U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

37–038 WASHINGTON : 2019

HOUSE OFFICER PRIORITIES FOR 2019 AND 

BEYOND 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE 

ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 9, 2019 

Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration 

( 

Available on the Internet: 

https://www.govinfo.gov/committee/house-administration 


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C O N T E N T S 

APRIL 9, 2019 

Page 

House Officer Priorities for 2019 and Beyond ....................................................... 1 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Chairperson Zoe Lofgren ......................................................................................... 2 

Prepared statement of Chairperson Lofgren ..................................................

Hon. Rodney Davis, Ranking Member ................................................................... 3 

Prepared statement of Ranking Member Davis .............................................

WITNESSES 

Hon. Cheryl L. Johnson, Clerk of the House of Representatives ........................ 5 

Prepared statement by Ms. Johnson ............................................................... 7 

Hon. Paul D. Irving, Sergeant at Arms ................................................................. 20 

Prepared statement of Mr. Irving ................................................................... 22 

Hon. Philip G. Kiko, Chief Administrative Officer ............................................... 28 

Prepared statement of Mr. Kiko ...................................................................... 30 

Hon. Michael Ptasienski, Inspector General ......................................................... 51 

Prepared statement of Mr. Ptasienski ............................................................ 53 

QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD 

The Honorable Cheryl L. Johnson, Clerk of the House of Representatives, 

responses ............................................................................................................... 69 

The Honorable Paul D. Irving, Sergeant at Arms, responses .............................. 82 

The Honorable Philip G. Kiko, Chief Administrative Officer, responses ............ 100 

The Honorable Michael Ptasienski, Inspector General, responses ...................... 129 


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HOUSE OFFICER PRIORITIES FOR 2019 AND 

BEYOND 

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2019 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in Room 

1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Zoe Lofgren [Chairperson of the Committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Zoe Lofgren, Raskin, Mrs. Susan Davis 

of California, Butterfield, Fudge, Aguilar, Mr. Rodney Davis of Illinois, Mark Walker, and Barry Loudermilk. 

Staff Present: Sean Jones, Legislative Clerk; Khalil Abboud, Deputy Staff Director; Teri Morgan, Deputy Staff Director; David Tucker, Parliamentarian; Daniel Taylor, Chief Counsel; Jamie Fleet, 

Staff Director; Peter Whippy, Communications Director; Brittany 

Randall, Minority Director of Member Services; Timothy Monahan, 

Minority Director of Oversight; Jennifer Daulby, Minority Staff Director; and Courtney Parella, Minority Communications Director. 

The CHAIRPERSON. The Committee on House Administration will 

come to order. I would like to thank the Members of the Committee, our witnesses, and all those in the audience for being here 

today. 

I am pleased to have our House officers with us this morning. 

The work you perform enables us to keep focused on our work, 

delivering for our constituents, and we are grateful for it. 

House operations face many challenges. Physical and cyber security, both here and in our districts and attracting and retaining a 

highly skilled, diverse workforce and helping Member offices adopt 

new technologies that allow all of use to communicate better with 

our constituents is so important. 

These challenges and many more require us to be constantly reevaluating what works and what doesn’t and to be always planning 

and prioritizing based on the highest value for the taxpayer and 

the greatest service for the Member office. 

It is my intention to continue the tradition of this Committee 

with bipartisan work on overseeing our House officers. I know Mr. 

Davis’ staff and mine meet regularly with each of you on ongoing 

projects and initiatives. And I believe the House works better when 

more opinions are heard about how it should work. Our hearing 

this morning is the first of many to make sure that we are meeting 

our responsibilities as stewards of this great institution. 

Before we begin, I would like to make a couple of comments 

about the men and women who work with the House officers and 

Inspector General. From the tally clerks to the security engineers, 

the protocol officers and the financial statement auditors, this ComVerDate Sep 11 2014 05:25 Jul 27, 2019 Jkt 037038 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A038.XXX A038

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mittee will focus on making sure that every institutional office of 

the House is a good place to work, where people are treated fairly 

and with respect. 

In the near future, we will restart our workplace rights training. 

I have reviewed every page of the curriculum, incorporating feedback from Members and staff alike, to make sure it works with our 

new House Rules. We are also working with our vendor to find 

ways we can make the training more meaningful for managers and 

supervisors who are on the front lines of creating a welcoming 

workplace. 

I would like now to recognize our Ranking Member, Mr. Davis, 

for any opening remarks that he may wish to make. 

[The statement of the Chairperson follows:] 

STATEMENT OF CHAIRPERSON ZOE LOFGREN, COMMITTEE 

ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION HEARING, ‘‘HOUSE OFFICER 

PRIORITIES FOR 2019 AND BEYOND.’’, APRIL 9, 2019 

The Committee on House Administration will come to order. I 

would like to thank the Members of the Committee, our witnesses, 

and all those in the audience for being here today. 

I’m pleased to have our House Officers and Inspector General 

with us this morning. The work you perform helps enables us to 

keep focused on our work—delivering for our constituents and we 

are grateful for it. 

House operations face many challenges: physical and cyber security, both here and in our districts, attracting and retaining a highly skilled, diverse work force and helping Member offices adopt new 

technologies that allow all of us to better communicate with our 

constituents. These challenges—and many more—require us to be 

constantly re-evaluating what works and what doesn’t and to be always planning and prioritizing based on the highest value for the 

taxpayer, and the greatest service for the Member office. 

It is my intention to continue the tradition of this Committee 

with bipartisan work on overseeing our House Officers. I know Mr. 

Davis’ staff and mine meet regularly with each of you on ongoing 

projects and initiatives and I believe the House works better when 

more opinions are heard about how it should work. 

Our hearing this morning is the first of many to make sure we 

are meeting our responsibilities as stewards of this great institution. 

Before we begin I’d like to make a couple of comments about the 

men and women who work for the House Officers and Inspector 

General. From the tally clerks, to the security engineers, the protocol officials and the financial statement auditors, this Committee 

will focus on making sure that every institutional office of the 

House is a good place to work, where people are treated fairly and 

with respect. 

In the near future we will restart our workplace rights training. 

I’ve reviewed every page of the curriculum incorporating feedback 

from Members and staff alike, and making sure it works with our 

new House Rules. 

We are also working with our vendor to find ways we can make 

the training more meaningful for managers and supervisors, who 

are on the front lines creating a welcoming workplace. 


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3 

I now recognize the Ranking Member for any opening remarks 

that he may wish to make. 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Thank you, Madam Chairperson. 

Welcome to our officers. 

Before I begin, I would like to take a minute, though, to recognize and honor the contributions made to the House by two individuals, Alan DeLuca and Mike Pratt. Both these men were longtime 

employees of the CAO who recently passed away. And it is the tireless work ethic and steadfast commitment to service that Mike and 

Alan both demonstrated that make our jobs as Members of Congress much easier. My deepest sympathies are extended to their 

families and their friends and all their coworkers. 

The Chief Administrative Officer, Mr. Kiko—great to see you— 

Clerk and House Inspector General and their teams are collectively 

responsible, as we know, for the non-political operations of the 

House. They are tasked with authenticating the legislative process, 

through the Clerk’s operation; managing the business processes 

that allow every office to function, through the CAO’s operation; 

ensuring every Member, staffer, and visitor has a safe experience, 

through the Sergeant at Arms administration; and then through 

the watchful eye of the Inspector General, their operation, all of 

those tasks and processes are reviewed to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. 

All of you have laid out important priorities for the 116th Congress in your testimony, from modernizing the Legislative Information Management System, to improving physical security in district 

offices, to enhancing cyber-security for the House. It is clear your 

priorities are thoughtful and intended to improve House operations. 

There is a constant balance between the priorities of the institutional offices and the priorities of Member offices who rely on their 

services to operate. The priorities of both are often in alignment, 

but at times there is a disconnect between what institutional offices think Member offices need versus what they need. 

My overarching priorities for all four of you do can be broken into 

four areas: first, improving proactive communication with offices; 

second, building a strong culture of service in all that you do; third, 

instituting commonsense processes and procedures—we don’t need 

to make things overly bureaucratic just because we can—and, finally, ensuring the House is getting a return on investment for the 

additional resources that you receive. With additional resources 

also come additional expectations. 

Thank you all for being here today. I look forward to working 

with you, continuing to work with each one of you. 

I yield back. 

[The statement of Mr. Davis of Illinois follows:] 

STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER RODNEY DAVIS, COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION HEARING, ‘‘HOUSE OFFICER PRIORITIES FOR 2019 AND BEYOND.’’, APRIL 9, 2019 

Before I begin, I would like to take a minute, though, to recognize and honor the contributions made to the House by two individuals, Alan Deluca and Mike Pratt. Both of these men were longtime employees of the CAO who recently passed away. And it is the 

tireless work ethic and steadfast commitment to service that Mike 


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and Alan both demonstrated that make our jobs as Members of 

Congress much easier. My deepest sympathies are extended to 

their families and their friends and all their co-workers. 

The Chief Administrative Officer, Sergeant at Arms, Clerk, and 

House Inspector General and their teams are collectively responsible, as we know, for the non-political operations of the House. 

They are tasked with authenticating the legislative process, 

through the Clerk’s operation; managing the business processes 

that allow every office to function, through the CAO’s operation; 

ensuring every Member, staffer, and visitor has a safe experience, 

through the Sergeant at Arms administration; and then through 

the watchful eye of the Inspector General, their operation, all of 

those tasks and processes are reviewed to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. 

All of you have laid out important priorities for the 116th Congress in your testimony, from modernizing the Legislative Information Management System, to improving physical security in district 

offices, to enhancing cyber-security for the House. It is clear your 

priorities are thoughtful and intended to improve House operations. 

There is a constant balance between the priorities of the institutional offices and the priorities of Member offices who rely on their 

services to operate. The priorities of both are often in alignment, 

but at times there is a disconnect between what institutional offices think Member offices need versus what they actually need. 

My overarching priorities for all that the four of you do can be broken into four areas. 

First, improving proactive communication with offices. Second, 

building a strong culture of service in all that you do. Third, instituting common sense processes and procedures—we don’t need to 

make things overly bureaucratic just because we can. And, finally, 

ensuring the House is getting a return on investment for the additional resources that you receive. With additional resources also 

come additional expectations. 

Thank you all for being here today. I look forward to working 

with each of you and your organizations. I yield back. 

The CHAIRPERSON. Thank you, Mr. Davis. 

Joining us today is Cheryl L. Johnson, the Clerk of the House. 

