about, with
specificity, how often do the sergeants go visit the watch
stations, what are they looking for, what standards are they
looking to uphold and enforce at the specific watch stations
throughout the Capitol, Chief?
Chief Manger. So right now in the Uniformed Services
Division--and this is where all the uniformed officers, which
include all of the screening points, they have been directed
to--they have a certification sheet that they have got to fill
out three times a day at every post where they have folks under
their supervision working. So we have mandated that this happen
frequently.
Do I think it was occurring like that before? No, I don't.
This is forcing them to come out.
So at least three times a day, they are out supervising
each post and documenting what they find.
Mr. LaLota. Great.
And you said in your testimony earlier--and I appreciate
you being very forthright with us on these breaches--you said
in your testimony they were not a result of technology or
process but they were more human error related.
And you also mentioned these breaches could likely have
been prevented if established protocols had been properly
followed.
How can you describe the job--you have 45 years of law
enforcement experience--how can you describe some of the
standards and culture that you have experienced in other jobs
before you got here to the one that is here? And are there any
other differences between the two? And could any of those
differences be improved upon, Chief?
Chief Manger. So I think one of the issues that we are
dealing with here is human nature. In the previous jobs that I
had in previous departments there was not the repetitive sort
of assignment that we have here, especially if you are assigned
to a screening post.
So we have got to ensure that we take into consideration
the fact that the human attention span is different for
different people.
But every single one of us has an attention span. And as
you fatigue, as you are involved in repetitive behavior, you
start to lose a little bit of focus. So one of the things we
looked at was how long are we going to keep people at a
particular post, sitting on an X-ray machine. So we are going
to make sure that that time is reduced to a point that nobody
is there for hours on end, which I don't know that any of us
would be able to retain the focus that we would want. So I am
not sure if that answers your question, but----
Mr. LaLota. It does. And with the 15 seconds or so that I
have remaining, attention span is something that is important
to us. Members of Congress too, you are in a unique position
where Members of Congress review your Department's
interactions.
With 5 or 10 seconds, what should we be focused on with our
attention?
You are not going to be here in a few months. Somebody else
is going to fill your shoes. What guidance would you give us as
you depart as to how to properly be the frontline supervisors
for the brass of the Capitol PD?
Chief Manger. I think that just to listen and consider not
only just the IG's recommendations and what some of the
oversight folks will tell you. But the officials, the rank-and-
file, the leadership of this department have one focus and one
mission.
And one of the things that when I got here, I never in a
million years would have recognized or believed about the
dedication and the quality of leadership that we have all
through the ranks, from you got patrol officers--and you know
this probably from your family--you have got people that may
not have the rank on their sleeves, but they are leaders in
this Department.
And you have got them at every rank in this Department. And
never question the dedication that these men and women have to
making sure this is a safe campus and that every one of you
remain safe. But we all still recruit from the human race, and
so we have to continue to try and make sure, through training
and accountability and everything else we can use, to make sure
that we are giving these folks every opportunity to succeed.
Mr. LaLota. Thanks for your four and a half decades of
leadership, Chief. We appreciate it.
I yield.
Mr. Valadao. Mr. Quigley, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you, Chief, for being here and for your service. I
want to follow up on that line of questioning if I may.
Giving them every opportunity to succeed, I would imagine
that some of that would include feedback on what they are
thinking.
Is there an official process for an officer to give
feedback on a process or how to improve things or how they are
feeling about something that has taken place?
Chief Manger. There is. Does everyone take advantage of it?
No. There are still folks, unfortunately, that feel like,
``Well, I am not going to open my mouth because I might get
retaliated against or I might piss this person off or
whatever.''
The fact of the matter is we just finished a Department-
wide climate survey where it was dozens and dozens of questions
about what goes on in the Department and how people feel about
different things.
I meet with, and my leadership team meets with, the FOP
regularly and we get feedback in every one of those meetings.
Mr. Quigley. Let me just ask about two things that might
have been on their minds.
You were here. I wasn't pulled out of the chambers right
away. We were upstairs and got stuck for a while. I tell
everyone I wouldn't be here without the courage of the D.C. and
the Capitol Police on that day. The fact that, as the ranking
member referenced, we actually passed legislation commemorating
the heroism that took place that day and asked that a plaque be
put up, that still hasn't happened. However anybody feels about
that, has there been feedback, some sense of how that might
have impacted the morale of the rank-and-file?
Chief Manger. I definitely think it impacts morale. I mean,
look, the fact that January 6 was a pretty traumatic day for
this campus and certainly----
Mr. Quigley. How many officers were injured that day?
Chief Manger. At least 140, I believe.
Mr. Quigley. And those that passed in the coming days?
Chief Manger. Say again?
Mr. Quigley. Police officers who we lost in the coming days
immediately thereafter?
Chief Manger. We lost a couple of them, yes.
Mr. Quigley. Yeah.
Chief Manger. But, look, there is a wide divergence of
opinions about what occurred on January 6, but I will tell you,
I know what my cops--how they feel. And I have spent the last 4
years trying to make sure that they know that their service was
respected and that what they did was honorable.
But, well, like with any, you have some officers that feel
okay about everything that has occurred. You have got others
that look at the pardons and look at a bunch of other things
and say that, ``Well, I guess people didn't care about us.''
The opinions run the gamut.
Mr. Quigley. Was there any attempt at checking morale as it
was affected by the plaque or specifically the pardons?
Chief Manger. Well----
Mr. Quigley. I mean, I can't believe it was split 50/50.
But you tell me how people reacted to it.
Chief Manger. No one asked those specific questions, but I
will tell you that I got an earful with regard to the pardons,
and I made a statement to my officers and made a couple public
statements about the fact that any time--and it doesn't matter
who the President is, what party it is, anything--any time a
police officer who is assaulted--someone who assaults a police
officer gets pardoned, I think that cops all over this country
would look at that and say, ``Why are we doing what we are
doing?''
Mr. Quigley. Yeah, there are more things I want to talk
about, but, Chairman, I don't want to break it up and get into
that. I just want to note that I appreciate what the officers
did that day. I had a firsthand view of it.
I want to thank them every day for that because I think
they saved more than our lives, but where our Republic was at
the time. And we should put the plaque up. We are seeing now
that those pardoned, many have been arrested since then. And I
believe all that has done is encouraged others to act in a
similar way in the future.
So thank you again for your service and for being here
today.
Mr. Valadao. Mr. Strong, your 5 minutes.
Mr. Strong. Chief Manger, I want to thank you for your
service to our Nation for over 45 years and congratulate you on
your upcoming retirement. I also want to extend my gratitude to
all of the officers that work tirelessly every day to protect
our Capitol, ensuring the safety of elected officials,
government employees, and visitors alike. I am glad that we are
holding this hearing today to address the recent security
challenges faced on the Capitol complex and examine ways to
enhance the preparedness of our officers. As a first responder
for over four decades, I have seen firsthand how crucial
preparedness and readiness are during crisis situations.
While we can never predict every potential crisis, we must
prepare, evaluate, and adapt our strategies to ensure our
officers are ready to act swiftly and effectively when needed.
Chief Manger, how do you assess the current training
programs for Capitol Police officers to ensure that they are
prepared for the wide range of potential threats that they
face?
Chief Manger. I think they are good, but there is always
room for improvement. We just did a learning needs assessment,
which is a pretty global look at our training and how it could
be improved.
But I would tell you specifically toward addressing these
issues of the security breaches, I think that our training is
solid, our policy is solid. It is just making sure that the
officers have this refresher.
Look, if it is like important--it is like firearms
training. We do that twice a year. Well, now we are going to do
the refresher training for the screening twice a year because
it is that important.
Mr. Strong. Okay. You mentioned an updated security
screening refresher training for officers, with mandatory
testing twice a year.
Can you walk us through the specific areas of security
screening that will be tested and the plan to track and analyze
the effectiveness of this reoccurring training.
Chief Manger. So the screening, there is a number of layers
to screening. First, I mean, we start the screening process
before somebody even gets into the building. We have got pre-
screeners outside that are watching people as they approach the
building.
We have got--once they get in, they go through a
magnetometer so that you can screen the person's body, their
clothing that they are wearing, and then any packages that they
have goes through screening as well. So it is a dual screening
process of the person and anything they have with them.
One of the key things is that if something alerts, whether
it is the X-ray machine or whether it is the magnetometer, you
have got to find out what is making it alert. And you don't
stop the screening process until you determine what is making
it alert.
Mr. Strong. I would also like to focus on the procedures
that directly follow security failures such as the ones
mentioned today.
Can you describe the Department's approach to a post-
incident evaluation? Specifically, how do the Capitol Police
debrief after an event, and how do you apply lessons learned to
future security planning?
Chief Manger. So we put out an after-action report, and we
allow anyone who was involved in this, from the newest officer
up to the chief of police, to have input on that after-action
report.
And once we get all the comments from everybody who was
involved, then we use that to look at it through the lens of
training, the lens of supervision, through equipment, through
all of those different lenses to determine what we can do to
make sure that whatever went wrong doesn't happen again--and
whatever went right, you know----
Mr. Strong. That is right.
Chief Manger [continuing]. Does happen again.
Mr. Strong. Switching gears a bit, your testimony mentioned
that the security screening failures this year were due to
human error despite technology correctly identifying prohibited
items.
How do you balance the role of technology, such as the
introduction of AI in X-ray machines, and officers' critical
oversight and decisionmaking responsibilities to avoid becoming
overly reliant on automated systems?
Chief Manger. Mr. Strong, that is a question that we have
talked about and an issue that we have talked about quite a bit
over the last couple of months. And I think it has to do with
training, it has to do with instilling this notion in the
officers that it is not their job to look at a screen. It is
their job to make sure that no prohibited items get into the
building. And just to approach the training in such a way that
they understand the importance, that AI is a tool, this
equipment is a tool, but it is up to them. They have the final
responsibility to make sure nothing prohibited gets through.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Chief.
In a perfect world--staffing, K-9, morale, vehicles,
equipment, technology, weapons, tactics, communication--what
one thing would you change right now if you could?
Chief Manger. You know, 46 years of being a cop, I am
telling you, I would, if there was a way that I could make cops
understand that people do, in fact, appreciate what they do. It
is not us versus them. It is that we are all part of this
community, that the Capitol Police play a unique role in the
congressional community, and to understand, to take pride in
that and take that pride in their workmanship and translate
that into making sure they are doing the best job that they can
do.
And so it really comes down to making sure these cops know
how much they are appreciated.
Mr. Strong. You got it.
Thank you, Chief. And I thank each of those that work under
your direction. You have done a phenomenal job.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
Representative Maloy.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief Manger, thanks for being here. Thank you for your 40-
plus years of public service. Everybody has said it, but
congratulations on your retirement. I really appreciate what
you and your officers do here. And I love that we welcome the
public into our buildings. And I know that you all have a
responsibility to keep me, my colleagues, and our staff safe.
So I recognize that you are balancing a lot of factors. I think
you do a really great job of it.
But as you pointed out, every one of the breaches was human
error. And I recognize that officers are human--we are all
human--and I am guessing that humans who enjoy their work
environment and feel appreciated are probably more
conscientious at what they do. And we all want to see your
officers be conscientious and successful at what they do.
So I have been sitting here listening to all the
questions--sorry, I have got a little bit of a cough--and I am
concerned that there might be a temptation on the part of
leadership in the Capitol Police to make changes to satisfy us
that might hurt morale in the force.
And so I just--and at the end here, with the few minutes
left, I want to give you a chance to talk about that. But let
me set the stage for you just a little bit.
The technological improvements you talked about sound
great, but every breach was human error. The increased training
sounds good too. But as I was listening, things like increasing
the rotations and changing the setup at these checkpoints might
make officers feel like they are being policed and treated like
children.
And we see the same officers a lot. We build up a good
rapport with them. There are 438 of us, and a lot of staff, and
when people are at the same places a lot, they see us a lot,
and they recognize people.
Can you just speak to how these changes in how personnel
are handled might impact morale on the force?
Chief Manger. So it is not lost on me that we had these
three breaches, but that 99.999 percent of my officers were not
involved in any of those. They made no mistakes.
Ms. Maloy. Right.
Chief Manger. And so when everybody had to go through the
training, believe me, I understood the fact that a lot of them
said, ``What did I do wrong?'' Because they did nothing wrong.
So I think it is important for leadership to be consistent.
This is not about--I will tell you that--again, been a cop a
long time, and even good cops make mistakes sometimes.
And when you make a mistake, it shouldn't start off with,
``Oh, you are going to get disciplined,'' or whatever. First
mistakes that people make--and it depends on the nature of the
mistake and all that sort of thing.
But all of these accountability measures that we are
putting in, I want it to start with training. Then, if the
people make mistakes, then counseling, just say, ``Hey, you did
this, this.'' And then, after that, you would get into, ``Okay,
well, do we need to look at some sort of discipline or
whatever?''
But I think training and counseling are where the emphasis
needs to be. As we add additional accountability measures where
officers might find themselves, ``Oh, gee, I looked at my phone
momentarily when I wasn't supposed to be looking at my phone.''
``Okay, well, you understand why you don't do that. Don't do
it.''
So we are trying to be reasonable with these measures and
not punitive with these measures.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you. I appreciate that.
It is also not lost on me what you just said, that when
officers feel like they are appreciated, they do a better job.
And if you could do anything, it would be to make sure that
they know that we appreciate them.
So I have got 1 minute left on the record. I just want to
say how much I appreciate what you all do and the
professionalism of the officers that I interact with every day.
And I hope that you will convey that back to your team. And I
hope whoever your successor is will work with us to make sure
that we have a good working relationship, because we all work
here in the same place together every day.
Chief Manger. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
And I second Ms. Maloy's comments. Obviously, we here,
Members, all my colleagues, do appreciate the service of our
Capitol Police officers. And we want to make sure that we
address some of the things that have happened.
But we agree a hundred percent, Capitol Police officers
have done an amazing job, and I have always felt safe here
because of the hard work that they do for us and for our
constituents. So thank you for taking time today.
And, again, I apologize for being late. Obviously, we were
trying to honor a past chair of this committee who a lot of us
hold in pretty high regard, and that ended up not working out.
So I think they are going to reschedule for the end of the
week.
But if there are no further questions, thank you for, one,
your service, and congratulations on your retirement, and for
testifying here today.
And thank you to all our Capitol Police officers who are
here and those who are out working.
And members may submit any additional questions for the
record.
And this committee now stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
Wednesday, April 2, 2025.
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WITNESSES
HON. CATHERINE L. SZPINDOR, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, U.S. HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES
HON. KEVIN F. McCUMBER, CLERK, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
HON. WILLIAM P. McFARLAND, SERGEANT AT ARMS, U.S. HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES
MR. MATTHEW BERRY, GENERAL COUNSEL, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MS. CHRISTEN STEVENSON, ACTING INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES
MR. BRIAN LINDSEY, LAW REVISION COUNSEL, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MR. WARREN BURKE, LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. Valadao. Well, now that I have a gavel, this meeting
will come to order--or this subcommittee will come to order.
The subject of today's hearing is the fiscal year 2026
budget request for the House of Representatives.
I would like to thank Ranking Member Espaillat, committee
members, and House officers, Mr. Kevin McCumber, Mr. Bill
McFarland, and Ms. Catherine Szpindor, and our other House
officials for being here.
Thank you.
I know that all members of this committee share my
appreciation for the work that you do and each member of your
staff does to keep the House operating efficiently and
effectively.
I want to start by highlighting the excellent work you have
already accomplished as we have begun the 119th Congress.
You and your teams have each contributed to the several
historic events with the organization of the new Congress on
January 3, followed by the joint session to count the electoral
votes, and the lying in state of former President Carter.
Shortly thereafter, we joined the Senate in hosting the
60th inaugural ceremonies and, most recently, the Presidential
joint address.
We know that each of these events requires months of
planning and hours of extra work. Congratulations on each
successful event, and we thank you for your continued efforts.
Thank you again for joining us today, and I look forward to
hearing your testimonies and learning more about budget
priorities for fiscal year 2026.
I now recognize Ranking Member Espaillat for his opening
remarks.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Chairman Valadao.
And good morning, Ms. Szpindor, Mr. McFarland, and Mr.
McCumber. Thank you for joining us to discuss fiscal year 2026
and your budget requests.
You all do an exceptional job serving this body and
providing a host of services that are necessary for us to
represent our constituents and address our country's critical
needs.
House offices, such as the Office of Official Reporters,
Legislative Counsel, and our various technology divisions, work
behind the scenes to support our operation, and I want them to
know that we are thankful and really benefit greatly from their
hard work.
The overall fiscal year 2026 budget request for the House
of Representatives is $2.1 billion, which is $207.8 million or
11 percent above the fiscal year 2025 enacted level.
Many of the requested increases would have been addressed
in a full-year enacted bill, but due to the failure to complete
the 2025 appropriations process, accounts were frozen in a
full-year continuing resolution.