Ms. Johnson was sworn in as Clerk of the House on February 25, 

2019 and is the 36th individual to serve as our Clerk. 

Paul D. Irving, Sergeant at Arms, was sworn in as Sergeant at 

Arms of the House of Representatives on January 17, 2012. He is 

the 36th individual to serve as Sergeant at Arms, an office that 

goes back to the first Congress in 1789. He is the chief law enforcement and protocol officer of the House and is responsible for maintaining order on the House side of the United States Capitol complex. 

Paul Kiko, who is the Chief Administrative Officer, was sworn in 

as Chief Administrative Officer of the House on August 1, 2016. He 

is the eighth person to serve as Chief Administrative Officer since 

the position was created in 1995. He is responsible for the information technology, financial, logistic, human resources, and procurement services provided to Members and their staff. 

Michael Ptasienski was appointed as the fifth Inspector General 

of the House on February 15, 2018. Prior to being appointed IG, 


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he served in the IG’s Office as the Deputy Inspector General, Advisory Administrative Services, and as the Director of Management 

Advisory Services. 

It is my pleasure to welcome our witnesses to the Committee this 

morning. 

Each of you will be recognized for 5 minutes, but your entire 

written statement will be made part of the record, so we encourage 

you to summarize it. As you know, we have a lighting system, and 

when you hit 1 minute, the yellow light will show up. When it 

turns red, your time is up and we would ask you to try to wrap 

up. 

So, first, we will turn to you, Ms. Johnson, for your testimony. 

And welcome. 

STATEMENTS OF THE HONORABLE CHERYL L. JOHNSON, 

CLERK OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; THE 

HONORABLE PAUL D. IRVING, SERGEANT AT ARMS, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; THE HONORABLE PHILIP G. 

KIKO, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES; AND THE HONORABLE MICHAEL T. 

PTASIENSKI, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHERYL L. JOHNSON 

Ms. JOHNSON. Good morning. Chairperson Lofgren, Ranking 

Member Davis, Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify about the priorities of the Office of the Clerk, 

and thank you for your guidance and support. 

The Clerk’s Office is a nonpartisan organization integral to the 

legislative process. We provide the procedural assistance and support necessary for the orderly conduct of official business of the 

House, its Members, and committees. 

I will use my time to outline our four key priorities for 2019 and 

beyond, starting with the Legislative Information Management 

System modernization and redevelopment project, also known as 

LIMS. 

LIMS enables the House to conduct legislative business and enables the public to follow that business. It brings in bill information, floor activity, Member and committee information, and executive communications from the House and Senate and distributes 

that information to GPO, the Library of Congress, Members, committees, House officers, and the public. 

However, LIMS was built more than 30 years ago and operates 

on an outdated programming language on a very old platform. The 

cost and technological risk of continuing on this platform are high, 

as finding skilled developers to work on legacy platforms is difficult 

and maintaining the current system demands significant resources. 

Migrating LIMS to a modern technology will allow it to be more 

flexible to readily incorporate changes and accept new legislative 

requirements while maintaining a high level of security to better 

meet the House needs. 

A second key priority is supporting committees. 

As part of our efforts to improve communications and strengthen 

relationships with House staff, we collaborated with the ParliamenVerDate Sep 11 2014 05:25 Jul 27, 2019 Jkt 037038 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A038.XXX A038

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tarian and the CRS and Congressional Staff Academy to host a 

briefing in January for all committee clerks. The briefing provided 

new and veteran clerks with tools they need to do their jobs and 

included sessions on the legislative process. We plan to continue 

our training series throughout the year. 

In addition, our Official Reporters provide reporting services for 

all Committee markups, hearings, and depositions as well as for investigative interviews. These services are subject to increased demand given the expanded deposition authority and oversight needs. 

In fact, in the 3 short months of the 116th Congress, our Official 

Reporters have supported more than 460 hearings and markups. 

The Comparative Print, or Posey Print project is a third key priority. This technology allows us to create comparisons between current law and what the law would be with the bill’s proposed 

changes. Today, the Rules Committee and the office of the House 

Legislative Counsel have access to the document comparison tool. 

Our goal for the end of phase three in August 2020 is to expand 

the application to a single comparison tool and to expand access to 

all House staff. 

Our fourth key priority is personnel development. We continue to 

evaluate training opportunities for our staff to ensure they align 

with our mission and goals and to enhance cross-training as employees with specialized skills retire. This initiative gives current 

employees hands-on experience in highly specialized areas and promotes career growth within the organization. 

Our aim is to keep exceptional employees motivated by strengthening their current skills and helping them acquire new ones. We 

have established a thorough training plan to further develop our 

workforce talent and broaden our institutional memory to be able 

to promote from within and to ensure personnel transitions do not 

disrupt our operations. 

We also will continue to recruit highly qualified new employees 

from a diverse pool of applicants. 

We look forward to continuing to carry out our many other important responsibilities, as outlined in my written testimony. 

Thank you for this opportunity, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 


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CLERKI UNITED STATES HOUSE 

of REPRESENTATIVES 

STATEMENT BEFORE THE COMMITTEE 

ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

"HOUSE OFFICER PRIORITIES FOR 2019 

AND BEYOND" 

THE HONORABLE CHERYL L. JOHNSON 

APRIL 9, 2019 
8 


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Chairperson Lofgren and Ranking Member Davis, Members of the Committee: Thank you 

for the opportunity to testify about the priorities and operations of the Office of the Clerk 

and for your guidance and support. 

From the introduction of new bills on the House Floor to the delivery of enrolled bills to the 

White House for presentment to the President, our office is integral to the legislative 

process. The Clerk's Office is a nonpartisan organization that provides the procedural 

assistance and support necessary for the orderly conduct of official business of the House of 

Representatives, its Members, and Committees. 

GOALS FOR THE 116TH CONGRESS 

For the n6th Congress, the Office of the Clerk's goals include continuing to ensure the 

integrity and modernization of the legislative process and improve public access to House 

Floor and Committee proceedings; supporting the work of House Committees; and ensuring 

that we support our outstanding staff, and where necessary recruit new staff, in a way that 

our employees can continue to flourish in their jobs and fully support this institution. 

KEY PRIORITIES FOR THE 116TH CONGRESS 

Legislative Information Management System Modernization 

and Redevelopment 

One key priority within our goals for the n6th Congress is the ongoing Legislative 

Information Management System (LIMS) modernization and redevelopment project. LIMS 

is a critical part of the flow of legislative information. It brings in bill information, Floor 

activity, Member and Committee information, and Executive Communications from the 

House and Senate and distributes that information to the Government Publishing Office 

(GPO), the Library of Congress, Members, Committees, House Officers, and the public. 

However, the LIMS system was built more than 30 years ago and operates with an outdated 

programming language on a legacy platform from the mainframe era. The platform has 

undergone multiple migrations and currently runs in the Linux environment. However, the 

legacy codebase has not been upgraded and poses significant challenges moving forward. 

The cost and technological risk of continuing on this legacy platform are very high as finding 

skilled developers who can work on legacy platforms is difficult and maintenance and 

changes to the current system demand significant resources. 

The migration of LIMS to a new modern technology will allow the application to be more 

flexible, extensible, robust and secure, and ultimately enable it to better meet the House's 

needs. This phase of the modernization project will comprise LIMS data modeling, backend 

C L E RTJ{I UNITED STATES HOUSE K of REPRESENTATIVES 1 
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development, Floor Action Reporting System (FARS), Committee Action Reporting System 

(CARS), Executive Action Reporting System (EARS), Reports Due to Congress, Senate 

Action Reporting System (SARS), and Quality Assurance Testing. 

Support for House Committees 

Our second key priority is support for House Committees. That is why as part of the Office 

of the Clerk's ongoing efforts to improve communications and strengthen relationships with 

the House staff we serve, our staff collaborated with the Parliamentarian's Office, the 

Congressional Research Service, and the Congressional Staff Academy to host a briefing in 

January for majority and minority Committee clerks. The briefing provided new and veteran 

clerks with the tools and information they need to do their jobs in the 116th Congress and 

included sessions on the legislative process, administrative services and resources, and 

technical training. Session topics included 

• Filing Committee reports 

• Completing the new Truth in Testimony Form 

Submitting remarks for the Congressional Record 

• Archiving Committee records 

• Reporting Committee actions to appear on Congress.gov 

• Updating the Committee Repository 

We plan to continue our training offerings throughout the year. 

In addition, the official reporters provide reporting services for all Committee markups, 

hearings, and depositions as well as for investigative interviews. These services remain 

subject to the potential for increased demand as a result of expanded deposition authority 

and oversight needs. In fact, so far this Congress, our Office of Official Reporters has 

supported more than 460 hearings and markups. 

The Clerk's Office, following a directive in the Committee report accompanying our fiscal 

year 2019 appropriation, researched language for a standardized electronic Truth in 

Testimony Form. With the help of this Committee, our office held information sessions with 

other Committees' staff to solicit ideas and incorporate feedback. The Office finalized the 

form, received approval for its use in the u6th Congress, and made it available on 

HouseNet. 

The Clerk's Office also develops and maintains the Committee Repository website at 

https://docs.house.gov. This online portal enables the public to track hearing and markup 

schedules, meeting notices, testimony, truth-in-testimony disclosures, opening statements, 

legislative text and amendments, and recorded votes. The House has made great progress in 

UNITED STATES HOUSE 

of REPRESENTATIVES 2 
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increasing the transparency of Committee proceedings, and the Clerk's Office is proud to 

support that effort. 

Comparative Print Project 

The Comparative Print project is a third key priority. After the successful completion of 

Phase 1 of the Comparative Print project at the end of 2017, the Clerk's Office has continued 

to work with the Office ofthe Legislative Counsel and the Law Revision Counsel on the 

planning and development of subsequent phases. 

In August 2018, the Clerk's Office awarded the contract for Phases 2 and 3 ofthe 

Comparative Print project. Phase 2 is anticipated to last from August 2018 to August 2019 

with the following deliverables: 

• Develop and build the backend framework to include security, user management, 

document repository, and document transformation-in progress, second quarter 2019 

• Build natural language processor (NLP) to interpret amendatory language -initial 

design complete (fourth quarter 2018), in progress, first/second quarter 2019 

Implement base set of amendatory language and automated execution to create a 

stand-alone document that meets the provisions of clause 12(a) of House Ruie XXIsecond quarter 2019 

• Implement an editor for those cases in which user intervention is neededsecond/third quarter 2019 

Continuously improve the comparison document in HTML and PDF that meets the 

provisions of clause 12(b) of House Rule XXI -second/third quarter 2019 

• Improve billcompare.house.gov user interface-second/third quarter 2019 

• Develop outputs in HTML, PDF, and XML-second/third quarter 2019. 

Phase 2 of the project is on track and we are holding weekly status meetings with the vendor. 

We expect Phase 3 of the project to begin later this year and anticipate it will last from 

August 2019 to August 2020. Below are the deliverables for Phase 3: 

Continue to build and refine NLP engine and implement an extended set of 

amendatory language-first/second quarter 2019 

Refine Phase 2 functionality: automation, editor, transformations, and user interfacethird quarter 2020 

Migrate the current Amendment Impact Program (AlP) to the Posey Technologyfourth quarter 2019 

Deploy to larger user base-second quarter 2020 

• Develop outputs in HTML, PDF, and XML-third quarter 2020. 

CLERK! UNITED STATES HOUSE 

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Personnel Development 

The fourth of our key priorities is personnel development. The Clerk's Office continues to 

evaluate training opportunities for our staff to ensure they align with our mission and goals 

and to enhance cross-training as employees with specialized skills retire. This initiative gives 

current employees hands-on experience in highly specialized areas and opens the door for 

career growth within the organization. 

Our aim is to keep exceptional employees motivated by strengthening their current skills 

and helping them acquire new ones. We have established a thorough training plan to further 

develop our workforce talent and expand our institutional memory, to be able to promote 

from within, and to ensure personnel transitions do not disrupt our operations. 

We have also begun to implement a cloud-based performance review system that will allow 

us to standardize evaluation criteria, goal-setting, and feedback across the Clerk's 

organization. We are currently testing the system and plan to provide user training during 

the second quarter of 2019. 

Finally, we will continue to recruit highly qualified new employees and will reach out to a 

diverse pool of applicants. As we plan for the future, we want to fill four new positions 

essential to supporting legislative proceedings: three for Legislative Computer Systems, 

which are needed to meet increasing transparency, efficiency, LIMS, and cybersecurity 

project requests, and a fourth in the Office of House Employment Counsel (OHEC) to 

support compliance with recent amendments to the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA) 

and related workplace rights reform measures. 

ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT ONGOING RESPONSIBILITIES 

AND POINTS OF EMPHASIS 

We also look forward to continuing to carry out our many other important ongoing 

responsibilities and points of emphasis this Congress, which include the following: 

Support for Legislative Proceedings 

In recent years, the Clerk's Office has made significant improvements to Reports to be Made 

to Congress, a document required to be published at the beginning of each session of 

Congress. This document lists all of the reports that any officer or Department is required to 

make to Congress. Most recently, we collaborated with the Library of Congress to make the 

Executive Communications and Requirements data sets available on Congress.gov. This 

addition is a further enhancement to the interface and search capabilities of the system and 

follows earlier work to link reports received to their corresponding statutory requirements. 

CLERK! UNITED STATES HOUSE 

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The Clerk's Office supports the legislative process from introduction to engrossment and 

presentment. The bill derks process all bills and resolutions when they are introduced. The 

tally clerks record all Floor votes cast through the Electronic Voting System (EVS) and 

manually in the Well of the House, maintain the House Calendar, and process all Committee 

reports filed with the House. The journal clerks produce the constitutionally mandated 

Journal of the House of Representatives and handle all Presidential Messages. 

When bills and resolutions pass the House, the enrolling clerks prepare the official text for 

transmission to the Senate or the White House. Along with their more visible duties of 

announcing pending business on the Floor, the reading clerks deliver bills and messages to 

the Senate. Our staff is hard at work, including whenever the House is in session-day or 

night-supporting the work of the House of Representatives. 

In addition to supporting House Floor operations, the Clerk's Office is responsible for 

making the proceedings of the House easily accessible to the public and Members alike. The 

Clerk's Office hosts the publicly available website, Bills to be Considered on the House Floor, 

at https: 1/docs.house.gov. This site is the central source for all legislation scheduled to be 

considered on the Floor each week. 

Our staff maintains and updates the online summary of Floor proceedings, including 

information on pending legislation and votes taken, on our website at 

http://clerk.house.gov. The Clerk's Office also maintains live and archived video of all 

House Floor proceedings at http: 1/HouseLive.gov and provides closed-captioning services to 

ensure that House proceedings are accessible to all. Our official reporters transcribe Floor 

debate from gavel to gavel. We provide these transcripts along with other legislative data to 

GPO, which makes them available the next day online and in print in the Congressional 

Record. The Clerk's Office also makes daily updates to the bill summary information at 

Congress.gov. 

Electronic Voting System 

The EVS has three main components: the EVS Server, vote stations, and the display 

subsystems, which include the summary displays (updated in 2009) and the main displays 

(updated in 2010). We completed the vote station upgrade in August 2018. We are planning 

to upgrade the Venus Display Servers (part of the display system) and replace all the work 

stations on the House Floor during the August 2019 District Work Period. We will continue 

to perform routine maintenance as needed. 

We have also begun discussions with our vendor to develop a plan for ongoing support of the 

House Floor displays. When the summary displays (2009) and main displays (2010) were 

installed we anticipated a 100,000-hours or 10-year lifespan. We are not close to the 

100,000 hours, but we are approaching the 10 years, so we want to plan for potential power 

supply and fan replacements. 

C LERy;, UNITED STATES HOUSE K ! of REPRESENTATIVES s 
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Consensus Calendar 

Section 102, Subsection (r), of H.Res. 6 provides for a Consensus Calendar in the 116th 

Congress House Rules and mandates that the Speaker must designate, and the House must 

consider, at least one measure on the Consensus Calendar during any week in which the 

House convenes (except before March 1 at the beginning of a Congress and after September 

30 at the end of a Congress). This subsection also provides that to be eligible for placement 

on the Consensus Calendar a measure must accumulate 290 cosponsors and must not have 

been reported by its primary Committee of jurisdiction. When this cosponsorship threshold 

is reached the sponsor of the measure may, while the House is in session, submit to the 

Clerk a written motion to place the measure on the Consensus Calendar. If these conditions 

have been met, the Clerk will note the motion's submission in the Congressional Record of 

that day and enter the motion on a comprehensive list of Consensus Calendar Motions, 

which will be available on the Clerk's website. After a measure has maintained at least 290 

cosponsors for a cumulative period of 25legislative days after the presentation of the 

motion, the measure will be placed on the Consensus Calendar, where it will remain until it 

is considered in the House or reported by the primary Committee. The Clerk's Office has 

developed a process that will ensure it meets the Consensus Calendar requirements. 

Support for the 116th Congress 

On November 14, 2018, the Clerk, Deputy Clerk, and Senior Advisor to the Clerk welcomed 

Members-elect to the Capitol during New Member Orientation in the House Chamber. 

During the session, they provided an introduction to Office of the Clerk services, the EVS, 

and rostrum staff. On January 3, 2019, the Clerk led the Opening Day activities in the 

Chamber through the election of the new Speaker. In preparation for the new Congress, 

Clerk staff updated the EVS and all other systems as well as House Floor materials, 

including Roll Call books, House Journal files, and manual tally sheets. The Office also 

worked with Secretaries of State and other state election officials to review all Certificates of 

Election. 

Support for Members 

The Capitol Service Groups maintain the Lindy Claiborne Boggs Congressional Women's 

Reading Room, the Members and Family Committee Room, and the Congressional Prayer 

Room, which are near the House Chamber and provide spaces for rest and reflection. 

The Clerk's Office worked with the Architect of the Capitol to design, produce, and install a 

permanent display of current women Member photographs in the Lindy Boggs Room. The 

Office also created a digital photographic display of all former women Members. These 

installations replaced 20 individual frames and several print posters, which hung in the 

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space for more than 15 years, and allow for quick updates in the future to accommodate the 

growing number of women Members. 

The House Library provides research services for legislative staff of Members and 

Committees. The Library offers an online portal at https://librarv.house.gov/site with 

comprehensive guides to legislative research topics and regular training with our 

Congressional Staff Academy partners. 

OHEC provides House employing offices with legal counsel and training on employment 

matters, including anti-discrimination/anti-harassment laws, family and medical leave, 

disabilities law, fair labor standards requirements, workplace safety, and other issues arising 

under the CAA and recent amendments to the statute and related reform measures. 

Operation of Vacant Offices 

Under the Rules of the House of Representatives, the Clerk becomes the employing and 

certifying authority when a vacancy occurs, and we work with the remaining staff to 

continue the Office's operations and provide constituent services until a successor is elected. 

The Clerk's Office has managed three vacant offices to date this Congress. 

Website Redesign 

The Clerk's Office will soon release the Beta version of our new redesigned website at 

https://clerkpreview.house.gov. The new homepage highlights House Floor activity and 

provides easy access to vital legislative information in a user-friendly, responsive, and 

modern design. We have added several features, including a public vote search page, 

updated Member and Committee profiles, and a new video streaming site 

(https://live.house.gov) that includes the ability to rewind the live feed and search closedcaptioned text. The Clerk's Office also released an Alpha version of a new internal video 

clipping tool (http://floorclips.house.gov). The last major piece ofthe Clerk website redesign 

is a new site search tool, which is expected to be ready in June 2019. 

Public Disclosure Services 

By law and under the Rules of the House of Representatives, the Clerk's Office is charged 

with providing public disclosure information that helps preserve the integrity and increase 

the transparency of the legislative process. Our Legislative Resource Center manages the 

filing and retention of this information and responds to public inquiries regarding the 

legislative activities of the current Congress. 

Financial Disclosure 

The Clerk's Office administers the filing of and public access to all financial disclosure forms 

and periodic transaction reports submitted by House Members, Officers, candidates, and 

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senior House staff, as well as disclosures filed by employees of the Capitol Police, Library of 

Congress, GPO, Botanic Gardens, and the Congressional Budget Office. We maintain the 

online filing system for these reports and work closely with the Ethics Committee to 

continue to improve both the filing system and public access to the records on our website. 

We have seen a steady increase in electronic filings since the system was implemented-from 

68 percent of filings in 2013 to 87 percent in 2018. 

Lobbying Disclosure 

The Clerk's Office continues to support the lobbying disclosure filing system in coordination 

with the Secretary of the Senate, who shares responsibility for administering the filing 

requirements of the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA). We make these filings available online 

in a searchable, sortable, and downloadable format. To assist filers, the Office also regularly 

reviews its Guidance to filers and updates it as warranted. The Guidance is available online 

at https: //lobbyingdisclosure.house.gov. 