The $8 million cut to the modernization account came as a
surprise to this side of the aisle, and of course we want to
work in a bipartisan and transparent manner.
Investments in the U.S. House of Representatives are
critical to the growth and progress of our democracy. I look
forward to hearing each of you and your testimonies and
discussing the IT modernization and security efforts included
within the requests as well as the impacts to Congress and our
ability to be transparent and responsive to our constituencies
if these efforts are not implemented.
It is important for this committee to continue our
investment in building a better institution that is more
responsive to the needs of our constituents. The bipartisan
work we do on this committee helps to strengthen our government
and its capacity to serve the American people.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Espaillat.
The Clerk, Sergeant at Arms, and Chief Administrative
Officer are joined today by Matthew Berry, the House General
Counsel, Ms. Christen Stevenson, the acting House Inspector
General, Mr. Brian Lindsey, the Law Revision Counsel, and Mr.
Warren Burke, the Legislative Counsel.
All of their testimonies have been submitted for the
record, and members are welcome to ask questions to any of the
House officials here today in addition to our three main
witnesses.
Mr. McCumber, your full testimony has been submitted for
the record, and you are now recognized to provide a summary of
your written testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. KEVIN F. McCUMBER
Mr. McCumber. Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat,
members of the subcommittee, thank you for your ongoing support
for the Office of the Clerk and our 222 staff. I am extremely
proud to testify on their behalf about our operations and
fiscal year 2026 budget request.
I would like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank my
colleagues beside me, Catherine and Bill, and the other House
officials here in the room. Their support and collaboration in
managing the House's daily operations is absolutely critical
for our continued success.
To put the bottom line up front, we are requesting
$48,992,000 for fiscal year 2026. This is an 18.18 percent
increase above the fiscal year 2025 enacted funding level.
There are several reasons for this increase.
First, like everyone coming before this committee, this
request reflects a 2-year compounded need.
Second, this level of funding supports our most valued
asset--our staff--through mandatory longevities and cost-of-
living adjustments.
In addition, this request follows an assessment of our
staffing requirements completed over the last year to ensure we
can continue to execute our evolving mission and supports
funding for 11 new positions.
Four of these new positions will provide the staff needed
to support the increase in committee field hearings, six will
provide appropriate support for our growing technology
portfolio, and one will support our growing administrative
needs.
Finally, redevelopment of our Legislative Information
Management System, or LIMS, and other modernization projects
necessitate the next largest increase to our request, some of
which received initial funding from the House's Modernization
Initiatives Account.
It is important to know that, absent the inclusion of these
LIMS and modernization projects, our budget request is just
1.45 percent above our fiscal year 2025 enacted level.
We are able to keep this request for necessary funding low
due to significant efforts to identify savings and find
efficiencies, including renegotiating contracts and locking in
long-term pricing for recurring nondiscretionary services, all
without sacrificing mission readiness.
For instance, in seeking a new backup and recovery solution
for both our on-prem data center and cloud environment, we are
able to find a modern solution that is $100,000 a year less
than our old legacy backup system.
We didn't stop there, though. Through negotiated pricing,
we are able to lock in savings of $55,000 per year for the next
3 years for our software that manages our virtual servers.
We are committed to doing the necessary work to ensure we
are using taxpayer funds responsibly.
This request also supports our work on the eHopper,
Comparative Print Suite, our ongoing redevelopment of mission-
critical LIMS, the Centralized Committee Portal, collaborative
legislative drafting tools, and the lobbying disclosure
project.
By including these projects as a part of our budget, we can
continue them uninterrupted and stay on track to meet required
deadlines.
As I mentioned at the outset, staff are our most valued
asset. I want to express my sincere gratitude to our entire
Clerk team whose work day in and day out provides the necessary
support for the House to conduct business.
In addition to these daily activities, our staff must be
agile, creative, and forward-thinking.
A good example of this can be seen in our recent change-of-
Congress activities. Included as part of our planning efforts
for the 119th Congress was a discussion about potential
outcomes of the Presidential election, which resulted in a
project to preemptively address a need in the event the House
was required to elect the President in a contingent election.
As you know, Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 of the
Constitution gives the House the power to choose the President
in the event of a tie or if no person receives a majority of
electoral votes cast, with each State getting one vote.
While the House would determine the specifics of the
proceedings, each State with two or more Representatives would
likely need a ballot box to collect the votes of its
Representatives to determine which candidate would receive the
State's single vote.
We worked with the CAO furniture team beginning late last
spring to design and build custom boxes for each State at no
outside cost, several of which I brought with me today that
just so happen to be for the State each of you represent.
While these ballot boxes were not necessary this year, they
will be stored for future readiness.
Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat, and
subcommittee members, the Office of the Clerk is committed to
ensuring faithful stewardship of taxpayer dollars as we
continue our service to this great institution.
Thank you again for your continued support and for the
opportunity to testify. I welcome your questions.
[The statement of Mr. McCumber follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. McCumber.
I now recognize Mr. McFarland for a summary of your written
testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM P. McFARLAND
Mr. McFarland. Good morning, Chairman Valadao, Ranking
Member Espaillat, and members of the committee.
I appreciate the invitation to appear before you today to
testify in support of the fiscal year 2026 budget request for
the Office of the Sergeant at Arms, which totals $40,606,000
and 206 full-time equivalents, an increase of $6.5 million or
18.94 percent and zero FTEs from the fiscal year 2025 enacted
level, and a modest 4.7 increase over the fiscal year 2024
enacted budget of $38,793,000.
I would like to thank the committee for its support in
funding the Sergeant at Arms at its fiscal year 2025 requested
level.
I appreciate the partnership that we have had over the past
2 years, and I look forward to our continued work together to
ensure the safety and security of the Capitol complex, Members
of Congress, their staffs, and visitors in both Washington,
D.C., and in their districts.
As you noted last week, Chairman Valadao, it is when we all
work together that we can ensure the greatest level of safety
for all of us.
When I began as Sergeant at Arms 2 years ago, I shared with
the committee a strategic plan to guide our organization. Since
then, we have made significant strides, particularly in how we
support our staff and deliver service to the House community.
To build on that momentum, we have launched an updated
strategic plan for the 119th Congress to align with every
effort, initiative, and resource--including our fiscal year
2026 budget request--towards our mission.
The essential focus of our budget request is continued
investment in our workforce. We revised our performance
management process so staff can define their own goals in
alignment with the strategic plan, allowing them to grow in
their roles while contributing meaningfully to the mission.
We are also expanding access to industry training and have
partnered with a leadership development firm to develop
leadership skills in every Sergeant at Arms employee at every
level of our organization.
We also remain laser-focused on providing outstanding
service to the House community with this request. During the
last Congress, we partnered with a premier hospitality and
customer service training organization to improve frontline
customer service and have received positive feedback from
Members and staff in this area.
We are continuing to refine the Secure Member Portal,
expanding our district security support, and implementing new
branding and customer service initiatives that will continue
improving the consistency and professionalism of our engagement
with the House.
We have also worked with the Architect of the Capitol and
the U.S. Capitol Police to implement new physical security
enhancements, including hardened doors in key areas of the
Capitol.
Included in the budget request is funding for the Sergeant
at Arms to continue to provide in-person security awareness
briefings in Members' districts.
In conjunction with the U.S. Capitol Police, security
awareness briefings provide a security overview for Members and
staff on how to respond to a typical security issue that an
office encounters and includes best practices for district
office security, residential security, and for hosting and
attending events in their district.
Our request also includes funding to advance innovation,
particularly in areas like mobile duress alert systems for
Members, AI-enacted event monitoring tools, and new software to
modernize parking security.
Each of these initiatives reflects our goal to anticipate
needs before they arise and deliver solutions that support
safety, efficiency, and responsiveness.
In closing, the fiscal year 2026 Sergeant at Arms budget
request has been prepared in the spirit of zero-based
budgeting, remaining fiscally responsible without jeopardizing
mission-critical services provided to the House community.
My office is fully committed to continue delivering top-
tier, nonpartisan security services for our esteemed Members,
their families, and staff.
In my first Congress as Sergeant at Arms, I placed renewed
focus in executing the fundamentals. This Congress, we are
fixated on taking the organization to the next level in terms
of technology and modernization while still striving for
excellence in executing the fundamentals.
We recognize the immense responsibility entrusted to us and
are dedicated to upholding the high standards of
professionalism and efficiency.
I look forward to working with the committee and my fellow
House officers here today, and I welcome any questions you may
have.
[The statement of Mr. McFarland follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. McFarland.
I now recognize Ms. Szpindor for a summary of your written
statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. CATHERINE L. SZPINDOR
Ms. Szpindor. Thank you.
Good morning, Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat,
and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity
to present the CAO's fiscal year 2026 budget totaling
$243,184,000.
Since fiscal year 2023, the CAO has operated with a flat
budget, without service reductions or disruptions, through
careful project planning and budget analysis, achieving service
improvements and delivering new products.
During this time, the cost of software and hardware
increased between 30 to 50 percent, along with increased
personnel and contractor costs.
The CAO's fiscal year 2026 personnel budget represents a
$10.8 million increase in personnel costs to support existing
staff, COLAs, longevity increases, overtime, active
recruitments, and contractor conversions.
Increases in personnel are offset by planned savings in
nonpersonnel costs of $5.5 million achieved through the
conversion of contractors to full-time employees.
We are requesting $6.7 million of the total increase to
replace the House human resources and payroll and benefits
system which manages official employee records and payroll and
benefit administration for Members and an estimated 12,000
staffers.
The system is over 20 years old and will no longer be
supported by the vendor in 2030. Failing to replace the system
will jeopardize the continuity of payroll and benefit
administration, on-boarding and off-boarding employees, and the
maintenance of official records.
A new system will modernize the payroll disbursement
processes and improve the user experience.
This is a large, multiyear implementation project requiring
additional investment over the next 4 years.
We intend to invest $2.5 million in artificial intelligence
(AI) applications so House staff can take full advantage of AI
technology within the House's--and this is important--within
the House's secure IT environment.
Funding will be used to purchase licenses, AI expertise and
IT infrastructure, and tools needed for deployment. We will
also administer a robust training initiative to ensure that all
House staff from the top down, are using AI responsibly.
Also, we must continue to update and invest in the current
systems that we already have that require some enhancements.
$2.2 million to upgrade the House campus Avaya phone system
that we all use to expand call management and improve user
experience.
$1.8 million for server infrastructure and to support
extended warranties for hardware maintenance and software
upgrades to systems used by the House, the CAO, the Sergeant at
Arms, and the Clerk.
$1.5 million in websites to maintain accessibility features
for 508 compliance, contractors for site development and
testing, performance monitoring, and database service and
storage resources.
$1.2 million on the House's cybersecurity program for the
sustainment and expansion of secure cloud and on-premise
infrastructure, website protections, and continuous security
monitoring.
$1 million to support Mac computers with a new system
management and monitoring system to protect House users and
data and expedite the deployment of system updates, including
multiple users per Mac device used for interns--or requested
for interns. Which we haven't been able to do it yet.
Other requests are for the House data storage
infrastructure of $670,000, the House Learning Management
System replacement for $550,000, and $533,000 for the continued
development of successful House-wide tools by the Digital
Services team.
Failing to fund these critical projects will jeopardize
House operations and reduce services and critical security
issues could be the result along with system outages.
I want to thank the subcommittee, along with the
Modernization Subcommittee, for their continued support of
modernization initiatives. Over the past 3 years, we have been
able to get support that has enabled the implementation of
numerous Member-driven improvements that strengthened and
modernized House operations.
The CAO office is dedicated to being an essential resource
for all Members and staff. That is our mission. We have
talented and dedicated staff within the CAO prepared to
continue providing services for critical House operations.
Thank you, and I will be happy to answer any questions you
may have. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Szpindor follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Ms. Szpindor.
Thank you to all our witnesses for testifying before the
committee today.
For questions, I will call on members based on seniority of
those present when the hearing was called to order, alternating
between the majority and minority, and then we will call on
members in order of their arrival. Each will have 5 minutes.
I will recognize myself for the first 5 minutes.
All right. Mr. McCumber, you are requesting a significant
amount for modernization efforts, as noted in your testimony.
This committee has supported and I suspect will continue to
support these large-scale modernization efforts as they are
critical to the legislative process. But I am curious if your
office is also looking at any modernization efforts that do not
require any additional funding.
Mr. McCumber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Yes, sir. We routinely look at ways to modernize our
processes and operations, both to gain better efficiencies and
improve our services.
For a recent example, Members used to have to go to two
different places to obtain letterhead depending on if they
wanted paper letterhead or digital letterhead, and we
consolidated that into one office with one request.
For future efforts, our Office of House Employment Counsel
needs to update its training videos and has proposed working
with the CAO's Congressional Staff Academy, the House Recording
Studio, or Creative Services to develop these updated classes.
And we feel that using internal resources will give OHEC
more latitude in creating unique training classes and scenarios
more tailored to the House's unique needs while saving money
over utilizing outside vendors to receive the same product.
Mr. Valadao. How are you communicating these modernization
initiatives to make sure staff and Members know it is available
to them?
Mr. McCumber. So we communicate all of our services using
available House-wide tools, whether it is the CAO's e-Dear
Colleague system, the digital posters located throughout
campus, various newsletters, and both courses through the
Congressional Staff Academy; the House Library offers courses.
And we also offer a pretty popular Clerk services course
taught by staff from our Office of Communications to make sure
staff are aware of all of our resources.
We have a one-page handout front and back that includes
both all of our online resources and all the services that we
offer to the community.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
Mr. McFarland, as you know, last week the subcommittee held
an oversight hearing with U.S. Capitol Police Chief Manger to
call attention to the recent breaches of House office buildings
and the Capitol. We discussed ways in which we could all work
together to strengthen the security of the Capitol campus.
In light of these security breaches, and given your role as
a member of the Capitol Police Board, can you share with us
your recommendations you might have for strengthening security
on campus?
Mr. McFarland. Chairman Valadao, as the House Sergeant at
Arms is a member of the Capitol Police Board, we have actually
listened to Chief Manger's strategy to mitigate these security
lapses that are happening, and we hope that he is holding the
Uniformed Services Bureau at a higher standard for these
lapses.
One of the recommendations that has come up was we created
a secure working group for research and development where we
utilized technology and AI to try to be a little bit more
proactive in their approaches that might cause some of these
security lapses instead of being reactive. So that is one of
the recommendations that we have actually put forth.
Mr. Valadao. Any timeline for replacing the chief, who is
now retiring?
Mr. McFarland. As it relates to the chief, I can let you
know that the process has started. We are looking at about 10
weeks right now.
That being said, we are looking for a proven leader,
because the Capitol Police has a very unique mission.
But we are wishing Chief Manger well in his retirement. He
has offered to stay on. We appreciate that. As we look forward
to the new chief, we are looking forward to a thorough process
of picking the next chief.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
Ms. Szpindor, as you might remember, the Library of
Congress experienced a cybersecurity breach last year. Was the
House affected, probed, or breached in a similar manner?
Ms. Szpindor. Last year's compromise--the LOC had their
cybersecurity incident--was just a breach of their LOC email
system by a threat actor, one that we all know about most of
the time.
The House employs a different email system, and that is not
connected to the LOC's email system. Our House email system is
not--was not impacted at all by the LOC issue.
We worked with the LOC--my staff, my cybersecurity staff--
to do whatever we could to assist them. And we have quite a bit
in place on our side that allows us to monitor 7 by 24, 365
days a year, our system and be able to quickly determine if
something like the attack they had was happening to our system
in any way.
So we continue to be available if they would like to work
with us and they need our help in any way.
Mr. Valadao. All right. Well, thank you.
My time has expired. So, Mr. Espaillat, you are recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McCumber, I like those boxes, particularly the one with
the New York seal. The question is, who will have the key?
I submit to you that a copy of that key should be given to
Mr. Hoyer. He has been around for a long time. I am sure he
will ensure that the proper count is taken.
Mr. McCumber. Yes, sir. And the Maryland box is in the back
corner, too. We just didn't have room on the table for all the
States.
Mr. Hoyer. We are filling it up now. [Laughter.]
Mr. Espaillat. Mr. McFarland, thank you for being here
today.
How many security breaches occurred? Do you have a number?
Mr. McFarland. The count right now is, I think, four, sir.
Mr. Espaillat. Four security breaches?
Mr. McFarland. Correct.
Mr. Espaillat. And how many----
Mr. McFarland. Go ahead.
Mr. Espaillat [continuing]. Weapons were? Was it
ammunitions? Knives?
Mr. McFarland. If it is ammunition and guns, we are talking
three out of the four.
Mr. Espaillat. Okay. Now, thank you for that. And I might
add that the men and women of the Capitol Police, I find them
to be in a more proactive mode. So I want to commend you for
whatever it is that you are doing to ensure that they are more
alert in the points of entry into the Capitol grounds. I have
seen that firsthand myself.