Justice Against Corruption on K Street Act of 2018 

The Clerk's Office is implementing the Justice Against Corruption on K Street Act of 2018 

passed on December 20, 2018, and signed into law by the President. The "JACK" Act became 

effective on January 3, 2019, and amends the LDA by requiring all registrations (form LD-1) 

and quarterly reports (form LD-2) filed on or after January 3, 2019, to include 

"for any listed lobbyist who was convicted in a Federal or State court of an offense 

involving bribery, extortion, embezzlement, an illegal kickback, tax evasion, fraud, a 

conflict of interest, making a false statement, perjury, or money laundering, the date 

ofthe conviction and a description of the offense." 

The Clerk and the Secretary of the Senate notified registrants in January that our offices 

were developing the technical changes necessary on the two relevant forms to meet this 

reporting requirement. We made those changes and posted additional guidance, on March 

29, 2019, and notified filers that the updates are available in the system. If the statutory 

timelines required them to file a registration or quarterly report before the amended forms 

were available, we advised them to do so, and, if necessary, amend the filing to include the 

relevant information when it became possible to do so. Below are the project deliverables 

and estimated timeframes: 

• February 8, 2019: Define additional fields, schema, and modified XML (complete) 

March 8, 2019: Complete updates to LD-1/LD-2 and data import modules and begin 

testing (complete) 

• March 31, 2019: Complete updated forms and move to production (complete) 

• May 2019: Complete new search/download site 

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Lobbying Disclosure Enhancements 

We continue to consider an enhanced web-based lobbying disclosure system to improve 

submission of individual and bulk reports. We aim to improve the administrative functions 

of the system to ensure robust filing statistics and search capabilities and to enable direct 

approval of pending reports. By creating a unique lobbyist identifier, we will be able to 

synchronize House and Senate notification, approval, reporting, and referral efforts. The 

enhanced disclosure system is an item that remains on our priority list but has been pushed 

back because of the addition of unforeseen projects. 

Franking 

The Clerk's Office worked with the Franking Commission and the House Information 

Resources group from the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer to install a dedicated 

computer kiosk in the Legislative Resource Center to make franking filings available to the 

public electronically. 

House Operations 

Cannon Renovation and Relocation 

Our office supports the ongoing renovation of the Cannon House Office Building, both 

directly and as a building occupant. The curatorial team provides staff and equipment to 

preserve, relocate, and store historical artwork located in construction areas. As the Cannon 

Renewal Project progressed from Phase 1 to Phase 2, the Office of the Clerk continued to 

move operations, personnel, and materials to new locations while maintaining continuity of 

services. In December 2018, the Legislative Resource Center's Public Information, 

Requisitions and Document Production, and Executive Communications subdivisions and 

several House Library staffers moved to their new office locations in the Cannon building. 

The House Library is now open in its new location. 

Increased Storage for Congressional Records 

The Center for Legislative Archives, part of the National Archives and Records 

Administration (NARA), maintains, preserves, and provides public access to archived House 

records pursuant to House Rules. In 2017 we secured storage space in two GPO buildings 

near the Capitol and obtained funding for the conversion of the first building, which we 

expect to occupy early in 2019. In 2018 we obtained funding for the conversion of the second 

building. With this additional space, the Center will have sufficient capacity to store House 

and Senate documents for decades to come. 

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High-Speed Printing 

The Clerk's Office provides printed legislative materials for use on the House Floor and in 

Committee hearings, and for distribution to congressional staff and the public. In December 

we completed the purchase and installation of a new high-production black and white 

printer, which increases printing speeds by 22 percent over the previous printer and 

includes a booklet maker. The new printer ensures that the Legislative Resource Center can 

continue to quickly and reliably support legislative activities that require daily high -volume 

print jobs, such as House Committee hearings, bills, and reports. The Clerk's Office has also 

initiated a project to replace its older color printer this year to improve our production 

quality and speed. 

Turner Redstone Data Center 

The Clerk's Office postponed our initial plans to migrate to the new Turner Redstone Data 

Center in December 2018 because of changing legislative priorities and problems at the 

current Alternate Computing Facility backup site. We have rescheduled our migration for 

Apri!2019. 

Archives, Art, and History of the House 

The Office of Art and Archives within the Clerk's Office cares for the House Collection of fine 

art and artifacts, processes House and Committee records and oversees their eventual safe 

transfer to NARA, advises Members on their congressional papers, and provides 

informational services concerning the House's records, art, and history. 

Archives 

The Clerk's Office preserves the House's archived records. Our professional archivists help 

Committees to comply with their archival obligations and to research and retrieve records in 

their archives. 

Since 2016 the Clerk's Office has showcased a searchable selection of official House records 

at https://historv.house.gov/Collection/Search/. The Records Search collection illustrates 

the institution's work, its responses to issues of the day, and its relationship with the public 

and other branches of government. Highlighted records include documents from all 50 

states as well as the District of Columbia and the territories, petitions and memorials, 

correspondence with Members, certificates of election, hearing transcripts, and maps and 

charts. We pair each record with a brief description that provides context and links to 

related material. Most recently, we added materials from all standing Committees as well as 

material from special and select Committees. 

During 2018 the Clerk chaired two meetings of the Advisory Committee on the Records of 

Congress. The Office of Art and Archives and the Office of Communications worked with the 

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Senate and NARA to publish the Sixth Report of the Advisory Committee on the Records of 

Congress. The mandated report details many Committee efforts from January 2013 through 

December 2018, including new storage spaces for congressional records at GPO buildings; 

preservation of Committee hearing videos, social media, and Member office correspondence 

management systems data; progress on the project to refine descriptions of congressional 

records; and advances in digital curation. 

Art and History 

The curatorial staff of the Clerk's Office preserves the historical art and artifacts in the 

House collection and makes them accessible to the public. Our History, Art & Archives 

website at https:!/historv.house.gov continues to enhance our ability to bring the history of 

the House to the American people even if they are unable to visit the Capitol. With sections 

on the Institution, People, Exhibitions and Publications, Collections, Oral History, 

Education, and Records and Research, the website offers a broad selection of material about 

the history and collections of the House and is a tremendous resource for the public and 

educators. In addition to its public outreach efforts and ongoing work with the permanent 

collections, the curatorial staff also manages several exhibitions throughout the House. We 

look forward to the opening of a significant new exhibition, with permanent displays of 

objects of interest to Members, staff, and constituents, in the Cannon basement rotunda, 

which is a major hub of the House campus. Development is underway on The House at 

Work/Work in the House, with images and artifacts-from 18oos Chamber desks to firstgeneration BlackBerrys-that tell the story of the work that has gone on here for more than 

200 years. 

The Office of Art and Archives and the Historian also participated in meetings and working 

groups with congressional partners to develop content for the upcoming redesign of exhibits 

in the Capitol Visitor Center's galleries. We anticipate our involvement in the redesign 

efforts to continue through 2020. 

The Historian published a book and an e-book edition of Asian and Pacific Islander 

Americans in Congress, 1900-2017, which adds to the series of books about Congress that 

already included Women in Congress, Black Americans in Congress, and Hispanic 

Americans in Congress. The Office of the Historian collaborated with the Office of the Clerk 

to write, edit, and produce the so-page booklet The People's House: A Guide to Its History, 

Spaces, and Traditions. The publication introduces readers to Opening Day ceremonies; 

Floor proceedings; Capitol rooms and House Office Buildings; art and artifacts in the House 

Chamber; and Leadership offices, political parties, and Officers. The Historian plans to 

make the content publically available on the History, Art & Archives website. 

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Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress 

We have continued to redevelop the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress (BioGuide) 

website (http: //bioguide.congress.gov ). Upgrades include a robust search engine, responsive 

user interfaces, and a content management system that will enable House and Senate 

Historians to enter more extensive profile data and collaborate seamlessly. The Clerk's 

Office expects to launch the Alpha version of the website during the first half of 2019. 

Thank you again for your continued guidance and support and for the opportunity to testify. 

CLERKi UNITED STATES HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES 12 
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The CHAIRPERSON. Thank you very much. 

We will turn to you, Mr. Irving. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PAUL D. IRVING 

Mr. IRVING. Good morning, Chairperson Lofgren, Ranking Member Davis, and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to present the Office of the Sergeant at Arms operational 

priorities for 2019. It is an honor and a privilege to serve this institution, and I look forward to working with the Committee as the 

year progresses. 

As noted, although I have submitted my full testimony for the 

record, I would like to briefly highlight and update the Committee 

on a number of security initiatives for 2019. 

In the past few years, the Sergeant at Arms, in conjunction with 

the Capitol Police, has enhanced security services, to include 

screening prior to entry of our buildings, developed an enhanced security focus to assist Members in this increased threat environment, expanded security services into district offices and districtbased events, and moved the Capitol complex closer to 100 percent 

screening by bringing the House office buildings into the secure perimeter. 

Unfortunately, many Members receive threats and direction of 

interest communications that raise concerns for them, their families, and their staffs. In light of these threats and concerning communications, my office interfaces with Members’ offices seeking security coordination for off-campus events in the Washington, D.C., 

area, in their districts, or elsewhere across the country. 

We work with the Capitol Police to provide a level of protective 

support that is based on threat intelligence and proactive criteria 

which may form the basis of an enhanced level of support. Protective services can range from security awareness briefings in the 

Member’s district to a request for local law enforcement support for 

a public appearance by the Member, and also deployment to the 

Member’s district by the Capitol Police. 

In regard to district office security, my office continues to build 

upon the success of our District Office Security Program that was 

launched in the summer of 2017. Since its inception, the program 

has assisted 390 district offices with the installation of intrusiondetection systems, alarms, cameras, panic buttons, and coordinated 

local law enforcement support of nearly 450 events and townhalls 

across the country. We have also documented nearly 13,000 outreach interactions with Members and their offices. In addition, my 

office has distributed 386 mail hoods to help protect district staff 

when opening mail. 

Focusing on the Capitol complex, we are working toward the implementation of House garage security to ensure full screening into 

the House office buildings and in line with the Capitol and Senate 

office buildings. I am pleased to announce that, with the assistance 

of this Committee, security screening from all garages will be ready 

for implementation this year. 