But I also know that many individuals that were involved in
the January 6 riot were pardoned and were allowed back on
campus. It is almost like if someone assaulted a family member
of yours and then, all of a sudden, they are released and they
come back and they show up on your block in front of your
house, in front of your apartment building. I am sure that any
family would be alarmed about that.
In fact, I saw one of them holding a press conference just
a short distance away from the Ways and Means room where the
men and women of the Capitol Police ushered Members from both
sides of the aisle during January 6 to protect them from bodily
harm or, if we take into consideration what some of the chants
were, maybe even death.
And so what measures are you taking to ensure that some of
the same Capitol Police officers that were in harm's way during
January 6 are not in harm's way again when a violent person--
with a violent history, obviously--shows up on our campus?
Mr. McFarland. Sir, every day we don't know some of the
people that come through our doors. We are an open building. It
is open to the public. We don't do background checks on
everybody that comes through those doors. So what we have got
to do as the members of the Capitol Police is we have to treat
everybody the same.
Mr. Espaillat. Yeah, but you have an intelligence component
to your operations. These guys were pretty open about when they
were going to be there and where.
Do you take any particular measures to ensure that nobody
is harmed?
Mr. McFarland. We actually, if we know about individuals
that are coming up to the Hill and someone with a record of
such, we are alerted of that if it is on social media.
Mr. Espaillat. Right. So what if, like, the Proud Boys or
the Oath Keepers announce publicly that they are coming into
Rayburn, right outside of here, or Longworth, where I saw this
individual holding a press conference with about a dozen
cameras? What measures do you take?
Mr. McFarland. If it is something that comes in, I really
don't want to go into great detail about our methods. But if
our intelligence section of the Capitol Police alerts us of the
situation that is coming up and this is where they are going to
be, we will make sure we have extra uniforms into place and we
will make sure that we do the proper screening of everybody
that comes into the building.
Mr. Espaillat. I mean, I would love for you to find out if,
in fact, that was the case on that particular day.
But thank you, Mr. McFarland.
Real quickly, Ms. Szpindor. How many attempts are there on
a daily basis to try to breach our system?
Ms. Szpindor. It is millions. I mean, monthly counts are in
the millions and millions.
Mr. Hoyer. Your microphone.
Ms. Szpindor. Bill, you are supposed to be doing that.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McFarland. Sorry about that.
Ms. Szpindor. It was in the millions and millions.
But I am so proud of the staff we have--our technical
staff, our cybersecurity staff--because we keep evolving our
cybersecurity posture.
We have a great forensics team. We have people, like I
said, that monitor 7 by 24. We have had some near misses, I
have to tell you, but we were able to react within 10 minutes,
15 minutes, to recognize the issue, start the first processes
we have to prevent them from moving any farther into our
systems.
But it is a constant, constant battle. And we do
cybersecurity training--I have mentioned that to a few people
lately--where they can come to your office and talk to you
about some things that you and the people within your office
can do to help better protect yourself from being hacked in any
way.
So if you are interested in it, we would be glad to send
someone up. Our CISO, who has been going around and doing some
of these briefings, would be more than willing to come talk to
you.
But it can be as simple as someone you don't know but you
think you know their name, you click on an email, you go to a
link, and they are into our network. So----
Mr. Valadao. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. I will recognize Mr. LaLota for your 5
minutes.
Mr. LaLota. Thank you, Chairman.
Thanks, folks, for being with us here today.
Mr. McCumber, good to see you. My colleagues, my Republican
colleagues and I were anxious about what those boxes were. We
see New York and California. We see our great seals.
I came to the conclusion that they were boxes for the
highest-taxed States in the Nation, and that is where you put
your high taxes, in there, but I guess they are for another
purpose.
Nevertheless, I want to talk about artificial intelligence
with you all. It is reshaping how organizations are doing
business on a daily basis, and it should be no exception that
that is how we are probably going to proceed here in the House
of Representatives.
Private industries, universities, hospitals, and local
governments are already integrating AI into their routines to
improve performance, reduce inefficiencies, and better serve
the people that we all represent.
As stewards of taxpayer dollars and representatives of the
American people, we ought to be doing the same, thoughtfully
and deliberately. But I think we all agree that we need to
proceed with caution and with clear standards in place.
And any AI used within the House must meet the highest
standards for data security and privacy, and I appreciate your
commentary earlier. And, most importantly, it must never be
used in a way that undermines the trust or safety of Members,
staff, or the American people.
Ms. Szpindor, it is great to see you again. Thanks for
being in my office a couple of days ago.
How is your office approaching AI tools that can make
internal operations more efficient, things like HR, payroll,
and trainings?
Ms. Szpindor. Thank you for that question.
This is something that we have worked on very seriously, of
course, AI, since it became a thing, a product, primarily
ChatGPT was the first introduction of it, and we have worked
with many of the offices and their staff to have responsible
ChatGPT usage.
And as we move forward we developed the first--of many
agencies, I think we were the first agency to develop our
cybersecurity and AI position and our policy on AI and the use
cases by which we would agree to use AI.
We are looking, as I mentioned in my testimony, at an AI
product. It is with a vendor that we are very familiar with,
and they are in a FedRAMP environment with the product. We
would be using it against our secure data and monitoring it
thoroughly to make sure it was used appropriately.
But, most importantly, with any new product it is a whole
lot more than just the product. If you do not go and you do
not, as I mentioned before, make sure everybody understands how
to use it properly----
Mr. LaLota. Let me ask you a follow-up question then. Tell
us specifically on policies, procedures, protocols, what are
you all doing to ensure that we maintain the highest levels of
cybersecurity, privacy and data, things that just make for good
business in this quickly evolving space? What are you doing
formally to ensure those high standards?
Ms. Szpindor. Formally, we will take any product that
anyone is interested in using that may have AI in it. We run it
through a thorough cybersecurity process to make sure that it
does meet the policy that we put out--which is on HouseNet, by
the way, if anyone would like to go out and look at it.
Mr. LaLota. That is what I am getting to, ma'am.
Ms. Szpindor. Yeah.
Mr. LaLota. Is that specifically with our staffs, committee
staffs, what sort of policies are you promulgating to us to
ensure that we are compliant with those high standards?
Ms. Szpindor. It is the House AI policy that we have
released. And, in addition to that, we are available, as I
said, to go come out and talk to anyone that would like to
delve into it a little bit more, be able to understand what
type of products we are looking at to make sure that they are
secure for the House.
For any product, whether it is AI or otherwise, we go
through a thorough review of it before we initiate any
implementation of it in our environment.
Mr. LaLota. Yeah. I would offer you to continue that
interaction. It is healthy. It is productive. The advance of AI
is going to be exponential and we are going to all have to keep
pace, and the more that our offices can communicate with each
other on that, the better we will do our jobs.
Ms. Szpindor. Yeah.
Mr. LaLota. Thank you, Chairman. I yield.
Ms. Szpindor. You are welcome.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. LaLota.
I now recognize Mr. Hoyer for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I am glad to be back on this subcommittee after two or
three decades. And I want to say the reason I came back is
because I think the operations of the House of
Representatives--and the United States Senate--of the House of
Representatives is critical to the American people.
They don't know any of you and they don't know any of the
people sitting in front of us, but what you do for them is
absolutely essential, and it is absolutely essential that we
keep the best and the brightest.
And when they leave, they retire or leave for some other
reason, it is critically important for us to be able to recruit
the best and the brightest to deal with some of the complex
issues that have been raised by the chairman, Mr. LaLota, and
the ranking member.
When Speaker Pelosi was Speaker, she decoupled the salaries
from Members who have not raised their salaries now in 15
years, not with raises but with COLA adjustments. I would like
each one of you to tell me the impact that has had on your
ability to retain and recruit the best and the brightest to
serve our institution and the American people.
Mr. McCumber. Thank you, Mr. Hoyer.
Quite simply, it has allowed us to be able to recruit and
retain to keep pace with both the Senate as well as the
executive branch. So it is----
Mr. Hoyer. Specifically, the Senate and the executive
branch, how out of kilter were we with those two competitors,
if you will?
Mr. McCumber. With the Senate, we were at pace with them
until we both decoupled, and I believe they got 1 year ahead of
us until we caught back up. But the executive branch has been
consistently.
Mr. Hoyer. And, prior to that time, I think one of you
mentioned to me in my office that we were losing people to the
Senate.
Mr. McCumber. Yes, sir.
So our terrific Official Reporters, the stenographers, when
we--both staff pay as well as the way we handled the leave
system for our stenographers, the Senate offered better
benefits along those lines.
And so until we changed the way our leave system worked, as
well as we were able to increase staff pay, we were
consistently losing stenographers to the Senate for those
better benefits. And since we have put those in place, we have
been able to retain staff.
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. McFarland and Ms. Szpindor, would you like
to comment on that?
Mr. McFarland. Sure. Just to let you know, we have actually
taken some people from the Senate side. So I feel better about
that. We have actually--we have been able to retain.
I think one thing that I can say from my personal
experience of leaving and coming back is the fact that I saw
what it is like in the private sector.
I saw where, for Catherine's purposes, cybersecurity folks
and how much they make on the outside compared to where they
are in the government is a large contrast.
So that is something that should be looked at.
Mr. Hoyer. Can you give me sort of a guess at what the
contrast is?
Mr. McFarland. Sure. I think when you take a look at the
company that I worked for, there were system security
administrators that were making $200,000 a year, and they were
working from home.
Mr. Hoyer. And we were paying similar people----
Mr. McFarland. And we were paying someone similar maybe
$100,000 or $120,000 a year.
Am I correct on that?
Ms. Szpindor. It depends on their position.
Mr. McFarland. Correct.
Ms. Szpindor. They could be making a little bit more.
Mr. Hoyer. You have unique--somewhat unique--you have
worked for Sprint and Nextel and Sprint Nextel. Compare the
quality of people that we have with the quality of people you
worked with in the private sector.
Ms. Szpindor. From their dedication and the quality of the
individuals work on what they do, I would put it right next to
anything that I had seen in my career in the private sector--
quite frankly.
We have individuals that probably could retire if they
wanted to, but--and when I asked them, I said, ``How much
longer do you think you might be here? We value you.'' And they
usually say, ``We are here because we love this place. We are
here because we are serving the American people.''
And that is exactly how my staff feels. They are talented.
They are some of the best technicians I have ever worked with.
And, yes, they make a little less than what they would
probably make if they were with a firm outside of the
government, but they have such dedication to what they do, the
mission they serve, they stay, and they are the bedrock of our
organization.
Mr. Hoyer. I am over time, and I will go back when we do
the second round with some other questions.
But the bottom line is, all three of you--particularly
those of you who have worked in the private sector--would
compare our employees not only favorably but as good as anybody
you can find in the private sector.
Is that accurate?
Ms. Szpindor. That is most certain.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Hoyer.
I now recognize Mr. Strong for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member.
I want to start by thanking the witnesses and their staff
for their hard work and dedication to the U.S. House of
Representatives. Each of your jobs and your teams are vital to
ensuring that our Nation's legislative process runs smoothly.
With this being said, everyone understands, with a $26
trillion national debt, each of us are required to maximize the
expenditure of every taxpayer dollar.
I gratefully appreciate each of your visit to my office to
present your update on your budget and your vision for the days
ahead.
Ms. Szpindor, you mentioned that the CAO has faced a 30 to
50 percent increase in cost of House-purchased software and
hardware since fiscal year 2023.
Have these rising costs impacted your ability to maintain
and upgrade the House's IT infrastructure? And how will your
fiscal year 2026 requests address these challenges?
Ms. Szpindor. I can say we have managed okay, and the way
we have managed is that some of the projects that we have
planned during those years we were not able to do.
We go through a thorough project prioritization process to
look at can we extend this just a little bit longer and what is
serious, what is necessary to be done at a particular point in
time. We meet quarterly to review all of our projects to see if
the prioritization needs to change.
So we have been able to manage with a lot of prioritization
choices, but we are at the point after 3 years that we just
can't with the price manage increases and everything I spoke
about.
Mr. Strong. Okay.
Ms. Szpindor. We just cannot do that.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
Ms. Szpindor. Some of these projects have got to be done.
If they aren't, then we will start having problems with our
systems.
Mr. Strong. Ms. Szpindor, in your opening statement you
mentioned overtime costs, overtime costs versus full-time
salaried employees.
Has there been a cost comparison to evaluate at what point
the cost break is established with salaried employees versus
your overtime costs?
Ms. Szpindor. We look at that on a regular basis, and we
look at it usually every time we do a budget.
A lot of the overtime costs are for individuals at some of
the lesser salary levels. So they are not extraordinary. We try
to limit those. The time we see a lot of overtime is during
transition.
Mr. Strong. Has there been consideration to reorganize
either these departments through attrition and technical
upgrades that would strengthen each of your organizations?
Ms. Szpindor. We look at that on a regular basis, yes.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
I also understand that the Select Committee on the
Modernization of Congress worked with the CAO to identify areas
that would benefit from modernization initiatives.
Ms. Szpindor, can you share some of the recommendations
provided by the committee that you have implemented?
Ms. Szpindor. The answer is quite a few that we have done.
We developed for the House a HouseCal, which is a House
calendar, that is acceptable to show you--what is happening in
session--and a full calendar that you can select and look at as
to what might be going on any particular day.
We also have a product that we are working on now which I
think has huge potential. It is called a Case--let me get the
exact name right--CaseCompass project.
And what this is, it is a pilot program with the support of
the subcommittee that collects and anonymizes casework across
40 offices that have volunteered to be part of this. And what
that does, it ingests casework data and breaks it down by
Federal agency, subagency, and what the problem is.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Ms. Szpindor. Thank you.
Ms. Szpindor. Yeah.
Mr. Strong. Switching gears.
Mr. McFarland, I know the Sergeant at Arms office takes
steps to ensure readiness for emergencies, whether due to
natural disasters, civil unrest, or other threats.
Can you expand on why the requested funding is necessary to
maintain and improve capabilities?
Mr. McFarland. Sir, if you take a look, what we have asked
for, for emergency management, basically is 20 percent of the
escape hoods.
Instead of going for a large portion of the budget that we
used to do once every 5 years where it would cost $7.5 million,
we are now taking 20 percent of the escape hoods and replacing
them at that time. That way we are not gouging, you know, a big
number to you every year, every 5 years. We are just giving it
to you. Now it is going to be a steady flow of $1.5 million.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Strong.
And I now recognize Ms. Maloy for 5 minutes.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
One of the great things about being new on a committee is
all the good questions get asked before they get to you. So I
may not even need my full 5 minutes.
Thank you all for your efforts at modernization. As someone
who was a staffer on the Hill and is now a Member of Congress
on the Hill, I can see the need to update a lot of the things
we do where we are operating on old technology a lot.
Mr. McCumber, you came and talked to me yesterday and we
talked about Comparative Print Suite. I am just going to give
you a minute to brag. Will you just explain what that is and
why it is going to make all of our lives so much better?
Mr. McCumber. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for the question.
So the Comparative Print Suite has been a yearslong effort.
I should add it is--compare.house.gov is the----
Ms. Maloy. Thank you.
Mr. McCumber [continued]. Website, the link to be able to
access it for--currently, it is only available to Members and
staff in the House.
But it allows you to do a real-time, red-line comparison, a
bill-to-bill comparison, bill-to-existing law, and changes to
existing law. You can pull out various sections of a bill and
compare it to drafts.
And it takes a lot of the effort that may have--that had to
be expended previously and it just takes it right down, drills
it right down, and pulls exactly what you are looking for--
using, I should add, a form of AI natural language processing.
And it has been a really helpful tool both to Members, I know
committees and staff, to be able to have that real-time
comparison.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you. As a former legal counsel on the
Hill, I would have loved to have had that.
Mr. McCumber. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Maloy. There were a lot of times I was trying to
explain what a bill would do to an existing law, and I would
always say it would be so nice to be able to have a red line.
So I appreciate that.
Mr. McFarland, we talked about the Secure Member Portal
app, and without disclosing anything proprietary, can you
explain how that works and how often it is being used?
Mr. McFarland. Sure. So every Member of Congress
voluntarily--we offer them what we call the Secure Member
Portal, and now we have created an app to go with that portal.
So when Members of Congress are needing law enforcement
coordination back in their home districts because they are
having a town hall, whether or not they want residential
security or they want cybersecurity or they need some air
operations help during the airports when you guys go home, fly
home, this Member app now is on your phone that you can utilize
it a lot quicker.
I can say right now we have a very good portion of the
Members. Over 75 percent of the Members are using this. So I am
very happy.
Ms. Maloy. I am in the 25 percent that didn't know about it
till yesterday, so----
Mr. McFarland. We will sign you up today, ma'am.
Ms. Maloy. We will make that 76 percent soon.
Thank you for doing that.