One of our largest operational initiatives is the Joint Audible 

Warning System. This is a shared effort with the Capitol Police, 

the Architect of the Capitol, and the Senate Sergeant at Arms to 

replace the aging emergency annunciator system introduced as a 


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21 

temporary measure following the events of 9/11. The system components of these pager-like devices, located in all D.C. offices, are beyond their end-of-life dates, the technology is outdated, the battery 

components are no longer manufactured, and the system support 

from the vendor is limited. Seventeen years after implementation, 

we are seeking a new, separate, non-cell-tower-based system for 

emergency notifications throughout the House to ensure that emergency voice notifications are transmitted via secure radiofrequency 

to all offices and meeting rooms throughout the campus. 

As I have noted, a more detailed listing of my operational priorities are provided in my extended testimony, such as replacement 

of the GSA-rated safes for Members to store classified and sensitive 

information. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before the Committee. I am so appreciative of the Committee’s unyielding support 

and our partnership as we strive to maintain the delicate balance 

between strong security measures and a free and open campus to 

the Capitol complex. 

I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Irving follows:] 


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Office of the Sergeant at Arms 

Operational Priorities 

Statement of the Honorable Paul D. Irving 

Sergeant at Arms 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Before 

The Committee on House Administration 

Good morning Chairperson Lofgren, Ranking Member Davis, and Members o_f the Committee. I 

appreciate the opportunity to present the Office of the Sergeant at Arms' operational priorities. It 

is an honor and a privilege to serve this institution, and I look forward to continuing to partner 

with the Committee on these priorities as this year progresses. 

Since 1789, the daily responsibilities and expectations of the Sergeant at Arms have changed 

significantly. Within the last few years, the Sergeant at Arms Office has reexamined the security 

needs of the institution and transformed its mission, response and character. Members of 

Congress now receive an unprecedented number of threats and threatening communications, 

which mandate a proactive approach to our security posture. 

I would like to highlight and update the Committee on a few initiatives that are either in place or 

in a planned implementation phase. 

The Sergeant at Arms, in conjunction with the Capitol Police, has enhanced security services to 

include screening prior to entry of our buildings, developed an enhanced security focus to assist 

Members in this increased threat environment, expanded security services into District offices 

and District-based events, and is moving the Capitol complex closer to I 00% screening by 

bringing the House Office Buildings into the secure perimeter. 

Screening of visitors outside our buildings is designed to identify and mitigate threats before they 

reach the interior of our buildings. Physical security planning for the Capitol complex starts with 

pre-screeners at the outer perimeter and moves inward. In response to global terrorist threats, we 

have significantly enhanced the K-9 teams and officer pre-screeners outside the building 

entrances. I am working with the Architect of the Capitol on a planned Capitol South Door 

Screening Kiosk to move visitor screening outside the Capitol and into an appropriately sized 

screening kiosk adjacent to the Capitol. Not only will this kiosk ensure that all visitors are 

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screened outside the Capitol building, it will also provide the thousands of visitors to the House 

Chamber an indoor waiting area that will greatly enhance their experience. The ongoing design 

phase is a collaboration with the Architect of the Capitol, the Sergeant at Arms office, and the 

Capitol Police. 

Many Members receive threats and direction of interest communications that raise concerns for 

the Members, their families, and staff, but do not equate to the requirement of a Capitol Police 

protective detail. The number of threatening communications has increased three-fold over the 

past few years. In light of this increase, my office interfaces with Members' offices seeking 

security coordination for off-campus events in the Washington, DC area or elsewhere across the 

country. Upon receiving a request for law enforcement support, the Sergeant at Arms will 

request the Capitol Police conduct a security survey and/or risk assessment to determine what 

protective services are needed and if those services will be provided by Capitol Police and/or 

cooperating federal, state and local law enforcement partners. Furthermore, I have tasked my 

office to provide a level of protective support that is based on a proactive set of criteria which 

forms the basis of an enhanced level of support, such as an increased public profile on social 

media platforms. Protective services can range from a notification to local law enforcement, to 

additional assistance to the Member's District Office staff, to a Capitol Police deployment. 

The Office of the Sergeant at Arms continues to build upon the success of our District Office 

Security Program that was launched in the summer of2017. To assist in the facilitation of our 

District Office Security Program, I established the District Security Service Center. The District 

Security Service Center serves as a "one stop shop" for all district security matters. Since its 

inception, the program has assisted 390 district offices with the installation of intrusion detection 

security alarms, cameras and panic buttons. In addition, my office continues to pay for security 

upgrades at one district office per Member and pays for the alarm system monitoring fees for 

multiple offices. I would like to thank the Committee for its ongoing support of this vital 

security program. 

Since the start of the !16th Congress transition, we have assisted each freshman Member in 

evaluating their security options for new district offices. 88 freshman Members have made a 

decision on security upgrades for at least one district office and, we are working with the 

remaining offices to assist them in evaluating their security options. 
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During New Member Orientation, the SAA and CAO, with support from the Committee, 

encouraged Member-elects to select their predecessor's space whenever possible. As a result, 

nearly one third of district office spaces acquired to date are spaces already containing a House 

installed security system. The District Security Service Center has assisted in the completion of 

approximately 50 new security assessments with an additionallO to be completed in the coming 

days and weeks. Security upgrades have been completed at 15 district offices. 

In conjunction with the CAO, the District Office Security Center coordinates and distributes mail 

hoods to district offices. The mail hoods allow a Member's district office to improve the safety 

and security of their office by providing a more secure method to open mail. In response to 

offices continuing to receive suspicious and/or threatening mail, we increased our allotment of 

mail hoods by 10% to support additional interest in the program and replace damaged/aging 

units. Increasing participation in our mail hood program has been a primary goal during this 

transition. Similar to the security systems, this program is opt-in meaning the Member district 

must inform us as to which office we should send the mail hood. Additionally, throughout the 

year, we conduct periodic outreach to Member offices to ensure that they are aware of the 

program and to provide reminders to practice safe mail handling procedures. To date, 386 mail 

hoods are in use with 26 of these hoods in freshman Member district offices. 

Last year, the District Office Security Service Center, in conjunction with Office of the Sergeant 

at Arms Police Services staff, helped to coordinate local law enforcement support for nearly 450 

public events and town halls across the country. Since its inception, the District Office Security 

Service Center has documented nearly 13,000 outreach interactions with Members and their 

offices. While many ofthese interactions are at the request of the Member, the District Office 

Security Service Center is also proactive in its outreach. For example, we performed outreach 

following an active shooter incident in Thousand Oaks, California; the synagogue shooting in 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the series of package bombs in and around Austin, Texas; and most 

recently, the active shooter incident in Aurora, Illinois. This outreach ensures all staff are 

accounted for, provides guidance on protective actions, and disseminates pertinent contact 

information should any security related questions or concerns arise. The District Office Security 

Service Center team also proactively reaches out to district offices to educate staff on security 

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related information that is available to them. For example, this past year we reached out to each 

Member office that had not previously utilized our program to coordinate law enforcement 

support for public events. We recently launched two online webinars, one for active shooter 

training and one for safe mail handling procedures. 

My office also conducts security awareness briefings in conjunction with the Capitol Police for 

District Offices. We will conduct these briefings in the district and we attempt to coordinate 

these briefings to maximize the number of offices that can be covered. The topics covered 

include the security resources available to congressional offices, event security and law 

enforcement coordination, threats and concerning communications, suspicious activity and 

protests, and district office security considerations. We have conducted 21 of the briefings in the 

last year. 

Focusing on the Capitol complex, our largest Capitol security initiative is the Garage Security 

Enhancement Project, which will bring the entire Capitol complex closer to I 00% screening by 

bringing the House Office Buildings into the secure perimeter and in line with the Senate Office 

Buildings and the Capitol. The Office of the Sergeant at Arms continues to work with this 

Committee, the Architect of the Capitol and the Capitol Police to implement screening in the 

House garages, so that all personnel entering the House Office Buildings from within the garages 

will be screened as those entering the buildings from the street. This will ensure the same level 

of screening whether using the pedestrian entrances or the garages to all House (and Senate) 

Office Buildings and the Capitol. I am proud to say that we will complete this initiative and be 

ready for screening from the Rayburn and Cannon Garages in June of this year. 

The addition of the garage screening will eventually allow Members and staff to move from the 

House Office Buildings to the Capitol without additional interior magnetometer screening in the 

Rayburn and Cannon tunnels. I will continue to work with the Capitol Police and the Architect 

of the Capitol to minimize the inconvenience and impact of this project on Members, staff, and 

others who work in the House Office Buildings. 

I am very proud of the work that has gone into these initiatives and the services my team 

provides to the House community. 

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In addition to these important ongoing projects, I would like highlight other operational security 

projects that my office is undertaking. 

I am presently undertaking a shared effort with the Senate Sergeant at Arms, Architect of the 

Capitol, and Capitol Police to replace the aging wireless emergency annunciator system. The 

existing wireless annunciator system was introduced as a temporary measure following the 

events of9/ll. The system components of these pager-like devices (located in all DC offices) are 

beyond their end-of-life dates, the technology is old, battery components are no longer produced, 

and system support by the vendor is limited. 17 years after implementation, I am working with 

our security partners to procure a new joint audible warning system (JAWS), with encrypted 

transmission capabilities, and new devices for all offices in the House. It is critical for us to 

replace the system ~omponents, including the 2,500(plus) devices currently in every office, every 

hearing room, meeting room, and work area in the House-side of the Capitol, Capitol Visitor 

Center, and all five House Office Buildings. 

With the new JAWS system, emergency voice notifications will be sent via secure radio 

frequency to all offices and meeting spaces throughout the campus. This radio frequency system 

will not rely on cell towers or IP-based networks and will provide a separate and critical system 

that will work in parallel with the other systems in place, to provide critical life-safety 

information to everyone in the House. Importantly, the encryption capability will help ensure 

messages are sent from trusted, authorized officials to verified devices. 

The JAWS effort, in conjunction with other existing notification capabilities- the Joint 

Emergency Mass Notification System (or House Alert currently available on desktops and 

cellphones) and the Public Address System (the loud speaker system in office hallways)- will 

provide notification resiliency. Collectively, they will use multiple delivery methods - including 

email systems, cell towers, network systems, and soon radio frequencies -to send emergency 

messages to Members and staff. 

Another important initiative for our office is the Safe Program. In 2017, the Committee shifted 

the management of GSA-approved safes from the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer to 

the Office of the Sergeant at Arms. This program includes the secure management, storage, 

training, and record keeping for close to 300 GSA-approved safes used in Member and 

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Committee offices in the House. Our office has inventoried and created a secure database to 

track and monitor the GSA-approved safes currently in use. Over half of these safes still utilize 

an analog combination lock, which has proven to be difficult to open and unreliable over time. 