Ms. Szpindor, we are talking about these AI functions, and
you said in your testimony that you are working on how to use
more AI and make sure we are using it responsibly. And with
12,000 employees and a lot of turnover on the Hill, can you
just talk a little bit about how you are going to be able to
get 12,000 young, ambitious employees to be smart with AI?
Ms. Szpindor. Well, it is going to take a lot of training.
I met with Gartner not too long ago. It was a 2-day session
that we talked about AI and responsible use of AI.
And they made it very clear, all of the individuals I have
worked with, that without doing a dedicated education program
across the board from the top of the organization down on AI
and constantly providing additional feedback, you have to do
that if you are going to implement AI, you have to, or it will
not be successful.
So I asked my staff about a month ago after I came back
from meeting with Gartner that we needed to start our planning
now, our strategy now, for how, when we roll out a product, how
we are going to do the training, and train and train and train.
And that is what we are going to do. We have to.
I don't want to see a major investment in any product go
unused or not used correctly when there is so much potential to
use the data that we can garner from it.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you.
I am just about out of time. Mr. Chairman, can I have 30
more seconds because I have got two quick questions?
Mr. Valadao. The gentlelady is recognized.
Ms. Maloy. I will be fast.
So, to all of you, thank you for being here.
One question I want to ask--it is not even a question. You
don't have to respond. I will be fast.
We have so many forms we have to fill out from your
offices, and they all have to be signed by a Member. And I
would just request that you look at some of the forms you
require us to fill out and see if a chief's signature would
satisfy something like a request to remove junk from our
offices.
And then the only other thing. I talked to some of you
yesterday about coming in, in a special election, and trying to
get through some of these processes outside of the normal
freshman orientation.
Please let my office help you improve that. We have got two
people being sworn in today, and I would like them to have a
better experience than I had.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Ms. Maloy.
And I now recognize Mr. Moore for 5 minutes.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all for being here.
I just want to start off real quick touching on what Mr.
Hoyer had talked about a little bit as it relates to retention.
Is some of that--have we seen a dramatic change over the
years? They stick all the former staffers on the end. I have
worked here, too.
Has there been a change as it relates to the benefits here
for the staff that you all employ on the Hill over time? Does
that relate at all to the retention issues that you have?
Ms. Szpindor. We have actually increased some of our
benefits----
Mr. Moore. Okay.
Ms. Szpindor [continuing]. In the past couple of years for
education, outside education, being able to go and get loans.
Mr. Moore. Your mic?
Ms. Szpindor. Oh, it is on. I am sorry. You didn't hear me.
I have got hearing aids, so I can hear myself really good.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Szpindor. But we have rolled out a number of the new
initiatives in the past 2 or 3 years to help staff with their
education costs and being able to get private loans now, which
is new.
And I will be honest with you. In my organization, we don't
see a huge retention issue.
Mr. Moore. Okay. Well, that is good.
And then, Mr. McFarland, if I could ask real quick. And
thank you for coming by my office there the other day. And we
talked a little bit about this, the need for increasing the
number of MOUs with law enforcement partners around the country
to try to keep Members and their families safe.
Could you talk a little bit more about some of the
challenges around that? Because there have been some increased
issues out there in people's districts where folks are camped
out in front of people's houses, people's spouses are being
chased around. And it feels like perhaps there might be a
growing threat, but you would know better than I.
But maybe you could talk a little more about those MOUs and
challenges that you face. Obviously, Capitol Police can't be
everywhere in every district every moment. But maybe you could
expand on that a little bit.
Mr. McFarland. Sure. The memorandums of understanding is
that we--that the Capitol Police partner with local law
enforcement, State law enforcement, even the Federal law
enforcement agencies in every State.
And over the time it has been a very small number. And we
are hoping that--something that the new chief I hope will do--
we will start expanding that to reaching out to at least every
State organization and trying to get some help.
There are a lot of Members of Congress that are at home in
their districts. And, yes, I can give you residential security;
and, yes, I can give you cybersecurity, with the help of
Catherine's shop.
But the reality is, you are right, there are Member spouses
that are at home that all of a sudden a pop-up demonstration
happens.
I have actually--when I went out for both the RNC and the
DNC, I actually made it a point to go thank some of the
agencies that were around those areas for their assistance, but
not only that, but also talked to the locals that were right
next to the Members' houses.
We see a great support from local law enforcement when we
are asked to do it. I just hope that the next chief coming in
has a vision that this is a top priority.
Mr. Moore. Thank you.
And then I just want to echo what she said. I really wish
the red-line capability was around when I was a staff member.
But that is great that that is there now.
So I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Moore.
I believe there are a couple of us that want to have a
second round of questions, and those who don't have questions
just let me know and I will skip you.
But I will start off with my first 5 minutes.
When a Member of Congress dies or resigns from office, I
understand that it is the responsibility of your office, Mr.
McCumber, to take over that office until a new Member of
Congress has been elected and sworn into office.
How many of these vacant offices have you already taken
over in the 118th, how many were taken over at once, and what
responsibilities do you take on in leading these vacant
offices? And how do you plan and budget for these activities?
And how do you maintain constituent services? Because I feel
like that is probably the most important part of this.
Mr. McCumber. Yes, sir. No. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We agree with you that maintaining constituent services is
our highest priority. So in the 118th Congress, we managed 18
vacant offices. We had seven at one time. It was for a short
period of time. We had four that we had for a pretty long
while.
Thankfully, the budgets for these offices are maintained by
the Members' MRA and so it doesn't have any impact to the
Clerk's organization budget.
We work very closely with the CAO and her team to maintain
those office operations. And, again, agreeing with you that
maintaining those constituent services is our number one
priority.
We meet with the staff of the vacant office within a week
or so of when it becomes vacant. Obviously, we have
conversations with them as soon as it happens, but a more
formal meeting, with myself included. And I make sure every one
of them has my cell phone number in case they need to reach me
directly if they are not getting the assistance that they need
from our staff.
And I really stress the importance of, ``We will stay out
of your way. You guys know your district better than I ever
will or that our staff ever will and we are here to support
you.'' And that we stress that maintaining those constituent
services is our highest priority and should remain their
highest priority.
Mr. Valadao. Does the staff at that point have the ability
to do any sort of outreach to constituents to help clarify that
the office is still able to provide these constituent services?
Mr. McCumber. Yes.
And so shortly after the vacancy there is a letter that
goes out for existing casework, letting them know, ``Is this
something you would still like to continue?'' Staff can still
accept new casework requests. Staff still attend town halls.
If there is anything where they can learn something that
will affect their constituents, whether it is with going to a
town hall from another Federal department that is coming to
visit or just going to other town councils and hearing and
seeing what is going on in the area, that they can then share
that information with their constituents.
Mr. Valadao. Okay. So I guess what I meant by that was if
they are able to send out any sort of, like, mass mail or some
sort of post on social media, something more visible. Are they
allowed to do that without a Member in place?
Mr. McCumber. Not typically. When there are natural
disasters that happen in the district they come through us and
say, ``Is this something we can post?''
We are very concerned about making sure that while the
constituent services are still in place, that we are not taking
any sort of a position on anything one way or another.
And so things like a natural disaster or preparations or
where to get resources, we have allowed them to make those
posts and to make sure that those----
Mr. Valadao. Yeah. I just imagine that some constituents
might be a little bit concerned if they have a case. And,
obviously, if there is a pending case, that is one issue. But
if they have a case that comes up, do they feel comfortable
reaching out.
And I am just curious if they have the ability to send out
an email saying, ``Hey, even though this happened, we still
have the ability to take care of folks, so feel free to reach
out.'' But I imagine you guys would have to approve that on a
case-by-case basis.
Mr. McCumber. That is right.
Mr. Valadao. Casework is something I have always taken
pretty serious and I know a lot of my colleagues do as well,
and it is something our constituents depend on. And if they are
not able to do that as staff, I imagine those constituents are
troubled by that.
Ms. Szpindor, so I notice a lot of new hardware around the
building mounted, and I assume we have updated a lot of our
hardware for some of our HousePublic networks.
Is there ever a conversation about having two, separating
one for the public and one for Members themselves and staff, go
down that path, so that you don't have one that gets bogged
down by a lot of visitors, I guess?
Ms. Szpindor. It is certainly something we can look into.
We have not had a request for that. We have the WiFi system
that is for the general public, the HousePublic WiFi system, as
opposed to what we would use internally.
But our networking organization is always tasked to make
sure that everything is working. We replaced some of the
network components over the years simply because it is
complicated in the House buildings to have good connectivity
all the time because of the age of them and other things.
But we can look into that if that is something that you all
would like us to do and what the cost would be for it. It would
be additional expenses as far as network switching,
connectivity, and everything. No one has asked, but I will be
glad to look into it.
Mr. Valadao. Yeah. I have had a few people complain about
sometimes the system getting bogged down during, I think,
higher traffic times. So it was just something that has been
brought to my attention, so it would be interesting to get some
feedback on that.
And my time is expired, so I will recognize Mr. Espaillat
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McFarland, I think we have had a conversation in the
past where I have shared with you my concern about perhaps what
I view as the most vulnerable time for Members of Congress,
which is when we are coming out from votes and we have got to
catch a flight or make a meeting and we have someone picking us
up in front of the Capitol. We are somewhat distracted, and I
think that that is a vulnerability.
But also at Union Station or at the airports, when we are
trying to make a flight or trying to catch Amtrak and we may be
somewhat distracted and open to an attack.
And first, I wanted to know if there has been any
consideration for AI-related security in the Capitol campus
that would ensure that we are a little bit more protected.
I also am concerned that as we are getting swept by the
dogs, the canine unit, people are just walking right by us with
backpacks, cyclists, runners, hundreds of them. And yet we are
dutiful in making sure that the cars don't go through with any
threat, but there are dozens of folks that are just walking
right by us as we enter.
So I know there must be some technology that gives us
greater protection for that scenario. And also, I want to know
what has happened in the airports and in Union Station.
Mr. McFarland. So, sir, I can say right now some of the
mitigation factors that we put in place when there is a vote
on, besides the sweeping of the cars, we lock down the plaza.
So we lock down the plaza that it is only for staff and it is
only for Members to go through. We do not let the public come
through that area without being searched.
That said, I personally can tell you that I saw this just
the other day. We have vapor dogs, and the vapor dogs will go
by people to make sure to see if they have any explosives.
Those dogs are patrolling the plaza at any given day at any
given time. It is not a set time.
I actually watched it. They actually were testing the dogs
out. And they went through a large group of school kids at 8
o'clock in the morning, and the vapor dog found the backpack
right away. So it was a good success story from just watching
it happen.
Like I said, we just started the secure working group for
R&D and AI and technology to help us out. I can tell you that
as far as the metal detectors have gone, as well as the X-ray
machines, we have added AI tools to those. We have actually
purchased electronic screening procedures that you see at the
airports.
As it relates to Union Station, we haven't really, given--
if there is an incident, Capitol Police will respond to Union
Station. Our focus has been mostly at the airports, and we have
actually increased officers at the airports on fly-in days and
fly-out days, just to make sure that the Members can get gate
to gate without any incidents happening.
Mr. Espaillat. I encourage you to take a look at Union
Station as well, as many of our Members don't fly. They take
Amtrak.
Mr. McFarland. Yes, sir.
Mr. Espaillat. And so I think that would be a smart thing
to do. And I have seen the greater attention at the airport. So
I thank you for that.
Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Espaillat.
Now I recognize Ms. Maloy for a second round of 5 minutes.
Ms. Maloy. I apologize, Mr. Chairman. If I would have
realized we were having a second round, I would not have gone
over on my first round. Now I am going to prove I can use time
wisely.
Mr. Burke, would you be willing to come up to the mic for a
minute.
I read your testimony. By the way, congratulations on your
appointment as Legislative Counsel for the House.
Mr. Burke. Thank you.
Ms. Maloy. I read your testimony, and you talked about the
large increases in your office's workload in helping draft
bills and get them ready for introduction.
Will you just share with my colleagues some of the trends
you are seeing and what you are doing to address them?
Mr. Burke. Yes, Congresswoman. Thank you for that question.
You are exactly right. My office has seen over years now a
trend in the increase in legislation.
I actually included in my written testimony a chart which
you might look at on the fifth page of my written testimony.
And one thing it will show you is that if you were to go
back to the 114th Congress, there were 6,563 bills introduced
in the House. But then you jump ahead to the 118th Congress,
and that number leaps all the way up to 10,534 bills.
For every bill that is introduced, we draft about two in my
office. And this trend does not seem to be changing in the
119th.
You can also see a couple stats on the chart that show that
in the first 60 days of this Congress my front desk has
received a 72 percent increase in requests, which surprised me.
I did not expect it to be that high. And also, there has been a
34 percent increase in the number of bills introduced during
those 30 days.
But I will say that this has been a long trend now. So my
office has come up with a plan. We are, in fact, taking steps
to address this. We have a three-part plan.
The first part is, well, in direct response to requests by
this subcommittee and leadership and Members over the years,
which is to properly staff our teams at the capacity they need
to be. We are on-boarding 11 attorneys this fiscal year 2025.
In the past, when my predecessor discussed this, I know
there has been discussion of the training bottleneck. Yes.
Because we work in small specialized teams of two to six
attorneys, I can't just take a team of three that is
overwhelmed and add three more attorneys to fix the problem
because the team would be crushed, not helped, by the addition
of three. They are spending hours of the day training.
But this year, the way we are doing it, the way we are
addressing that training bottleneck is, of the 11--I have an
ace up my sleeve--of the 11 we are on-boarding this year, 4 are
former Leg Counsel attorneys. They don't need to be trained.
They can hit the ground running day one. And they have all
agreed to actually be trainers themselves.
Also, a second step we are taking is we are trying to do a
better job of triaging requests for what is the desired level
of review.
As you know, not every Member wants full legal review for
every request. Sometimes they just want their words fast. And
so for that, we have created a new formatting-only track where
a Member can submit a request and just get their words back in
XML.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you for that.
Mr. Burke. And it is going to be messy. I have to warn you,
the quality is going to go down for those. But it will be very
fast and it will help us to give us time to focus our time on
the requests where the Members do want full legal review.
A third thing I would like to do but I haven't been able to
do yet is establish a new first-ever floater team, which would
be two to three attorneys who would not have a specialization,
who could be moved around according to the needs of the House.
You know, if my health finance team is super busy on a
markup and the bills in that area for introduction are backing
up, I can shift over this floater team. That would allow us to
be more nimble than we ever have been.
So, again, thank you for the question, because my office is
both drafting and training at all-time record levels right now,
we really appreciate the support.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back with a few seconds left.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Ms. Maloy.
I now recognize Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I am going to--counsel, I want you. You engendered a
question.
We froze you for fiscal year 2025 at existing levels. I am
going to ask all of you this question. But, obviously, your
workload has substantially increased as a result of the Members
of Congress themselves.
Mr. Burke. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hoyer. First of all, I want to ask a question. What is
your breakout? How many Democrats? How many Republicans? What
Congress? Subject matter? Do you have that broken out in terms
of the number of, what, 1,700, is that what you said? It went
from 1,000 to 10,000?
Mr. Burke. Oh, no, we don't really provide--of course, all
of it is public on Congress.gov, but we treat as confidential
who has requested what. So that creates a barrier for us
disclosing what is not already public on Congress.gov.
Mr. Hoyer. Yeah, I am not talking about individual Members.
What I am talking about is a gross--you say there has been a
very substantial increase over the last few Congresses.
Mr. Burke. There has.
Mr. Hoyer. And what I am trying to get at is what
engendered that increase.
Mr. Burke. Yes. It is a good question, which I admit I
cannot fully explain the increase, but I do have some theories,
some factors that are contributing to it.
Most notably, of course, we have the Supreme Court's
decision in Loper Bright last year where now that is an
increase in workload, not necessarily an increase in requests,
but an increase in workload to the extent bills need to be
drafted in greater detail than they were before.
And also I would say outside stakeholder text proliferates,
messaging bills. Those are probably part of the answer but not
the full answer for why it is increasing.
Mr. Hoyer. You said messaging bills.
Mr. Burke. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hoyer. Okay. I understood what messaging bills are.
I would like all of you to answer that question. You were
frozen at fiscal year 2025. You, I know, Ms. Szpindor,
essentially at 2023 numbers. You are working at 2023 numbers.
What I want to ask you, if you continue to be frozen--or,
better said, what was the effect of freezing you at fiscal year
2025 numbers in terms of what we didn't get, which is sort of
like the question that Mr. Strong asked. But I would like to
have a broader aspect of: What do we pay for that, not doing
that? What do we lose?
Ms. Szpindor. Well, we lose possibly hiring some additional
people. We lose the ability----
Mr. Hoyer. We are jettisoning a lot of people at the
Federal level, unfortunately, without, in my opinion, knowledge
of the consequences of those reductions. Ten thousand people
were fired yesterday without notice, a despicably inhumane,
stupid way to operate.
But we froze you, all of you----
Ms. Szpindor. Yes.
Mr. Hoyer [continuing]. Without, I think, a full
understanding of the impacts of that freeze, is what I am
trying to get at.