For FY20, I have requested funding to purchase new safes, with digital combination locks that 

adhere to the U.S. Government's highest security standard, to protect classified and sensitive 

information in Member and Committee offices in the House Office Buildings. 

Employees of the Sergeant at Arms Office are our strongest assets. I would like to thank the 

Committee for helping to establish positions throughout the Office of the Sergeant at Arms so 

that we can increase the level of service we provide to Members. 

Thank you once again for the opportunity to appear before the Committee. I am so appreciative 

for the Committee's unyielding support and partnership as we strive to maintain the delicate 

balance between strong security measures and free and open access to the Capitol complex. I am 

happy to answer any questions you may have. 

6 
28 

The CHAIRPERSON. Thank you very, very much. 

Mr. Kiko. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PHILIP G. KIKO 

Mr. KIKO. Good morning. I want to thank each of you for the opportunity to present the CAO’s priorities, which include improving 

and expanding upon our customer services, advancing the House’s 

cybersecurity posture and technology support, and modernizing its 

internal and customer-facing processes. 

The CAO is the largest House-specific support organization, with 

over 700 employees who provide a broad spectrum of services. Our 

employees assist offices with voucher processing, logistics and asset 

management, technology support, payroll, wellness, child care, et 

cetera. 

The CAO has taken on new responsibilities, such as facilitating 

the workplace rights training for an estimated 16,000 individuals 

last year and standing up the new Office of Employee Advocacy 

and assisting with various analyses of House practices and functions. 

The services provided by the CAO, old and new, are critical to 

the House operations and must constantly evolve and improve to 

meet the needs of Members. 

I recognize that major improvements need to be made with our 

financial and asset management services. We have been working 

hard on these. We have brought in outside consultants, we have 

been working with the Committee, and I believe there is light at 

the end of the tunnel. 

But it is not just these major areas that we must work on improving. We must continuously improve all our services, make the 

customer experience better by putting them first, meet their needs, 

and seek ways to improve our services. 

The CAO’s mission at its 1995 inception was ‘‘to constantly and 

consistently listen to our customers, meet their needs, and seek 

ways to improve our services.’’ The customers are Members. It is 

simple. The CAO is to listen, deliver, and improve. 

And that is exactly what the organization’s strategic plan put 

into motion: a process to better listen to our customers, deliver the 

services that they need, and to constantly improve. 

It is changing the way we approach service delivery. We 

launched a new business unit. We rolled out professional development training for House staff and did training, as was mentioned, 

for clerks, House financial systems, et cetera. 

We are enhancing House-wide services that save Members 

money, working to expand our technology services and reduce reliance on vendor support. Last Congress, our mailing services team 

corrected nearly 60 million mailing records for Members’ offices, 

saving them $17 million in postage and $18 million in production 

services. 

We have responded to the overwhelming demand for food service 

improvements. 

And the CAO also has paramount responsibility, as we all know, 

in protecting the House against malicious actors constantly seeking 

to gain access to House data. In just 1 month, every month, the 

CAO blocks an estimated 1.6 billion unauthorized scan probes and 


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29 

connections, including 300 million to 500 million cyber attacks and 

an average of 12.6 million questionable emails to thwart fishing attacks. In 2018, our cybersecurity office deployed 615,000 patches 

and 3,000 malicious indicators to over 16,000 network-connected 

devices on campus. 

I am paying close attention to the issues raised before the Select 

Committee on the Modernization of Congress to ensure the CAO’s 

priorities align with and meet the needs expressed by Members, including those related to constituent communications, the adoption 

of new technologies, compensation trends, and district office support. 

Technology modernization is one area that the CAO is moving 

aggressively towards. Our fiscal year 2020 budget requests funding 

for a more aggressive cloud strategy and with the Committee’s support, we will be moving into a cloud-first strategy for all new technology endeavors. 

And while the House does allow the use of cloud tools and authorized several dozen for use, integrating these tools in the past 

has been too difficult. I would like to speed this process along. To 

help solve this problem, the CAO is considering creating a technology innovation lab where Members can test, evaluate, and share 

innovative technology and ideas. 

I want to again thank you for presenting the CAO’s priorities. I 

just want to close out by saying, since I have been at CAO, the 

process I am trying to do is Member-first, the processes that Members want, not necessarily what people in the CAO think is best. 

Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Kiko follows:] 


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Statement of 

The Honorable Philip G. Kiko 

Chief Administrative Officer 

United States House of Representatives 

Before the 

The Committee on House Administration 

April2019 
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CAO Submitted Testimony 

April 2019 

Summary Statement 

Philip G. Kiko 

Chief Administrative Officer 

Chairperson Lofgren, Ranking Member Davis, and members of the Committee, thank 

you for the opportunity to present the Chief Administrative Officer's (CAO) priorities. 

In its 2018 written update to the Committee, the CAO highlighted cybersecurity and 

operationalizing the organization's Strategic Plan as its top priorities. It also highlighted 

other major projects and service initiatives such as enhancing House-wide technology 

services, implementing new standards for IT and financial shared employees, deploying 

Workplace Rights and Responsibilities Education, and establishing the new Office of 

Employee.Advocacy. 

The CAO has advanced every initiative identified as a priority last year and has taken 

on new responsibilities such as overseeing the execution and delivery of a 

compensation study. Operationalizing its Strategic Plan has been the most impactful 

initiative, prompting across-the-board service improvements. 

In 2017, when the CAO developed its Strategic Plan, it set out to place the organization 

on a path to better fulfill its original pledge to provide the House with forward-thinking, 

cutting-edge solutions. In its original mission statement, the CAO pledged to, "constantly 

and consistently listen to our customers, meet their needs, and seek ways to 

continuously improve our services to them." Similarly, the goals of the organization's 

Strategic Plan are to improve the CAO's customer services through greater solicitation 

and consideration of customer feedback and the House environment and to modernize 

its services. 

Since its implementation, the Strategic Plan has reached nearly every CAO employee 

and has impacted the organization's broad spectrum of services- old and new. It even 

led to the creation of two new business units expressly dedicated to delivering 

exceptional customer service and prioritizing the use of the organization's finite 

resources. 

With a focus on customer service and innovation per its Strategic Plan, the CAO has 

identified its priorities for this year and beyond. The organization is also paying close 

attention to the issues raised before the Select Committee on the Modernization of 

Congress to ensure its priorities align with and address the needs of Members. From 

evolving constituent communication technologies, to modernizing compensation and 

diversity practices, to enhancing district office support, the CAO understands its role 

and has set its priorities accordingly. In fact, the CAO is creating a technology 

innovation lab where Member offices will be able to test, evaluate, and share innovative 

tools and ideas. 

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CAO Submitted Testimony 

April2019 

The strategic priorities outlined in this testimony include improving and expanding upon 

the CAO's customer services, advancing the House's cybersecurity posture and 

technology support, and modernizing its internal and customer-facing processes. 

The CAO's nearly 700 employees fulfill the organization's mission to serve Members 

and their staff- here in the nation's capital and across the country- by providing 

administrative, technical, and operational solutions so that they can perform their 

constitutional duties. We offer a diverse array of services delivered by a diverse, 

talented pool of employees. 

As we continue to operationalize the Strategic Plan, we realize our vision to be an 

essential resource for every Member of the People's House through outstanding 

customer service delivered by exceptional employees. Significant progress has been 

made in the way we do business, but more can and will be done. It is my hope that the 

service improvements are apparent to the Members and their staff. 

Again, thank you for the opportunity to present the CAO's priorities and for the 

Committee's continued support. 

Strategic Plan 

Initiated in the fall of 2016, the CAO's Strategic Plan was developed by a crossfunctional, bottoms-up strategy team This strategy team defined the CAO's mission and 

laid out specific service-oriented objectives for goals that focused on customers, 

process, stewardship, and employees. 

After the Plan was finalized in early 2017, the CAO quickly moved to operationalize it. 

The organization brought together an array of service providers who gathered feedback 

from the House community, closely examined service delivery models, and identified 

ways to improve and modernize its services. 

Over the past two years, the implementation of the Plan has prompted significant 

changes to the GAO's business model and, in turn, what the GAO hopes are 

recognizable improvements to the services it provides. 

Customers 

The GAO has set out to understand how the House community interacts with our 

services and to improve our customers' experiences. 

Implementing objectives under the Strategic Plan's customer goal led to the creation of 

an entirely new business unit dedicated to delivering exceptional customer service -the 

Customer Experience Center (CEC). The CEC is comprised of existing, revamped, and 

new capabilities focused on services provided to Members and their staff. It now 

includes streamlined creation and delivery of digital media, graphic art, and videography 

products under its House Creative Services division. Its new Congressional Staff 

Academy is delivering a professional development curriculum requested by House 
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CAO Submitted Testimony 

April 2019 

offices. And its new, expanded Customer Advocate program is helping offices navigate 

and acquire the services they need in their Washington, D.C., and district offices. 

To achieve its customer objectives, the GAO adopted practices common within the 

private sector to measure customer satisfaction by deploying point-of-service surveys. 

The surveys replace a hodgepodge of surveys previously and inconsistently deployed 

by the organization. The new survey tool, launched in March of 2017, initially covered 

six transactional services provided by GAO employees. Today, it surveys recipients of 

33 services and has gathered 12,101 survey responses. The responses indicate an 

average rate of satisfaction with GAO services of over 96 percent. 

Survey feedback- good and bad -has prompted process improvements in GAO 

service delivery. Escalation processes are now in place to respond to any actionable 

feedback, and supervisors are assigned to resolve any challenges in service delivery. 

The GAO is currently implementing a new in-house survey tool that will expand its 

survey capabilities to include more transactional services and consultative services. 

Process 

A primary process goal for the GAO is to modernize its services and increase the use of 

its services through greater consistency and accuracy. 

In August 2018, the revamped Communications and Marketing division within the CEC 

condensed a list of 150 services provided by the GAO as identified by GAO employees, 

to a simplified working list of 31 primary services better understood by the GAO's 

customers: Member, Leadership, and Committee offices. This working list of primary 

services helps GAO employees understand and communicate the full scope of GAO 

offerings as seen through their customers' eyes. 

To improve how we communicate and market our primary services, the 

Communications and Marketing team also launched new GAO-wide branding standards 

to ensure all new or modified services are properly branded and easily accessible. For 

example, services should consistently be referred to by the name customers associate 

them with and be accessible through known access points like House Net, 

MyServiceRequests, First Call, or the Technology Service Desk. 

As part of an analysis of its internal operations, the GAO found that greater collaboration 

between its service providers is required to improve efficiency and reduce duplicative 

efforts and their associated costs. To facilitate greater collaboration, the GAO initiated 

its Cross-Functional Collaboration Program in the summer of 2018. The Program brings 

together every service division involved in each of a customer's primary GAO services 

to examine each step taken to fulfill that service. With that information, the Program 

then identifies opportunities to expedite service fulfillment and eliminate customer pain 

points. For example, the Cross-Functional Collaboration Program closely examined the 

CAO's fulfillment of special event service requests submitted to its First Call customer 

service center. The examination discovered that for any given event, approximately 14 

teams execute 50 activities with 34 decision points using 4 House systems and 6 forms. 

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GAO Submitted Testimony 

April 2019 

The examination identified 12 customer pain points and 14 ideas to improve and 

streamline the process. 

The Program is on track to convene the corresponding business units to examine at 

least half of the GAO's primary services by the end of 2019. 

In 2018, the CAO also established an organization-wide governance framework that 

promotes transparent and informed decision making and has resulted in greater 

collaboration between business units from the inception of a new or modified service. 

Stewardship 

The GAO's stewardship goal is to safeguard and optimize the use of House resources. 

To fulfill its stewardship objectives, the CAO continues to implement the actionable 

recommendations provided by an independent firm in September 2017 following its 

comprehensive review of the GAO's financial services. The recommendations included 

that actions be taken to improve overall accuracy, accountability, and customer 

engagement services. Implementing the recommendations has prompted new, 

expanded leadership within the GAO's Office of Finance; a restructuring of the Office of 

Financial Counseling; a reorganization of the Office of Budget, Planning, and Analysis; 

and the development of financial policies and procedures that codify best practices, 

legal requirements, and industry standards to be upheld by all Finance staff. 

Though progress has been made, the CAO fully acknowledges that there is still much 

work to be done to improve the consistency, accuracy, and reliability of its financial 

services. 

Operationalizing the process objectives in its Strategic Plan also required the CAO to 

prioritize the use of its finite resources based on risks posed to the House and spurred 

the creation of its new Office of Risk Management. The new business unit absorbed the 

GAO's Internal Control and Audit Liaison and Remediation Programs. It also provided 

for the development and implementation of Enterprise Risk Management and 

Compliance Programs. The implementation of Enterprise Risk Management will provide 

management with risk-based data to inform decisions and provide the capability to 

target resources to the areas of highest risk, ensuring the GAO's mission and objectives 

are met. 

Employees 

CAO employees are more than just a commodity for the House. They play an integral 

role to House operations and are part of the House community. They are comprised of 

individuals with diverse skillsets, including cybersecurity engineers, accountants, and 

tradespeople. Similar to employees in Member, Leadership, and Committee offices, 

they require investments in their development. 
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CAO Submttted Testimony 

Apnl 2019 

Since the implementation of its Strategic Plan, major strides have been taken to 

improve the organization's talent framework, its performance and feedback processes, 

and its workforce optimization efforts. 

In 2018, the organization implemented a new talent framework that includes 

improvements to its recruiting and hiring processes. These include increased 

consultative discussions with hiring managers to ensure recruitment strategies are 

tailored to meet their specific needs. In 2018, the GAO also started a two-year effort to 

design and deploy a set of strategic human capital activities. Currently underway, these 

efforts include the development of new competency models, updated position 

descriptions, new candidate assessment tools, and the deployment of career 

development and mentor programs. Each of these initiatives will benefit current and 

future GAO employees by providing a more clearly defined roadmap for their career. 

The GAO is making an investment in the development of its employees in a number of 

ways. For example, the GAO launched a manager training series called Empower Hour 

and an organizational communication series for non-managerial GAO staff. These 

series were attended by hundreds of employees during the 1151

h Congress. 

Another important employee initiative is the GAO Speaker Series. The Series was 

created during the 1151

h Congress to provide an opportunity for GAO staff to come 

together and hear from a variety of Members, House staff, and other prominent 

individuals on topics ranging from professional development to the institutional 

development of the House of Representatives. The GAO launched the Series to create 

more engagement and collaboration among GAO staff and the institution they serve and 

to give staff the opportunity to share ideas and foster discussion around new and 

innovative ideas for the organization. 

To accomplish its performance objective, in 2018, the GAO fully deployed its new 

employee performance management program that includes mid-year and new hire 

evaluations. The revamped evaluations are customized to each employee's individual 

performance goals and gauge the employee's performance as it relates to the GAO's 

organizational goals established in the Strategic Plan. 

These noted talent framework and performance accomplishments align with and 

support the GAO's workforce optimization objectives. 

The GAO is also making progress on its workforce planning activities. Starting in early 

2019, the GAO began to identify the criticality of vacancies across the organization by 

taking a structured and risk-based approach. The organization's workforce optimization 

activities will focus more specifically on the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to 

successfully achieve its mission. 

Expanded Customer Services 

Central to the GAO's Strategic Plan is the organization's vision to deliver outstanding 

customer experiences. Through the implementation of its Strategic Plan, the GAO has 

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CAO Submitted Test1mony 

April 2019 

expanded and improved its existing services and their delivery models and expanded its 

catalogue of services provided to the House community. Specifically, it has sought to 

provide new services that help Members and their staff effectively perform their jobs in 

an environment that promotes greater work-life balance and overall wellness. 

Customer Advocates 

Since its launch in September 2017, the GAO's Customer Advocate program has 

expanded from two Advocates serving approximately 100 Member offices to five 

Advocates serving a11441 Member, Delegate, and Resident Commissioner offices. 

Working hand-in-hand with First Call, the Customer Advocates connect their assigned 

House offices with the GAO's technical, administrative, and operational experts and 

help facilitate and triage GAO services on their behalf. Since its inception, the Advocate 

program has been well received. They have helped offices navigate the GAO's broad 

spectrum of services and were especially instrumental in facilitating the transition 

process for freshman offices during the transition to the 1161

h Congress, participating in 

95 Member-elect briefings. 

Customer Advocates have also traveled to Members' district offices to ensure that they 

are aware of the GAO services available to them and to gather feedback on how the 

GAO can better meet their needs. Since the program started, Customer Advocates have 

visited district office staff from 42 congressional offices as of Apri15, 2019.20 additional 

offices will be visited by the end of May. District offices visited by Customer Advocates 

are located in California, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and West 

Virginia. Of the 62 offices, 31 are freshman offices of the 1161

h Congress. Visits to 

freshman offices are focused on district office setup and the availability of GAO 

services. Going forward, the Advocates will visit district offices in their assigned regions 

on a reoccurring basis. 

House Creative Services 

To streamline and modernize its popular photography and graphic services, the GAO 

merged the two previously separate divisions and added videography capabilities to 

create House Creative Services- a one-stop shop for Member office digital and 

creative service needs. In July 2018, House Creative Services began beta testing a new 

House Creative Services online platform that enables offices to access, manage, and 

edit their photos and graphic designs and order prints online. The platform is now fully 

operational and supporting approximately 180 House offices. It will be aggressively 

marketed to the entire House later this year once the additional personnel necessary to 

support higher usage are onboarded. 

During the 1151

h Congress, House Creative Services received and processed nearly 

22,000 work orders. It also expanded its catalogue of services to include new products 

such as motion graphics and canvas prints. 

Congressional Staff Academy 

The new Congressional Staff Academy is delivering a professional development 

curriculum specifically requested by Member, Leadership, and Committee offices to 

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CAO Submitted Test1mony 

Apnl 2019 

help employees best perform their job responsibilities. Unlike the former learning center, 

which didn't focus enough on professional development offerings for congressional 

staff, the Academy includes courses that help staff perform their duties, such as courses 

on appropriations law, official committee clerk procedures, House financial systems, 

and leadership training. For example, to support the mandatory House-wide transition to 

electronic voucher submissions in October 2018, the Academy launched new financial 

systems training courses with subject matter expert instructors and an on-demand, 

online course. Within two months, the Academy trained over 200 House employees on 

the new voucher submission requirements. 

In February 2019, the Academy launched a new leadership series available in person or 

via live webcast that has been well received by Chiefs of Staff, District Directors, and 

senior staff. Using feedback collected through surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one 

interviews, the Academy is currently creating courses specifically requested by House 

offices focused on congressional communications, legislative processes, and D.C. and 

district office administration. 

The Academy is also preparing to roll out House-wide access to Linked in Learning, an 

industry-leading learning resource with thousands of on-demand courses covering a 

broad spectrum of technical and developmental skillsets. 

The Academy is improving the registration experience for employee training with the 

implementation of a cloud-based learning management system. Once fully operational, 

the platform will replace the existing three platforms in use and create a one-stop shop 

where employees can register for in-person courses, take online courses, and track 

their course completion status. 

Food Services 

To make sure Members, staff, and visitors have a variety of quality food options on 

campus, the CAO has taken a multipronged approach to food service delivery, which 

includes gathering community feedback, increasing branded food options, and 

implementing quality control oversight. 

In January 2018, the CAO surveyed the House community on food services. The survey 

received an impressive 2,431 responses that indicated a strong desire for both cafeteria 

and branded food options. To that end, the CAO has worked to bring more branded 

options to the House such as D.C.-based &pizza, which opened in the Rayburn House 

Office Building in February, and Au Bon Pain, which opened in the Cannon House 

Office Building April 3. Two additional branded sites will also open on campus the 

Tuesday after Labor Day, including a Steak 'n Shake in Rayburn. These branded 

options are in addition to the popular Dunkin' Donuts, Baskin Robbins, and Subway 

options on campus and new pop-ups like Mission BBQ, Cosi, Dyvine BBQ in Motion, 

BIBIBOP, honeygrow, and others. 

Since opening, these branded options have been well received. In fact, &pizza sold 

nearly 8,000 pizzas in its first month. 

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CAO Submttted Testimony 

April 2019 

To ensure quality food offerings are provided in cafeterias by the House food vendor, 

the CAO conducts vigorous oversight and contract enforcement. This includes 

inspections and surveillance, tracking vendor performance, and regular meetings with 

the vendor's management team. 

Considering that Members and staff often work long hours and rely on the on-campus 

food options, the CAO understands the importance of delivering a quality array of food 

options and will continue to make food services a priority. 

Member Constituent Communications & Mailing Services 

Whether it's social media, phone calls, email, letters, or town halls, Members employ all 

means possible to communicate with their constituents and keep them informed. These 

efforts demand significant time and resources. In turn, constituents are increasingly 

employing the same methods to contact their representatives about pressing issues. In 

fact, the volume of inbound constituent communications has increased substantially 

over the past two years, making it difficult for offices to receive, process, and respond to 

communications in a timely fashion. 