Ms. Szpindor. Well, for us, it just prevented us from doing
some of the additional projects and things that we had hoped to
do.
We are trying very, very hard, with the help of the
Modernization Committee and others, to modernize our
technology, to make it available, so that people don't go out
and look for an alternative AI tool that they use and they
don't fully understand what the security of it is and things
like that.
So we were hoping over the past 3 years to have done more
of that than what we have done. Our team has outperformed. They
have done a great job. We have got new tools. But it is not all
we wanted to do.
So we are now just--I know this isn't part of your
question--but I just wanted to reemphasize we are now in a
situation where we have to have more money to be able to
maintain the critical systems that we have.
Mr. McFarland. Sir, I can say that for the first 2 years as
Sergeant at Arms I took a 25 percent--total 25 percent
decrease. I am just now starting to see the pendulum swing the
other way, based off of technology and modernization.
When I take a look at our budget, if we were frozen, I
would have to go back and talk to my executive team where we
need to make the cuts. But that affects the security that we
are providing for you.
So that would be something that I would really need to take
a long hard look at and see where we can make the cuts.
Mr. McCumber. Thank you, sir.
I would just add as well that we have made some really good
progress on our modernization initiatives using seed money from
the Modernization Initiatives Account.
And should we stay flat for fiscal year 2026, that would
have some pretty significant impacts on our ability to keep
that momentum going and be able to continue to provide these
requested services to the House, both to the Members and the
staff.
So it would have a pretty significant impact, that we have
to go back and revisit our timelines and really prioritize the
projects, working with this committee and others.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you.
Mr. Valadao. Well, if there are no further questions, I
would like to thank Mr. McCumber, Mr. McFarland, and Ms.
Szpindor, and all of our House officials for being here today.
Members may submit additional questions for the record.
And the committee now stands adjourned. Thank you all.
[Whereupon, at 11:24 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Tuesday, April 8, 2025.
ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL AND LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
WITNESSES
MR. THOMAS E. AUSTIN, ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL
HON. CARLA HAYDEN, LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS
MS. SHIRA PERLMUTTER, REGISTER OF COPYRIGHTS AND DIRECTOR, U.S.
COPYRIGHT OFFICE
MS. KAREN E. DONFRIED, DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
Mr. Valadao. The subcommittee will come to order.
The subject of today's hearing is the fiscal year 2026
budget request for the Architect of the Capitol and the Library
of Congress.
I would like to thank Ranking Member Espaillat, committee
members, and our two main witnesses--the Architect of the
Capitol, Mr. Thomas Austin, and the Librarian of Congress, Dr.
Carla Hayden--for being here today.
Dr. Hayden is joined by Ms. Shira Perlmutter, the Register
of Copyrights and the Director of the U.S. Copyright Office;
and by Ms. Karen E. Donfried, Director of the Congressional
Research Service.
Both of their testimonies have been submitted for the
record, and members are welcome to address questions to either
in addition to Dr. Hayden.
The Architect of the Capitol's fiscal year 2026 request is
$1.3 billion. In addition to the around-the-clock personnel
requirements, the budget focuses on the life safety, physical
security, and critical infrastructure needs of the Capitol
campus.
Mr. Austin, I welcome you to your first appearance before
the subcommittee.
I also want to extend my congratulations and thanks to you
and your employees for the incredible work that you have
already accomplished this Congress. From the 119th transition
to the 60th inaugural ceremonies, the office of the Architect
of the Capitol has shown its dedication and professionalism in
completing the enormous tasks required for these events.
The Library of Congress fiscal year 2026 request, with
offsetting amounts, totals $901 million, a 5.8 percent increase
from the enacted fiscal year 2025 CR.
The budget would support the professionals and staff across
the Library, including at the Congressional Research Service,
and the vast collections of books and other media. It would
also support upgrades to preservation storage, digital
collections and website modernization, data analytics
capabilities, and digital accessibility.
The Library recently opened two new exhibits, including
``Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress''
and ``Two Georges: Parallel Lives in an Age of Revolution,'' in
addition to growing its collection by 2.5 million new items.
Thank you again to our witnesses for being here.
And now I would like to recognize the ranking member for
his opening remarks.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Chairman Valadao.
Good morning, Dr. Hayden, Mr. Austin, and agency
leadership. I echo the chairman in welcoming you to discuss
your agency budget and your request for fiscal year 2026.
Dr. Hayden, thanks for the recent call.
And, of course, Mr. Austin, it is great to see you again,
and I look forward to helping your goals and objectives as the
new Architect of the Capitol.
Dr. Hayden and Mr. Austin, you and your teams are here
today representing the living museums of Congress, which is the
Capitol and, of course, the Library of Congress. They are
living museums of Congress. They interact with our folks on a
daily basis. Their collective histories are so important to us.
As ranking member and chair of the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus, I am concerned about the future of your agencies. The
ideas presented in the recent executive orders, such as
restoring truth and sanity to American history, are disturbing,
and I hope these ideas will not influence the future directives
of the legislative branch.
In fact, I will call them, rather than restoring truth and
sanity to America, imposing lies and distorting the truth of
America more so, and I hope that we can direct our efforts in
the right direction.
They pretend, really, to ignore if not erase the diverse
history of our Nation. And, of course, America is built on
these diverse histories, collectively having been shaped by
migrations from Europe, from Ireland, from Italy, from a Jewish
background, a Greek background, and now new voices that must be
included in the history of our Nation that cannot be ignored
and certainly not erased.
And so we welcome you, and we hope that we can work
together to have some level of sanity and equilibrium so that
everybody is respected, that no one is pushed down. You don't
need to push anybody down to go up. All ships could rise at the
same time if we work together and we work with a clear view of
where we need to go for the future.
So thank you both for being here. I hope to have an honest
and transparent discussion with you.
And, again, America is made up of many voices. It is
reflected right here in this room. We need not to ignore any
one of them, and certainly not to erase them.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
Mr. Austin, your full testimony has been submitted for the
record, and you are now recognized to provide a summary of your
written testimony.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS E. AUSTIN
Mr. Austin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat,
and members of this committee. I am honored to make my first
appearance before you to represent the men and women of the
Architect of the Capitol and discuss our budget request for
fiscal year 2026.
I would like to thank the members of your staff,
particularly Lori Rowley, April Lyman, and Faye Cobb, for their
expertise and consistent professionalism.
I welcome this opportunity to share more about the agency's
work in preserving the historic buildings and grounds that
inspire our Nation while serving the 20,000 daily occupants and
3 million annual visitors to our Capitol campus.
To begin, I would like to acknowledge and express my
deepest gratitude to the 2,500 dedicated Architect of the
Capitol employees for all of their hard work, which makes it
possible for this agency to successfully carry out its mission
to serve Congress and the Supreme Court, preserve America's
Capitol, and inspire memorable experiences, all of which
require round-the-clock care for the 18.5 million square feet
of historic facilities, 570 acres of grounds, and thousands of
works of art that make up our historic campus.
As you know, I began my tenure in June of 2024, and it is
the greatest honor of my professional career to serve as the
13th Architect of the Capitol. Thank you for entrusting me to
serve as a steward of the historic and vital buildings that
make up the Capitol campus, ensuring the preservation,
functionality, and safety for Members of Congress, staff, and
visitors.
One of my top priorities is consistent communication with
the Architect of the Capitol staff, which I believe is
essential to building and maintaining faith and confidence in
our agency's leadership. Whether discussing the particulars of
everyday operations or our broader visions for the future of
the agency, I am equally committed to practicing clear and
timely communication that ensures accountability and
coordination with this committee, Congress, and internal
entities.
For fiscal year 2026, the Architect of the Capitol is
requesting a combined total of $1.3 billion. This request is
focused on three key priorities: life safety, physical
security, and the critical infrastructure needs of the Capitol
campus.
Additionally, this budget request ensures adequate funding
is available for the staffing levels necessary to oversee our
planning and project management needs and to deliver quality
services to Congress.
This agency is dedicated to delivering exceptional services
through its strategic initiatives. This commitment helps create
a safer and more efficient workplace.
Across the agency, we are dedicating time and attention to
safety training, procedures, and operations. I am proud to
report that our employee injury rate is significantly less than
that of the private sector.
This budget request recognizes these essential measures,
with our concentrated effort to avoid hazards, risks, and
interruptions.
We are equally committed to the safety and functionality of
the campus for all those who work here and visit. This involves
proactively addressing the entire range of facility management
challenges, big and small, everything from trimming tree limbs
before they become a safety hazard, to ensuring compliance of
life and safety code, to long-range master planning for the
future of this campus.
Security is also a key priority. With the support of this
committee and in coordination with the U.S. Capitol Police and
the House Sergeant at Arms, we have made significant progress
over the past few years and will continue to improve the
security posture across this campus.
Another top priority for the agency is the critical
infrastructure needs of the historic Capitol campus. To assist
in addressing challenges of aging infrastructure, we are
developing the Enterprise Asset Management system. This robust
system will enhance data-driven decisions and help prioritize
projects aimed at reducing our very significant and growing
maintenance backlog.
I recognize the importance of a well-coordinated, holistic,
multiyear approach to facilities management focused on
maintaining and preserving the Capitol campus while also
modernizing facilities.
We are committed to working closely with you and your
staff, as well as the Committee on House Administration, to
ensure the Architect of the Capitol meets the needs and
expectations of the U.S. House of Representatives and the
American people.
With the support of Congress and an incredibly talented and
skillful team, I am proud that we have accomplished much over
the past year and I look forward to the success of future
projects.
The fiscal year 2026 budget request is not only critical to
facing the challenges posed by our aging infrastructure, but
also ensuring we account for the future needs of this campus.
Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat, and members of
the committee, thank you again for your continued support and
consideration of the Architect of the Capitol's budget request.
I am honored to be here, and I look forward to your questions.
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Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Austin, for your testimony.
Dr. Hayden, your testimony has also been submitted for the
record, and you are now recognized to provide a summary of your
written testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. CARLA HAYDEN
Ms. Hayden. Thank you, Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member
Espaillat, and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate this
opportunity to provide testimony in support of the Library's
fiscal year 2026 budget request.
The mission of the Library of Congress is to engage,
inspire, and inform the Congress and the American people with a
universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity. And
above all, the Library exists to serve.
Service to Congress remains the foundation for the
Library's mission every day, with analysis, policy
consultations, briefings, programs, and constituent engagement.
The Library's resources are authoritative, expansive, and
evergreen. In a time of rapidly evolving technology and a fast-
changing world, the Library of Congress stands as it has for
over 225 years, as a steward of the largest collection of
information and resources ever assembled, not as a memorial but
as a living source of knowledge and creativity for Congress and
the betterment of the Nation.
The Library meets its responsibility to collect, preserve,
and share the collection every day by constantly renewing the
collections and the services it provides to Congress and the
American people. With congressional support, the Library is
extensively modernizing and optimizing its systems, processes,
and staff.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere
gratitude for the ongoing and extraordinary support of this
committee and Congress, and I especially appreciate the funding
you have provided for the major information technology
investments that we are implementing and continuously improving
to meet user expectations for greater access with new and
enhanced tools.
I would also like to give special thanks for your continued
support for the Library's Visitor Experience initiative. The
Library's Treasures Gallery opened to the public in June of
2024, and we are excited to open the Library's new education
center--The Source--by the end of 2025, in time for the
Nation's celebrations. I am pleased to report that the
construction and fabrication for the Orientation Gallery is now
underway too.
I come before you today to discuss the Library's fiscal
year 2026 appropriations request of $946.2 million, which
represents a 5.4 percent increase over the Library's current
funding, which had been set at a fiscal year 2024 appropriation
level, as we operate under a continuing resolution.
Given the current economic conditions, we have revised
programmatic increases and minimized out-year costs, deferring
all but the most time-critical requests.
Our staff are at the heart of the Library of Congress, and
our employees represent the apex of their professions, bringing
unparalleled knowledge, expertise, and experience to bear.
While modernization and automatization have allowed us to
expand productivity in some areas and to do more with less, it
is worth noting that the Library's staffing level has remained
largely unchanged since fiscal year 2015.
In fact, the Library's permanent workforce steadily
declined from over 5,000 employees in the early 1990s to its
current level of approximately 3,300.
It is critical that this relatively low staff level be
adequately supported. And, as such, the Library's fiscal year
2026 appropriations request does include $30.9 million in
mandatory pay and price-level increases.
As a result of the continuing resolution, the Library has
had to absorb the cost of mandatory pay and high inflationary
price-level increases in fiscal year 2025. The need to absorb
these expenses threatens our ability to execute the Library's
full range of programs and services.
The Library has three modest programmatic requests for
fiscal year 2026 that, if funded, would provide the resources
we need to develop strategic initiatives that deliver greater
access and enhance services. These requests would also enable
the Library to keep pace with digital advancements and deliver
exceptional service.
For Preservation Object Storage Upgrade, the Library is
requesting $5.4 million to replace and upgrade the decades-old
digital preservation system at the Library's on-premises sites.
For web Application Delivery and Management Improvements,
the Library is requesting $2.5 million annually to better serve
the millions of users who access the Library's data,
collections, and services through its primary public websites.
And for Continuous Development of the Enterprise Copyright
System, the Library is requesting an appropriation of $6.8
million for the U.S. Copyright Office for 3 years to accelerate
development and delivery of the registration component of the
Enterprise Copyright System, ECS, reducing the time to
completion by approximately 2 years.
Recent stakeholder concerns involving technological demands
and congressional focus make it imperative to more quickly
address the limitations of the existing online copyright
registration system, which has been used to support copyright
registrations for over 15 years.
In keeping with the Library's strategic goals, the Library
is resubmitting the three requests that were not funded in
fiscal year 2025, and these support CRS, data analytics
capacity, our digital collections processing capacity, and
digital accessibility.
Given the current economic conditions, these requests have
been revised to reduce overall funding and eliminate permanent
staff hires where possible.
Thank you for supporting the Library of Congress and for
your consideration of our fiscal year 2026 budget request.
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Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Dr. Hayden.
We will now begin the question portion of the hearing. I
will call on members based on seniority of those present when
the hearing was called to order, alternating between the
majority and minority, and then will call on members in order
of their arrival. Each will have 5 minutes.
And I now recognize myself for my 5 minutes.
Mr. Austin, as you have been Architect of the Capitol for
nearly a year now, can you share with us what you have learned
from your organization so far and the trajectory you plan to
take the agency moving forward?
Mr. Austin. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question.
So this is a very much longer answer, but I will try to put
it down to just a few observations.
Number one, the AOC has an incredibly talented, diverse,
and committed workforce. They look at this as much more than
just a job. They understand the privilege of working here on
Capitol Hill and the mission that we support. And despite all
the distractions over the past year, couple of years, with the
AOC, their commitment to this mission never wavered.
I am also very impressed by the breadth of the mission that
we have, from the day-to-day things like custodial minor
repairs to the broad strategic things with our master plan,
planning for the next 20 to 50 years of the campus. It runs the
full gamut.
So I am continually challenged every day by being in this
position, but it is a wonderful challenge to have.
Some of the things, some of those initial challenges I
wanted to address over the last 12 months or so, number one was
the hiring actions, especially at the wage grade and at the
senior--at the executive level.
At the executive level, we had more than a third of our
vacancies were being staffed by temporary. And that is
something we have worked hard. And despite having an attrition
of two more of those executives, we only have three hiring
actions left, and we should have those complete in the next 45
to 60 days.
That, combined with my own appointment, I believe will
bring stability to the top of the organization, which this
organization I believe desperately needs.
In a more concrete thing, where we are taking this agency
is we are very much working on the master plan for the Capitol
campus. It is called the Capitol Campus Master Plan. Normally,
those are done in every 5-year increments, but the last one for
this agency was done in 2012, so we are 13 years past that
threshold. So we are quite far behind.
But that is going to inform the major actions and where we
are headed, both with the construction activities as far as the
disruption on campus but also from a budget request to the
Appropriations staff. And we are working on that, several
aspects of that.
The House portions of it are essentially done, but we are
working on the Senate, as well as working with the Library of
Congress and other entities to make sure we have a holistic
view for the campus. And that is going to be the focus for this
next year, is coordination with both the House and Senate
Appropriations as well as the Committee on House Administration
and the Senate Rules to ensure that we have your needs met.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
Dr. Hayden, we recently learned that a significant number
of your patrons mainly use the digital resources that the
Library provides.
Can you share the statistic with us and tell us more about
the new e-preferred strategy you are implementing as a result
of this statistic?
Ms. Hayden. The Library of Congress provides a significant
number of materials digitally. And with the e-preferred
strategy, we are cognizant that we will need to provide direct
service and materials in digital format. So that is e-
preferred.
And we produced in fiscal year 2023 12.7 million digital
images. That is more than triple of what had been available in
2019. And in terms of our usage, we have millions of users that
are coming to our websites, also our media, social media
websites as well.
So the increase has been substantial, and that is why most
of our requests are to advance our ability to be able to
provide more digital.
Mr. Valadao. Dr. Hayden, it is my understanding that the
Library experienced a cybersecurity breach last year. Without
disclosing anything that wouldn't be appropriate for a public
setting, can you share your current cybersecurity status and
the steps you have taken to mitigate those risks moving
forward?
Ms. Hayden. We take IT cybersecurity very seriously at the
Library. We are very unique in many ways, because we serve
Congress and the general public.
And, with that breach, we worked with the authorities,
security authorities. And we also just received word from a
second vendor that we had come in and look at our systems to
make sure that the threat environment was alleviated. And we
just got that reassurance from the second vendor we had to
reinforce what the first vendor had worked with us on, that the
threat actors are not in our environment at this point.
We can provide additional information. But we have been
very pleased with being able to report that the threat was
alleviated that we had last year.
Mr. Valadao. All right. Well, thank you.
My time is expired. I am going to recognize Ranking Member
Espaillat for his 5 minutes now.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Austin, aside from mentioning as interventions in this
committee, I am deeply disappointed that the plaque honoring
the men and women, the officers who responded to January 6, has
not been installed.
The directive was passed into law in a bipartisan vote on
2022. It has been 4 years since that horrible day and 2 years
since the plaque was completed, was done.
This is particularly alarming because many in this campus
feel they have ownership, they gloat about the concept that
they are deeply more patriotic than anybody else in this
universe, and that, in fact, they have also a monopoly on the
concept that they support law and order. But they fail
consistently to honor the men and women that stood up to
protect all of us in this room.
My question is, what or who is preventing your office from
installing the plaque as directed by law honoring the men and
women that protected us from a violent, angry, racist mob?
Mr. Austin. When making modifications on the House side of
the campus or on the House side of the Capitol Building, past
practice is that for modifications are directed by the Office
of the Speaker.
Mr. Espaillat. Has anybody instructed you in writing to
make these modifications or this is something that you took up
on your own?
Mr. Austin. We have not received final instructions to
install the plaque.
Mr. Espaillat. So you have not received instructions 2
years later to install the plaque. And who would instruct you
to do that?
Mr. Austin. Mr. Espaillat, again, the past practice is that
for any modifications, it would come from the Office of the
Speaker.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Austin.
Just for the record, Mr. Chairman, we want to note that Mr.
Austin has stated that the Speaker of the House of
Representatives has not instructed him, 4 years after this
horrible attack and 2 years after we had the plaque, to install
a plaque to honor the men and women that put their life in
danger. This is outrageous, and we will continue on this side
of the aisle to call for that plaque to be installed.
Mr. Austin, last month Mr. Grijalva, Raul Grijalva, passed
away, and he had a long fight with cancer. And as the ranking
member of the Natural Resources Committee, he was an effective
leader. During his tenure as a public servant, he proudly
served the constituents in Arizona.
And to honor his life and legacy, I would like to work with
you to plant a cactus tree that was very dear and near to him
on the Capitol campus. Do I have your commitment to do that?
Mr. Austin. Sir, we would be honored to work with your
office to work on it, just as we are with all Members. We would
be honored to.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Austin, for your testimony.
Dr. Hayden, there has been an effort to ban books in
America. In fact, we have seen how Defense Secretary Hegseth
ordered the removal of almost 400 books from the Naval Academy
Nimitz Library because the subject matter was seen as being
related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The books banned were the following, some of them: ``I Know
Why the Caged Bird Sings'' by Maya Angelou, ``Memorializing the
Holocaust'' by Janet Jacobs. Imagine that, we don't want our
new generations to know about the death camps during the
Holocaust, Treblinka, Auschwitz, Buchenwald. And another book
was ``Race, Ethnicity, and Disability: Veterans and Benefits in
Post-Civil War America'' by Larry Logue and Peter Blanck.
How would this type of policy impact the Library of
Congress if you were directed to do the same there? How would
it impair your mission to have information to educate children
and families across America?
Ms. Hayden. As I mentioned earlier, the Library of Congress
is unique among libraries because it serves all of Congress and
all of the constituents that Congress serves. And so the
continued growth of the Library's collections has to reflect
the breadth and the depth and the experiences of all of the
American people.
And so removing items from the Library of Congress'
collection, as you describe, would conflict with that mission
and our mandate to provide a universal source of knowledge.
Mr. Espaillat. Just for the record, Mr. Chairman, I would
like to note that this effort to ban books is nothing more than
a modern book-burning exercise.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
And now I will recognize our Representative Maloy for her 5
minutes.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am going to ask Dr. Donfried to come up to the table
later in my 5 minutes.
So if you want to take a minute and get yourself settled, I
will do a couple of other questions first.
First, Mr. Austin, thank you for the shout-out to the staff
when you started. I just thought that was cool that you
acknowledged the great work they are doing. I agree with you.
Can you speak to the lessons we have learned from the
Cannon Renewal Project that we are going to take into the
Rayburn Renewal Project? Because I work in Cannon. My office is
beautiful. Our elevators don't always work. It seems like there
are probably some things we learned along the way.
Mr. Austin. Ms. Maloy, thank you for the question.
So the Cannon project has been a long project. It is five
phases, each for 2 years, so a 10-year project. And any 10-year
project you are going to learn some lessons along the way.
The project team after each one of those 2-year phases held
an after-action review where we took those lessons learned and
we worked with the contractor to apply them going forward.
But your question specifically, what lessons we learned.
There were a few.
Number one, that we learned early in the project is we need
a better handle on change management. Whether the changes were
being directed by Members or staff or at the request of the
contractor because of differing site conditions, we needed to
have a better oversight on the change management so we didn't
have scope creep.
So that was one of the ones we learned, is to put stricter
controls in.
We also want to make sure we have better stakeholder
coordination to let the Members who were impacted by the other
phases that weren't under construction at the time know the
impact, whether it be access or noise or dust or something like
that, to let them know what was happening and so they would be
aware of any interruptions that might happen with, say, water
service, electricity, what have you.
But the biggest one we had, which we are going to apply
towards future projects, is that we think we did Cannon broken
up into too many phases. So we want to do fewer but longer
phases.
As you mobilize and demobilize a project, you lose time and
it costs money. And so for these larger projects we are looking
at, such as Rayburn in the future, we want to do those in fewer
but longer phases.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you.
Dr. Donfried, thank you for what you do at CRS. As a former
staffer and as a Member, the reports, the research you do is so
helpful to our offices. And it is good to know there is a
credible source we can go to on all these political issues.
We had a hearing last week with Leg Counsel where they said
their workload is drastically increasing because people are
introducing more bills. I just want to know if you are seeing
the same thing at CRS.
Ms. Donfried. Well, first, thank you so much.
I am the new Director of CRS, so I started in September,
but I want to say that I began my career as an analyst at CRS.
So I spent 10 years at CRS as an analyst, and it is such a
pleasure to be back.
And, really, the reason it is not only a pleasure but also
a privilege is because of our mission, which is serving every
one of you, every committee, every congressional staffer who is
involved with Congress, by providing that objective,
authoritative, nonpartisan, timely, and confidential research
and analysis.
And I will say we are really busy. So I was just looking at
this a couple of days ago. And across the service what people
are feeling is maybe an increase of about 30 percent or so of
requests.
That is not uncommon at the beginning of a new Congress. We
see that kind of uptick. And what you see every year is CRS
answering about 75,000 requests.
So that is a workload that my 610 colleagues do proudly
every day. And it leads me to want to say thank you to this Leg
Branch Subcommittee for the enduring support that we receive
from you. Thank you.
Ms. Maloy. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I
encourage my staff to look for existing reports before they
send you a request for a new one.
But in your testimony you talked about AI and how that is
impacting what you do. And I know it is really easy right now
for staffers to go to AI to try to find answers.
How are you making sure the people on the Hill who should
be benefiting from your services know that you are a more
credible source than the internet? And I know a lot of the AI
searches come back with CRS reports, and I think that is great.
Ms. Donfried. It is a wonderful question. And we are right
now working on our strategic plan for the coming years. And we
are settling on what we are calling a bold goal, which is
ensuring that Congress turns to CRS first.
And in many ways it is that competition from AI, because
you can just go to your phone and Google something. But you
don't know if that is authoritative. You don't know if you can
rely on that.
And so I think many staffers understand that and do come to
us. But it is a challenge. So there is both a challenge of what
are the sources we are competing with, but then also the
challenge of how CRS is using AI in its own work, because we
want to make sure that everything we provide you is
authoritative, so we can't necessarily rely on AI.
And I just want to make a push for the one programmatic
increase we are asking you for, which is to help us with
quantitative data analysis, which will help you, in turn,
understand the policy impact of healthcare increases, of tax
policy. And for that there is an AI component, but we need
resources to be able to use those tools effectively.
Thanks.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you.
My time is expired, so I am going to yield back. I
appreciate it.
Mr. Valadao. I now recognize Mr. Hoyer for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to follow up a little bit on the ranking member's
comments. I want to ask you to submit to this committee and to
all the members, Mr. Austin, any directions you have received
with reference to honoring our police officers who protected
the Capitol against an insurrectionist attack, number one.
Number two, I want to ask you where do you believe we are
in terms of accomplishing two things: Number one, full
accessibility to the Capitol and to our buildings; and
secondly, full security requirements having been realized?
Mr. Austin. Thank you for the question.
So taking the first part, the accessibility portion, we do
work with the Office of Congressional Accessibility Services
for some of the challenges. Obviously, the age of these
buildings. They weren't designed back when we had the Americans
with Disabilities Act, and so a lot of our buildings are not
fully compliant.
As we do major renovations, like we did with Cannon, we go
back and we fix those deficiencies, but it usually does take a
major renovation in order to do that.
We have put door openers on some of our historic doors to
make sure those are accessible, but there is more work to be
done in that realm.
And as we go through these projects and we address things
with the master plan, we are looking to make sure that they
become ADA compliant to the extent possible with historic
buildings.
Just the nature of these buildings, we will never get 100
percent the way there, but we are going to do what we can to
make sure they are accessible for Members as well as the
public.
To speak to where we are with security, I would be happy to
provide you with a specific list with numbers, but in general
terms, to answer your question right now, is that we did a very
extensive doors and windows project where we replaced all the
exterior doors around the Capitol Building, with the exception
of a couple that we are doing this summer, with new doors that
are hardened against intrusion as well as ballistic threats. We
also did the same with most of our windows, at least the ones
that are accessible from the ground floors.
We have also worked with the Capitol Police and House
Sergeant at Arms as well as Senate Sergeant at Arms with
additional work as far as installing new conduit for cameras,
installing new lighting, things of that nature.
You asked me earlier, sir, about some of the interior
doors, so skip ahead to that question. We have replaced the
interior doors along the suites, at least the ones to make it
secure, for several of the leadership offices, to include the
Speaker and the majority and the minority leaders as well.
As far as the whip's office, we are scheduled to do those
in April with one exception that is going to be done in August.
And for the majority, we are working with a contractor to work
on a schedule, but we are looking to do that either at the end
of the April recess or into the August one as well.
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Austin, we obviously have now had 4 years
since the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol and on the
Congress.
How would you assess the percentage of projects that you or
the previous Architect had determined were necessary to make
the Capitol secure? What percentage have we accomplished?
Mr. Austin. I would have to get back with you as far as a
specific percentage, but I would say the majority of those
projects are complete. So I would say the ones that were
identified in the wake of January 6, working off the Honore
report and some of the recommendations they have made as far as
the physical infrastructure pieces, we are well advanced in
that.
I would say the next biggest one that we are doing, at
least on the House side, would be the House screening facility,
which is going into the Capitol, for personnel screening coming
to the Capitol Building. That will begin construction this
year.
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the Architect to
submit to the committee what has been done and what needs to be
done.
Mr. Valadao. Without objection.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you.
I want to ask Dr. Hayden--who we are very proud of, from
Maryland, because she ran the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore
prior to her taking this position.
Congratulations to you for what you have done in the past
and what you are continuing to do.
Let me join the ranking member. I would like to personally
know and have this committee notified whether there are any
requests made from any source, either from the executive
department or the legislative department, about curtailing the
information that is available to Americans.
We live in a democracy where we believe that people having
knowledge, the good and the bad, the savory and the unsavory,
is absolutely essential if our democracy is to operate
correctly.
But let me ask you both, not in that context, but let me
ask you both a question. You are frozen at fiscal year 2024. If
you do not receive the funds that are necessary or that you
have asked for in fiscal year 2026, what would be the largest
consequence?
Dr. Hayden.
Ms. Hayden. For the Library, immediate reduction in our
buying power for the materials that we need, and because we
would have to absorb the mandatory pay and the price level
adjustments.
And then we would definitely want to focus on preserving
our staff with their experience. In fact, today is National
Library Workers Day, part of National Library Week.
And so we would definitely look at those programmatic
increases that would go unfunded, and that includes the
modernization efforts that we have discussed, including CRS and
the data analytics to serve Congress.
The one thing that we could not afford to reduce would be
our cybersecurity efforts. So we would try to do whatever we
could to make sure that that would not be reduced.
But staffing, all of the development and efforts that we
have achieved in modernization, would have to be reduced and
sometimes, in fact, stopped.
Mr. Austin. From the position of the Architect of the
Capitol, from the fiscal year 2024 budget request being frozen
at the personnel levels that we are right now, we have enough
vacancies that we are having trouble filling versus the ones we
are trying to bring on that we have been able to make some
adjustments. And we appreciate the flexibility that the
Appropriations Committee has given us in that realm.
Where it comes to the biggest impacts, it would come with
our deferred maintenance. Fiscal year 2024 we had about a $200
million decrement to our budget request. And then in the fiscal
year 2025 CR, there was an additional 12 percent that was added
on top of that.
So those projects, because the needed repairs to the
Capitol don't go away, the Capitol campus don't go away, they
get deferred to future years.
And so that is one of the reasons our budget request is
what it is in fiscal year 2026, is because of those decrements
we have taken in fiscal year 2024 and then the small reduction
in fiscal year 2025 in the CR. And so those projects build up.
Now, when you try to say what is the impact, it really kind
of depends on what building and what facility we are talking
about. But, in general, Congressman, the more we defer our
maintenance, the greater risk we are taking with our Capitol
campus that we will have a system failure that could impact the
functionality of the buildings and impact the ability of
Congress to perform their mission.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you.
Ms. Donfried, I will have questions for you in the second
round.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. Now I would like to recognize Mr. Moore for
his 5 minutes.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all for being here today. Appreciate it.
So as we work to do a better job to support families across
the country, I also believe that it is important that this
committee needs to do more to make the Capitol complex more
friendly for expected Members and staff as well as for those
with young kids.
Speaker Johnson just announced his intention to find ways
to allow new moms to have access to lactation rooms close to
the House floor, which is an effort that I certainly fully
support.
Mr. Austin, can you tell me about the existing status of
the lactation rooms on campus for expectant mothers? How many
do we have compared to how many the Senate has? What additional
resources would your office need to expand access if there is a
need for more spaces?
Mr. Austin. Sir, thank you for the question.
The overall status is we have 17 lactation suites across
the campus entirely. Each one of those suites varies. They have
as low as one seat to as many as eight seats. So they vary
about three to four per suite, would be the average associated
with that.
There is one suite in each one of the House office
buildings as well as two inside the Capitol. In the House
office buildings, there are 27 seats total; and in the Capitol
there is a total of 6 seats in the Capitol Building for
lactation rooms.
I would have to get back to you as far as how that compares
to the Senate, but, again, there are ones across the campus.
We are working with the Office of the Attending Physician
for what are the requirements for additional ones. There was a
study that was funded in a previous year that was executed in
fiscal year 2024 to look at the needs of lactation rooms across
the campus as well as if there are any modifications to the
existing lactation rooms that need to be made.
We expect to get those results this year, and we will look
to work with your committee if we need additional funding to
make any modifications or additions.
Mr. Moore. And then specifically the ones that would be out
off the House floor, is that in process currently?
Mr. Austin. Well, there are two in the Capitol Building
itself. I can't speak to you right now exactly how close they
are to the House floor itself, but pretty much anything was in
about a 2-minute walk from the House floor to any spot inside
the Capitol, at least the level we are talking about, which are
the lower levels.
Mr. Moore. Okay. And then how about reserved parking spots
near entrances and elevators available for expectant mothers,
is that something you all are working on as well?
Mr. Austin. Unfortunately, I would have to defer to the
House Sergeant at Arms, because they control parking on the
House side of the campus and the allocation of parking spots.
Mr. Moore. Okay. And then are there additional
opportunities that this committee should consider funding to
make the complex more family-friendly for Members or staff or
visitors that we are currently not contemplating?
Mr. Austin. We do work with the Office of Congressional
Accessibility Services for some of the requests. To the
previous question, we are looking to make it more ADA as well
as family-friendly.
We have, if you look in the Capitol Visitor Center, all the
family changing rooms, the single-stall restrooms, and things
of that nature that are available.
But, unfortunately, because of the historic nature of the
campus when they weren't quite as focused on those
accessibility issues, we do have some work to do in the rest of
the campus. And that is always that balance between the
historic nature of the buildings versus the modern requirements
to facilitate access.
Mr. Moore. Alright.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. I appreciate that.
Now I recognize Mr. Strong for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member.
I want to begin by thanking each of the witnesses and their
staff for being here, your hard work and dedication for the
U.S. House of Representatives.
All of your efforts are critical to ensuring the smooth
operation of our historic institutions and safeguarding
Americans' history for future generations.
Mr. Austin, could you please provide us with a status
update on the Cannon House Office Building Renewal Project and
its projected completion, and are there penalties if not
completed on time?
Mr. Austin. Sir, thank you for the question.
So I know Cannon has been a long road to get to where we
are today. We spoke earlier about it being a 10-year project.
The good news on that is that all the hard hats and major
construction will be off campus by the end of this calendar
year.
So we have already seen some of that demobilization that is
happening with the removal of some of the scaffolding in the
courtyard of Cannon as well as the retrograde of some of the
equipment that has been stored there essentially since the
beginning of this project.
So there will still be some punch list items, maybe some
warranty items that might be happening at the end of this year,
but we believe that the project will be complete by the end of
this calendar year.
As far as your second point as far as penalties, that is
written into the contract. We have not had to exercise that to
this date, but we are actively working with the contractor and
are willing and ready to enforce liquidated damages, if needed.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
We have elevators and escalators that are frequently out of
service. Do we have a service contract or is this handled in-
house? How are elevators and escalators handled in our
facilities?
Mr. Austin. The answer to your question, sir, is it is
both. We have a dedicated elevator and a vertical conveyance
team that works on escalators and elevators that work
throughout on the House side and the Capitol as well as the
Senate side.
For repairs that require more technical expertise, more
equipment, we do have a service contract with several
contractors, and we are working to expand that to have
additional CLINs on the contract so it can be utilized by
different jurisdictions.
Overall, as of today, I am happy to say on the House side
84 of the 85 elevators on the House side are fully operational.
There is one down in the Ford right now.
And I know every escalator and elevator when it goes out is
an impact to the staff and it is very visible. But we are
working, with the support of Congress, to get proactive with
our maintenance on these elevators. We are looking for a 20-
year round-robin project to replace every elevator over the
next 20 years. We have new ones, obviously, with Cannon that
came with a different mechanical system that will be a part of
that, but those are the new ones.
But we also are funded for a system that will provide real-
time monitoring of those elevators so that we don't have to
wait for the phone call when one of those goes out.
Mr. Strong. Well, I can tell you the escalators don't work
like they ought to work in here, and I think that we need to
put a special focus on it. Coming to this committee meeting, I
took about 27 steps up an escalator that hadn't worked for a
while, and it needs to be addressed. I am not sure who is over
escalators and elevators, but in my 2 years in Congress, I will
tell you, we need to put a better focus on it.
Mr. Austin, security is clearly a priority in your fiscal
year 2026 request. Can you provide more details on how the
requested funds will support the United States Capitol Police
and the House/Senate Sergeant at Arms, particularly in terms of
infrastructure and upgrades on system replacements?
Mr. Austin. So this is probably a longer response I could
give you in this forum, sir, and I would be happy to work with
your staff and provide specifics to it, especially ones that
probably aren't best discussed in an open forum.
We are continuing the door replacement program, as I
alluded to earlier. There is additional conduit being put in
for more security cameras, and we are looking for opportunities
for additional lighting on the Capitol campus, especially on
the south side of campus, for some of those spaces that require
more active monitoring.
And the biggest one, of course, is going to be the House
screening facility, which will be going on the south side of
the Capitol Building, and we will be doing pedestrian
screening. That project will begin later this year and will be
complete before fiscal year 2029.
Mr. Strong. When construction is completed in Cannon, do
you anticipate any other doors being opened for ingress and
egress for staff?
Mr. Austin. Outside of the ones that have been closed for
construction, not at this time, but I can take that question to
U.S. Capitol Police and see if they have any requests to open
those.
There is certainly capability to do so, but some of that
goes towards the availability of officers to man those
screening checkpoints and the magnetometers and things of that
nature.
Mr. Strong. The doors closest to public transportation are
obviously the ones that are utilized the most, and especially
when it was 8 degrees I do know that that right there was a
situation that we saw and hope that that will be corrected
whenever the construction is completed.
Switching to you, Dr. Hayden, your fiscal year 2026 budget
lists three new requests alongside the resubmission of three
fiscal year 2025 requests.
How does the Library plan to balance funding and resources
for these requests to make sure both sets are successfully
implemented?
Ms. Hayden. As I mentioned earlier with the three new
requests, they, in fact, do not require FTEs. And so we will be
able to use contractual services that are needed to fulfill
what we are trying to accomplish.
And with the re-requests, we reduced the number of staff
that would be required and we looked at those re-requests very
carefully to make sure that we adjusted for the current
economic conditions.
Mr. Strong. The Library's staffing levels have remained
largely unchanged since fiscal year 2015, yet the scope of
programs and services has grown significantly.
Dr. Hayden, how do you ensure this expansion does not
overextend staff or compromise the Library's core mission,
particularly its service to Congress and the American people?
Ms. Hayden. As you just heard--and we are very pleased to
have the new Director of CRS here, because that is our primary
mission.
And so the focus has been on making sure that as that level
has been reduced since the 1990s, which was the Library's
highest level of staffing, that we carefully looked at
workflows, we looked at how we could make sure that there is
talent that is coming in, but also retaining a very high level
of staff expertise and experience. So we have to balance those
two.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
I would like to thank Dr. Hayden, Mr. Austin, Ms. Donfried,
Ms. Perlmutter, all for being here today.
Members may submit any additional questions for the record.
This committee now stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:57 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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Tuesday, April 8, 2025.
UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE
WITNESS
MR. J. THOMAS MANGER, CHIEF, UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE
Mr. Valadao. The subcommittee will come to order.
I would like to thank Ranking Member Espaillat and our
subcommittee members for being here today.
Chief Manger, welcome back.
Chief Manger. Thank you.
Mr. Valadao. And while we know you are looking forward to
retirement, we appreciate your willingness to extend your time
with us while we search for your successor. We look forward to
your testimony today.
The purpose of today's hearing is to review the United
States Capitol Police fiscal year 2026 budget request, which is
$967 million, a 20 percent increase over the enacted fiscal
year 2025 CR.
The requested funding supports continued growth to both
sworn and civilian personnel, nearly 14 percent over fiscal
year 2025 levels and an increase of nearly 26 percent in
general expenses.
While I intend to keep my comments brief, I want to thank
you again for this opportunity to express our continued
gratitude to our officers of the United States Capitol Police.
Thank you for all you do to keep our campus safe for all those
who visit and work here.
I now yield to Ranking Member Espaillat for his opening
remarks.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Chief Manger. Again, congratulations on your
retirement. You are always welcome to come back to each and
every one of our sessions if you like.
Chief Manger. Thank you.
Mr. Espaillat. You don't even have to come in uniform,
Chief.
But I hope you do enjoy your retirement. And thank you for
securing the Capitol and making a priority of the men and women
in your force.
I know that for fiscal year 2026, the Capitol Police has
requested $967 million, which is an increase of $176 million or
22 percent over the frozen 2024 enacted level provided in the
full-year continuing resolution.
This is a big ask, and it seems that much of this increase
was compounded by the unfortunate enactment of a full-year
continuing resolution.
I am interested to hear on the impacts of the CR on your
request. I do recognize that you need more to keep us safe, and
I commend you for your commitment to do that.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. Chief Manger, your full testimony has been
submitted for the record and you are now recognized to provide
a summary of your written testimony.
STATEMENT OF CHIEF J. THOMAS MANGER
Chief Manger. Thank you. Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member
Espaillat, the members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to present the United States Capitol Police fiscal
year 2026 budget.
Over the past 4 years, the USCP has experienced tremendous
growth. Since 2021 there have been significant changes to
increase the department's staffing levels and our security
posture and to modernize technology.
So I need to acknowledge at the outset that the
department's fiscal year 2026 budget request is substantial. It
is close to $1 billion.
I recognize that there are other police departments of a
similar size whose budget is not as large as ours, but we are
not an ordinary law enforcement agency. The USCP is unlike any
traditional police department. In fact, our mission
incorporates elements similar to the FBI, the U.S. Secret
Service, and the Federal Protective Services.
Moreover, while the officers that you see on and around the
Capitol complex represent a large portion of the department's
workforce, the full scope of our duties far exceeds that of the
officers and agents stationed at physical posts. Much of the
work performed by the department staff, both sworn and
civilian, goes well beyond the Capitol Grounds.
Significantly, much of our mission requirements simply did
not exist 4 years ago. I cannot sufficiently emphasize that
point. Following nearly 20 after-action reports and 140 total
recommendations, the department's mission expanded
exponentially and continues to expand.
As a result of the 103 recommendations issued by the U.S.
Capitol Police Inspector General, the department had to respond
to and implement recommendations that spanned the gamut in
complexity from equipping every officer with riot gear to
developing the department-wide policies and expanding
operational planning to strengthen the department's training
functions.
As a result of these recommendations, the department has
taken on new responsibilities and created new divisions and
teams that did not previously exist in the department.
Member security concerns and major operational planning
have driven the need for additional resources and staffing. The
increased threat climate is perhaps one of the biggest drivers
of the department's continuing need for additional resources.
This past year alone saw threats against Members increase to a
staggering 9,400 in 1 year.
The current threat environment has resulted in additional
Member protective responsibilities, which have increased by 27
percent since 2023.
This includes the continuation of sunset details and the
addition of short-term threat-based details; increased requests
for Member escorts and security monitoring at regional
airports; additional technical surveillance countermeasure
inspections, which have increased by nearly 400 percent since
2021; Member residential and Capitol complex security
assessments, which have almost doubled since 2021; and the
request for law enforcement coordination assessments, which
have increased by 159 percent since 2022.
The department created a new standalone Intelligence
Services Bureau, which did not exist 4 years ago. Our
reorganization also created the Office of Standards and
Training Operations, which allows the department to centralize
its training, policy development, and inspections and controls
functions, all recommendations issued by the OIG.
The department also created additional operational
components, such as a Rapid Response Team that can be deployed
to support events and demonstrations, disruptions at hearings,
critical incidents, or calls for service.
And, significantly, the Protective Intelligence Operations
Center, or PIOC, is a state-of-the-art fusion center for the
intake and coordination of Member threats, related
investigations, and the newly established residential security
program.
None of these components existed 4 years ago. They are all
new. They are all must-haves in our current threat environment.
The department's fiscal year 2026 budget request builds
upon the accomplishments achieved over the past 4 years. It
includes $687 million to fund salaries and benefits, $255
million to fund general expenses, and $25 million in multiyear
funding to support the continuation of the department's mutual
aid program.
Over the past 4 years other workload demands have
skyrocketed, including security assessment briefings to Member
offices, criminal investigations, the execution of search and
arrest warrants nationwide, technical surveillance
countermeasure inspections, residential security, committee
hearing security coverage, deployment of threat-based
protection details, and other operational mission requirements
to keep Members, their families, and staff out of harm's way.
I can't stress strongly enough that the department's
protection responsibilities do not end at the Capitol campus
borders. The department is statutorily entrusted with
nationwide protection responsibilities of Members, requirements
that it cannot undertake without the support and resources of
partner law enforcement agencies. Thus, the department is
asking Congress to renew the mutual aid funding.
The mutual aid program also provides additional protective
detail coverage to enhance Member security in their home
districts by coordinating with State and local law enforcement
to provide residential security and support events.
The department expects to reach approximately 2,530 sworn
personnel by the end of fiscal year 2026. While this represents
optimal staffing levels, the department needs to continue
efforts to balance its workload, specifically between uniformed
operations and protective intelligence operations.
By the end of fiscal year 2027, I feel confident that the
department will reach target sworn staffing levels across its
organizational entities.
The department is tasked with ensuring that Members, the
Capitol complex staff and visitors remain safe and secure and
must do so on a campus that is entirely open and accessible to
all. There is no other Federal Government building with a
comparable public access policy.
I recognize the fiscal environment that we are in, but the
department cannot provide all of the services requested and
required if it is not sufficiently funded.
I want to thank the members of this committee for your
trust and support. It is through our joint partnership that the
department has achieved such transformational change.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today,
and I look forward to your questions.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Chief Manger, for your testimony.
Now we will enter the question-and-answer portion. I will
call on members based on seniority of those present when the
hearing was called to order, alternating between majority and
minority, and then we will call on members in order of their
arrival. Each member will have 5 minutes.
I will first recognize myself for my 5 minutes.
Chief Manger, as you mentioned in your statement, the
department is asking for almost a billion dollars in funding
for your fiscal year 2026 request.
I appreciate the points you have shared with us to justify
a significant request, especially the data regarding the
increase in number of threats to Members of Congress.
However, I understand that you first assessed these
potential threats into categories, depending upon their risk
level, as a direction of interest or a direct threat.
Can you share the number of credible threats to Members
during fiscal year 2024 that actually required a significant
level investigation by your officers?
Chief Manger. Well, I don't have the exact number. I can
get it for you. But it is hundreds, hundreds of investigations
that we undertake that meet that level of being a criminal
threat against a Member.
Mr. Valadao. As you know, when you were appointed chief of
the Capitol Police we were experiencing a shortage of sworn
officers from fiscal year 2021 to current pay period in fiscal
year 2025. Three hundred and forty-eight officers have joined
the force. Your fiscal year 2026 budget proposes, after
accounting for the expected attrition, a request to add another
187 officers.
Can you please share what the current 348 officers have
been assigned to do, and why, with the assumption of 187 new
officers coming on board, you are still requesting $9.8 million
in overtime in fiscal year 2026?
Chief Manger. Yes. So we have the optimal staffing levels
for our Uniformed Services. That is around 1,600. We have
optimal staffing for our dignitary protection, which is 530
agents. We also have assorted people in special operations,
specialty assignments, canine, bomb squad, CERT, those kinds of
operational entities.
So the additional people will go toward getting those
operational entities up to their optimal staffing level, a real
focus on dignitary protection, because that is where our
overtime and the hitting against the maximum allowable pay rate
is the biggest issue.
The overtime in the Uniformed Services, much of that goes
toward the big events, and we had over 200 big events last year
where it required deployment of our Civil Disturbance folks and
other special teams.
We have opened up additional mags and screening portals to
try and cut down on some of the lines as well. That has been
done on overtime.
So we still have a number of things. And training is
actually the biggest overtime driver. We have got to do a
better job in terms of training. That is one of the areas where
we have really improved. But every time you take an officer off
their post, off the line, out of their assignment for training,
you have got to backfill it with overtime.
So until we get staffing levels up to where we hope to get
them, to the optimum levels that I discussed, we are still
going to be paying every time. We just will have no reserves
for when people go to training or when we have to support a
large event.
Mr. Valadao. Appreciate that.
What is the correct number of officers to properly execute
the U.S. Capitol Police mission to be responsive to the
security needs of the Capitol campus?
Chief Manger. So right now, I think it is 2,530 sworn
officers. That obviously does not include civilians. It is
about 1,600 USB, 530 DPD, and then 400 other, which are mostly
special operations, but there are a lot of specialty
assignments and training and that sort of thing where we have
sworn officers as well.
Mr. Valadao. All right. In the full-year enacted fiscal
year 2025 CR, the committee continued to provide funding
specifically for the officer retention and student loan
repayment plan.
Are these measures helping you retain officers? Have you
seen attrition numbers decrease?
Chief Manger. We have not seen attrition numbers increase.
We have seen them decrease. And they absolutely have assisted
us in keeping officers. Not only they wait till they hit the
age limit to retire, but we have got folks that don't even
think about going to another agency because of the retention
bonus. So it has had a very, very positive impact on our
attrition rate.
Mr. Valadao. All right. Well, thank you, Chief.
I am now going to recognize Mr. Espaillat for his 5
minutes.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Chairman.
As I stated in my opening statement, this is a significant
increase. But given the needs of your department, I think it is
one that is a warranted one.
But what I do want to find out is if in any way, shape, or
form this increase was compounded by the enactment of a full-
year continuing resolution. I am interested in knowing the
kinds of impact that it had on your ask, the fact that we
recently passed a CR for a year.
Chief Manger. So there are certain responsibilities that we
have that we cannot shirk. And certainly I think overtime was
impacted in terms of making sure we had enough people for the
day-to-day activities, making sure we had people at every post,
and making sure people engaged in the required training that
they had to go to.
There were other things that we could just sort of
postpone, whether it is equipment, whether it is vehicles,
whether it is some of the things that we said, okay, we are
going to wait for a year. But that has an impact and it is not
a good one. I mean, we don't want to get in a situation, as we
were in 4 years ago, where we had equipment that was not up to
date.
Just the screening equipment, there are always improvements
that we can make. We want to use the state-of-the-art
equipment. And if we have to postpone getting that state-of-
the-art equipment, making the improvements to the screening
process, that has an impact as well.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Espaillat.
Now I will recognize Mr. Strong for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member.
Chief Manger, it is great to see you again. Thank you for
making yourself accessible to the subcommittee as we continue
to examine the important work of the U.S. Capitol Police.
Your leadership and commitment to the safety of our Capitol
complex and its people are truly appreciated. As you mentioned
in your testimony, the mutual aid program has been key in
enhancing the security of the Capitol complex and Members'
residences.
Could you discuss your plan to further strengthen these
partnerships with local and State law enforcement, given the
growing need for protective detail and special security events?
Chief Manger. So just in the last couple of years, if you
look at the number of memorandums of understanding that we have
with State and local law enforcement agencies, that number is
just going up exponentially.
And I thank Chief Mitchell, who is sitting behind me. Her
work has been--she has been all over that and is going to
continue to ensure that those number of agreements that we have
with those agencies continues to grow.
Frankly, we could have and should have hundreds of them,
maybe even over 500 of them, for every Member, at whatever
jurisdiction they live in, to have that agreement just in case.
So I think eventually you will see that number grow into
the hundreds.
Mr. Strong. On the topic of collaboration, what are some
ways that Capitol Police coordinates with other law enforcement
and intelligence agencies to identify and mitigate threats
before they escalate?
Chief Manger. Well, I appreciate you mentioning the
intelligence component of that, I mean, because 4 years ago
that was one of the criticisms of this department, was our
intelligence operation.
Today, I believe that we have a world class intelligence
operation. We are a very active member of the intelligence
community not only in the Washington, D.C., area but
nationwide.
So the intelligence information that we gather, that we
analyze, that we share with not only other agencies but with
certainly all of our personnel as well, is I think working at
an amazing level.
But the cooperation that we have with law enforcement
agencies around the country continues to allow us to do our job
much, much better when we can call anywhere in the country and
talk to a law enforcement agency to get their assistance if a
Member has an event in their home State or if something is
occurring at that Member's residence.
We have got the trend that you are seeing, of course, and
have been seeing, is these demonstrations and disruptions at
not only events but at people's residence. Those are the kind
of things that we need to respond to very effectively so that
that doesn't continue.
Mr. Strong. Thank you. And we are all thankful for the
local law enforcement, what they do to protect us all.
Now let's focus on staffing for a moment. We talked about
right at a billion-dollar budget, talking about a 20 percent
increase, and you are managing some 2,530 sworn officers.
While there has been a significant focus on increasing
sworn officer numbers, the civilian workforce is equally
critical to the department's operation.
Chief Manger, can you elaborate on the role civilian staff
play within the department and how you are planning to continue
utilizing the workforce as the mission expands?
Chief Manger. Thank you for bringing that up as well.
I mean, the sworn component of our department is really the
backbone of what we do. It touches every aspect of our
operations, because you have got to have people that are
ensuring that logistics, ensuring equipment, ensuring the
hiring that goes on, just the budget, the procurement, all of
those things are handled by our civilian workforce, and I can't
say enough good things about them. They truly make sure that
our operations are as effective as they can be.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
As the Capitol Police's mission continues to evolve, the
growing emphasis on specialized roles in areas such as
protective operations and intelligence analysis underscores the
need for the advanced training.
How does the department ensure it has the right expertise
and staffing in these areas? And are there any new training
initiatives or programs planned to emphasize these specialized
capabilities?
Chief Manger. The answer to that question is yes. We just
have finished a learning needs assessment of our training
division and it has identified a number of areas that we need
to improve, not the least of which is you have in-service
training, which is required for every single police officer,
any sworn officer every year. We are doing the minimum that we
have to do, and we do it most--and it is at the minimum level
because of the impacts on overtime and staffing and everywhere
else.
We have got to have a better in-service training program
that does more than just the minimum that is required. So that
is one area where we are going to see improvement.
Leadership development and career enhancement
opportunities, that kind of training for all of our staff, and
leadership development for our executive and command staff, are
also areas that we want to focus on.
It also identified the fact that our training facility is
deficient. We need more space. And our training staff needs to
grow. Again, whether it is the recruit training, the in-service
training, the specialized training, we are doing it with a
bare-bones staff.
In answer to part of your question, we do hire some outside
experts to come in as contractors to instruct our folks, but,
in my opinion, it is better to have that expertise in-house.
And we developed that, and we also are able to hire some folks
to come in to help us train as well.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Chief Manger. I also commend you for
the dedication of your life to public safety, and I wish you
nothing but the very best in your retirement.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Strong.
I now yield 5 minutes to Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to join Mr. Strong and I know all the members of
this committee on thanking you for your service, not only to
the Capitol Police and the United States Capitol and the
citizens of the United States, but also your experience in
Fairfax County, where you rose to be chief, and Montgomery
County, where you were chief. And it has just been an
extraordinary career. And president of the Chiefs of Major
Cities. So you are really one of the best of the best. So thank
you very much for your service.
Let me ask you a question, Chief. You have been in three
departments. Morale is an important facet of any department.
Tell me, if you can, the impact of the--because you mentioned 4
years, you have had a lot of changes in what needed to be
done--the ramifications of the pardons given to those who
committed the insurrection in January of 2021 and the
ramifications of those pardons to the morale of the Capitol
Police.
Chief Manger. I think there was an impact not only to the
Capitol Police but an impact nationwide when you see folks that
are pardoned. And I am really referring to the ones that were
convicted of assaulting police officers. I think that is what
bothered most cops.
And it did certainly have an impact on the USCP. We have
got so much change that the officers are experiencing over the
last 4 years. So I am trying to keep them focused on moving
forward.
But it certainly did have a negative impact for cops all
over this country when you wonder, you put your life on the
line every day, and does it matter?
Mr. Hoyer. Yeah. How has it impacted retention and
recruitment? I know we are at 2,350. You need more. You are
asking for a budget to create more to solve some of the
problems we have. And I have heard from a lot of officers on
the overtime. That is a real challenge to families as well as
to the officers themselves.
Can you comment on the retention and recruitment impact?
Chief Manger. Well, yeah. The retention bonus that we have
been able to give to our officers over the last 3 years has
really made a significant difference in getting the attrition
level decreased. And so you have got more officers staying.
It has certainly been a help in terms of recruiting as
well. I mean, the changes this committee has approved over the
4 years I have been here, to increase the starting salary,
increase the pay for the Capitol Police, along with the
retention bonus, along with the student loan repayment program,
all of those things, you add that to what we describe to these
young folks that are looking for a career in law enforcement is
having a front row seat to history when you join the Capitol
Police, it has all been a very successful endeavor in terms of
allowing us to recruit and retain officers.
Mr. Hoyer. Well, that is good. And, hopefully, we will
continue to support that effort because that is critical,
obviously, to having not only the personnel numbers but also
the quality of people that we can recruit and retain.
The last question I want to ask you is, during the January
6 insurrection we had real problems with chain of command for
those of us who were involved in the leadership. Senator
McConnell and others had real discussions about what the chain
of command is under those circumstances, who is in charge.
Can you tell me how well you think we have arrived at an
understanding of how that response to an effort like that--
hopefully, we won't have another one but if we had one--how the
chain of command works with respect to Federal Armed Forces,
police, Metropolitan and surrounding jurisdictions?
Chief Manger. So one of the things that Congress did right
after the events of January 6, 2021, was to give the Capitol
Police Chief the authority to directly contact National Guard
and request assistance.
That was a great step forward, and, in fact, I have in the
time that I have been here always maintained a very close
relationship with the general in charge of the National Guard.
We have a great relationship, and, in fact, have utilized their
services on a number of occasions for different types of
events. And it is a great relationship, and it allows for very
orderly request and deployment if we need that.
The relationship between the Capitol Police and the
surrounding law enforcement agencies, both Federal and local,
is I think at a level where it needs to be. I mean, we have a
great relationship and with a phone call we can get whatever
resources that we need.
And then, finally, part of the improvements that were made
was the operational planning that we did, which was certainly
lacking prior. But the operational planning we do for big
events, for just routine events, is at a level that it should
be.
It is formal. It is written. And people can look at this
plan. And we did this kind of plan for over 200 events last
year. And you can see who is in charge, who is assigned to do
what.
And so certainly within the Capitol Police, there is no
question about the chain of command and who has responsibility
for what.
Mr. Hoyer. Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. I now recognize Ms. Maloy for her 5 minutes.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Hi. It is good to see you again. Thank you for what you
have done.
And I just want to follow up on what my colleague just said
about hoping that you feel like it is worth it that you all
show up at work every day and put your lives on the line for
us. Thank you for that.
We work side by side with you every day, and I recognize
that we are probably a fairly difficult clientele. Thank you
for the professionalism that you and your officers show with us
and with the public.
You said earlier that you are fully confident that by
fiscal year 2027 you will be fully staffed. And we had another
hearing right before this where my colleague Mr. Strong asked
if we are going to get more entrances and exits open to the
buildings, and they said that is a question for Capitol Police.
Does fully staffed mean more entrances and exits open?
Chief Manger. I think most of them are open. I mean, there
may be a couple here or there.
One of the keys for us is to try and maximize the space we
have. And that is one of the problems, that so many of the
screening areas, so many of the doors, so to speak, they are
not really ideally suited to be a screening area.
And so if you could put a second X-ray machine, a second
mag in there, put the better equipment, the more state-of-the-
art equipment, which requires a little bit more room.
Look at the CVC. I mean, that is really designed nicely. It
would be great if every entrance that we had where we were
screening people was like that, and that would cut down on the
lines.
And so the additional staffing would get us to a point
where we could do this without paying overtime. Right now we
are doing it with overtime. But there are other things too that
are more physical limitations that we need to look at as well.
Ms. Maloy. Okay. Thank you.
Over the past few years it seems like the department is
using perimeter fencing a lot more, the anti-scale fencing,
parade fencing.
What is the decision process to determine when that is
required?
Chief Manger. So it depends on the event. It depends on the
level of risk. And we have got criteria that are standard.
I would say that typically we only use it once or twice a
year. Now, I know for the State of the Union address we use it.
For me, the justification is you have got every branch of
government, all three branches of government, most of the
people in one place.
We certainly have been in a heightened threat environment
for the last few years. And I think it is prudent. We put it up
one day and then we take it down the next. So it is not as
obtrusive as it was.
And believe me, I get that nobody likes the fence up. I
don't either. But I think for big events like that where we had
the Prime Minister of Israel last summer, we had thousands and
thousands of people show up and it was about the angriest crowd
that I have seen here in my 4 years here. And we had some
episodes of violence. We certainly had arrests.
And with the intelligence that we had about what some of
the protesters had--there was chatter about in terms of doing
harm to the Prime Minister--I think, again, it was prudent to
take the measures that we took.
Ms. Maloy. So when you do take the measures, you put up
fence, take it down efficiently, that is true. Whose budget
does that come out of?
Chief Manger. Well, typically, it is the Secret Service's
budget if they are recommending. For the State of the Union, it
is my understanding that the Secret Service pays for that.
Ms. Maloy. Okay. And in your testimony--you have kind of
answered this already, I just want to give you a chance to
fully answer it--you talked about the problems in 2021 that
made it hard to recruit and retain officers.
Do you feel like those problems have been solved? I know
you have more FTEs now than you did then.
Chief Manger. I think--well, look, we had 103 IG
recommendations. Every one of those recommendations has been
implemented and resolved.
If you were to ask--I got thousands of cops, a couple
thousand cops. If you would ask them, ``Have all the problems
been solved?'' you would get a variety of answers, everything
from, ``Yeah, everything is fine,'' to folks who would say,
``No, nothing is fine.''
But I would say that the big issues that we face where the
rank-and-file lost confidence in this department because they
felt the department let them down--and, in fact, it did in many
ways--I don't think you hear the same concerns about their
equipment, do we have enough people, our training, all those
things.
So, in large measure, those, the big issues that were
identified, have been resolved, in my view.
Ms. Maloy. Okay. Thank you. My time is expired. I will just
end with thank you again for the time you spent here. Wishing
you luck in retirement.
Chief Manger. Thank you.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. LaLota for 5 minutes.
Mr. LaLota. Thank you, Chairman.
Over the last several years, the Capitol Police have
undergone a dramatic transformation, growing in size,
complexity, and responsibility.
What was once a force primarily focused on the Capitol
Grounds now operates with a nationwide scope, navigating a
heightened threat landscape, expanding protective operations,
and embracing new technologies to secure both people and
infrastructure.
At the heart of this transformation is a workforce expected
to do more with urgency and precision, often under immense
pressure.
As the department prepares for its next phase of growth,
the path forward raises critical considerations about
readiness, morale, modernization, and how to responsibly manage
nearly a billion-dollar budget.
Chief Manger, good to see you again today, sir. Thank you
for your four and a half decades of service. I am not sure if
this is going to be our last meeting or not, but it is good to
interact with you.
I want to ask you, sir, how does the department determine
priorities for physical security upgrades with respect to
budgeting? How does the department determine priorities for
that budgeting for physical security upgrades across the
Capitol complex?
Chief Manger. We have a team of folks that will visit the
Pentagon, visit TSA and the White House, and look at what other
agencies are doing in terms of screening and to make sure that
we have got the right equipment, that advances that are made
that we are all sort of on the same page, and that we keep
current with what is the best practice.
Mr. LaLota. My colleague from Utah asked about the cost of
temporary fencing or at least the issue of temporary fencing.
Has anybody considered the cost as it relates to doing
temporary fencing for one event versus creating some low-
profile, more permanent structures? Would it take two, three,
four events? Does the cost of those number of events equal the
cost of a more permanent, lower-profile fencing?
Chief Manger. I know those discussions have occurred, and I
know that the folks that do that kind of security work within
my agency have met, have had meetings with vendors and with the
Sergeant at Arms--and this has been now a couple years ago--
looking at those kinds of options.
So I know that those discussions have been had and those
opportunities, I guess, for a different sort of countermeasure,
a different sort of security fencing, a little lower profile,
have been discussed and looked at.
Mr. LaLota. I have been led to believe that the cost of
three events, the temporary structures for three events would
equal what it would cost for a more permanent, the low profile.
And I think everybody who supports a permanent solution also
wants it to be low profile. I have been led to believe that the
cost of three temporary structures is equal to one permanent
one.
Can you get back to us, Chief, at some time about your
estimates on one versus the other?
Chief Manger. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. LaLota. I also want to ask you, Chief, what role do
emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, play
in your modernization plan?
Chief Manger. You know, artificial intelligence, probably
the biggest area where that is assisting us is in the screening
process, where you have X-ray machines that can identify
prohibited items when they come through.
And that technology is improving every single day. And so
we certainly stay in touch with the vendor that we use for our
machines to make sure that we have the latest upgrades from
that vendor.
You know, it is not perfect. You are always going to need
to have human eyes on those screens and human interactions with
those individuals that have been identified as to having some
prohibited item.
But the AI helps us avoid those what we call single points
of failure, where you can have one person miss something and
then you could have a problem. AI can give us that backup,
which is better for our security campus-wide.
Mr. LaLota. With about the 30 seconds I have remaining,
Chief, I want to switch gears just a little bit and hone in on
your specific budget request.
And we are all under a microscope and we appreciate that
dollars are limited, and certainly acknowledging the issue of
the size and scope of the job is rightfully expanding. You have
many new threats and you are not just here in D.C., you have to
deal with those threats off campus.
But can you give the committee a sense of how, Chief, you
are ensuring that taxpayer dollars are being spent efficiently
and aligned with operational priorities?
Chief Manger. Well, we certainly have internal budget
controls. And one of the new teams that has been created is our
inspections unit, which are going to, in addition to what the
Inspector General does, take a look agency-wide for
opportunities for efficiencies and to ensure compliance in
terms of how we administer our budget.
Mr. LaLota. Thank you, Chief.
I yield.
Mr. Valadao. Well, if there are no further questions, I
would like to thank Chief Manger and your team and the entire
Capitol Police force for everything they do and for your
service.
Members may submit any additional questions for the record.
The subcommittee now stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:48 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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W I T N E S S E S
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Page
Manger, J. Thomas................................................ 5
Prepared statement........................................... 8
McCumber, Hon. Kevin F........................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 28
McFarland, Hon. William P........................................ 34
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Szpindor, Hon. Catherine L....................................... 42
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Austin, Thomas E................................................. 110
Prepared statement........................................... 114
Hayden, Hon. Carla............................................... 117
Prepared statement........................................... 119
Donfried, Karen E................................................ 129
Submitted statement.......................................... 146
Perlmutter, Shira
Submitted statement.......................................... 138
Manger, J. Thomas................................................ 166
Prepared statement........................................... 170
[all]