Facilitating Member-to-constituent and constituent-to-Member communications is one of 

the GAO's primary services that has been and remains one of its top priorities. 

To advance technical engagement capabilities available for House offices, the CAO 

launched an analysis of constituent engagement platforms used by House offices, 

including Correspondence Management Systems (CMS). More specifically, a leading 

independent technology consultant has been engaged to conduct a three-phased 

assessment to identify the current challenges around constituent engagement, conduct 

market research for technology solutions to address those challenges, and develop a 

modernization roadmap that will serve as a playbook for attaining improved 

engagement platforms. 

The assessment, which included direct feedback from Member offices facilitated by 

Customer Advocates, will evaluate the feasibility of expanding the use of more modern 

engagement capabilities such as live chat and chatbots, process automation, machine 

learning and artificial intelligence, and constituent satisfaction analysis. The assessment 

is in process and is expected to be completed by mid-2019. 

The CAO is also working with existing CMS providers to integrate their correspondence 

platforms with the House's telecommunications and voicemail systems, reducing an 

office's need to manually enter caller data into CMS platforms. 

To improve its constituent mailing services, the CAO consolidated all House mailrelated operations under the CEC that were previously under three separate CAO 

divisions- Logistics & Support, Finance, and Acquisitions. These include postal 

address reconciliation services, D.C. and district office billing, and mail vendor contract 

management. Consolidating these operations and moving them under the CEC has 

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CAO Submitted Testimony 

April 2019 

yielded process improvements and more direct office feedback. For example, in 

February 2018, the GAO's Mailing Services team worked with the U.S. Postal Service 

(USPS) to introduce the use of its Informed Delivery Program -a service that delivers 

daily email previews of constituents' USPS mail. It also established a House-wide 

account for its Informed Visibility Program in March 2018, allowing offices to enhance 

constituents' daily email previews with weblinks to their official House.gov sites and/or 

social media sites. 

To expedite compliance with the monthly district office outbound mail reporting 

requirements, the CAO developed an online reporting system that launched in October 

2018 and improves the reporting process for offices. 

During the 1151

h Congress, the GAO's Mailing Services team reviewed nearly 250 

million addresses for House offices and made corrections to nearly 60 million records, 

saving offices over $17 million in postage and $18 million in production costs. It has 

over 380 offices participating in the digital mail program and oversees the House mail 

screening processes that intake an estimated 12 million pieces of mail and 2 million 

packages annually. It successfully intercepted the first of multiple potentially lethal pipe 

bombs sent to elected officials in October 2018. 

Employee Well ness Program 

To empower House staff with the resources they need to cope with the demanding pace 

of life and work on Capitol Hill, the CAO launched a comprehensive House-wide 

wellness program. The first step entailed identifying an experienced program manager 

to convene and lead an advisory committee comprised of Legislative Branch 

professionals with knowledge of the House's unique environment and needs. 

The program officially kicked off October 2018 with the launch of 

wellnesscenter.house.gov, a website designed to keep House staff informed ofwellness 

topics and services ranging from mindfulness, nutrition, fitness, general health, and 

stress management. 

The program is expected to expand its services in 201g with a dedicated storefront and 

satellite locations in each House office building, newsletters, in-person and online 

courses for D.C. and district staff, and individual and group consultative services. As 

part of the wellness program, the CAO recently acquired a contract with UfeCare, a 

company providing work-life services for House staff. LifeCare provides personal 

guidance and support to assist House staff through major life events and common, 

stress-inducing challenges such as finding child care options, matching elderly parents 

with housing options, and assisting in college and financial aid planning. Additional 

platforms that deliver wellness coaching and health assessments will also be rolled out 

in 2019 along with special health and wellbeing events. 

Employee Advocacy 

To fulfill the House's desire that employees have access to legal counsel and 

representation in matters covered by the Congressional Accountability Act, the CAO 

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CAO Submitted Test1mony 

April 2019 

established the Office of Employee Advocacy in compliance with H. Res. 724, passed 

by the House in February 2018. By September 2018, the CAO had retained a wellcredentialed employment and labor law attorney to serve as the Director of the Office of 

Employee Advocacy and, soon after, retained highly competent, experienced 

employment and litigation attorneys. By the end of this rnonth, Employee Advocacy will 

be comprised of four attorneys (the Director, one Senior Associate Counsel, and two 

Associate Counsel) and a Paralegal. The office plans to hire a Legal Secretary in late 

spring 2019. 

Working with the GAO's Communications and Marketing Tearn, Employee Advocacy 

has engaged a targeted marketing strategy to inform the House community of the 

office's mission and its no-charge, complainant-side legal services. The marketing 

initiative has included various forms of communications and outreach aimed at 

employees located in Washington, D.C., and in district offices across the country. The 

office has also established relationships with key House offices to facilitate the 

accommodation of its role in personnel and employee rights processes and has 

provided valuable input on existing training curriculum, including the Workplace Rights 

and Responsibilities Education. 

Another essential step in Employee Advocacy's rollout has been the establishment of 

security policies and protocols. Within the CAO, Employee Advocacy has worked with 

House Information Resources to create a system that protects employees' electronic 

communications with Employee Advocacy and the office's files from detection or 

disclosure to individuals or entities without the authorization of Employee Advocacy. 

Since opening its doors, Employee Advocacy has had the privilege of counseling and 

representing House employees on a wide range of matters. It has handled 74 legal 

issues and cases that House employees have presented to Employee Advocacy for 

consultation, advice, or representation. To date, matters addressed by the office's 

attorneys have included claims of harassment and hostile work environment; 

discrimination based on race, color, disability, and sex (including gender, parental status 

and pregnancy); retaliation based on protected activity; violations of the Family Medical 

Leave Act; and failure to accommodate health conditions. Employee Advocacy's 

workload continues to grow as awareness of the office grows and legislative changes 

alter the legal landscape (e.g., new Member liability provisions in the Congressional 

Accountability Act). 

House of Representatives Child Care Center 

Since its creation in 1987, the House Child Care Center, operated by the CAO, has 

provided child care services for House employees. While House child care demands 

have increased over the years, the capacity of the House's Child Care Center has not. 

To accommodate more House families, the CAO worked with the Architect of the 

Capitol and other Legislative Branch stakeholders to expand the Center's capacity and 

relocate a portion of its operations to the O'Neill House Office Building. 

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CAO Subrmtted Testimony 

April 2019 

In January 2019, the Center's capacity more than doubled to 160 children, and all 

waitlisted preschoolers and House toddlers on the original waitlist were offered slots. 

Wait times for parents of children of all ages seeking admission were also significantly 

reduced. Once all O'Neill construction and expansion operations are completed and the 

Center has moved all of its operations to O'Neill, the Center will triple in size for a total 

capacity of 232 children. The expansion has provided the Center with an opportunity to 

build upon its success as a program accredited by the National Association for the 

Education of Young Children. Specifically, the expansion has prompted operational 

changes at the Center, including changes in administrative and faculty structure, 

classroom structure, the effective implementation of age-specific curriculum, oversight 

of the Center's health and sanitization policies, and admissions policies and 

procedures. 

Workplace Rights and Responsibilities 

To help Members and staff comply with the Workplace Rights and Responsibilities 

training requirements prescribed in H. Res. 630, the CAO worked expeditiously with the 

Committee to procure a vendor with the capability and expertise to develop and 

implement custom, in-person education courses for the entire House community based 

in Washington, D.C., and across the nation. Between January and March of 2018, the 

CAO solicited and vetted vendors from across the country and was ready to deploy 

custom training in April. The custom 90-minute education courses began on April30, 

2018, and included more than 400 live training sessions in Washington, D.C., and over 

200 sessions in locations across the United States. By the end of the Second Session 

of the 1151

h Congress, the CAO delivered live training to approximately 16,000 

individuals. 

Working with the Committee, the CAO is examining options to improve the program's 

curriculum and/or delivery prior to its deployment during the First Session of the 1161

h 

Congress. 

Compensation and Diversity Studies 

The FY19 Legislative Branch Appropriations report requires the CAO to compile a 

House compensation study that includes a comparative analysis of the salaries and 

benefits of House, Executive Branch, and private sector employees. The study is also to 

identify compensation disparities that may exist between individuals from different 

ethnic and racial groups and working under different employing authorities with similar 

job responsibilities. 

Similarly, the House Rules package for the 1161

h Congress requires the Office of 

Diversity and Inclusion to compile an annual diversity report that evaluates diversity in 

House employing offices. To prevent duplicative efforts and save money, the CAO 

developed and is deploying a statement of work to identify a contractor capable of 

compiling data necessary to satisfy the requirements of both mandates. 

Cybersecurity, Technology Support, and Modernization 

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CAO Submitted Test1mony 

Apnl 2019 

Securing the House network, providing technology support, and constantly seeking 

opportunities to innovate and modernize operations are critical initiatives to the GAO's 

strategic mission to deliver outstanding customer experiences. 

Cybersecurity 

Malicious actors use multiple evolving forms of cyberattacks in attempts to gain access 

to the House network. In just one month, the CAO blocks an estimated 1.6 billion 

unauthorized scans, probes, and connections aimed at the House and an average of 

12.6 million questionable emails to thwart phishing attacks from reaching intended 

targets. In 2018, it deployed nearly 615,000 patches and 3,000 malicious indicators to 

over 16,000 network-connected devices across the country to counter known 

cybersecurity threats. 

The House is undoubtedly a target of private and state-sponsored criminal cyber activity 

and maintaining a strong cyber defense program is a paramount responsibility for the 

CAO. 

In 2018, the CAO maintained a strong cybersecurity posture through system 

compliance monitoring, enhanced Dark Web threat intelligence monitoring capabilities, 

and improved mobile platform security for smartphones and tablets connected to the 

House network. The Office of Cybersecurity also continues to share threat intelligence 

with other Legislative Branch agencies, Executive Branch agencies, and our 

international allies. 

To improve cybersecurity awareness and maintain vigilance among all House network 

users, the CAO continues to conduct its annual systern penetration testing and a 

quarterly phishing campaign in addition to the required annual cybersecurity awareness 

training. 

In August 2018, the CAO deployed a new cloud firewall to better protect and secure 

House websites hosted at our cloud service provider. The new firewall provides an 

additional layer of security between cybercriminals and House websites hosted in the 

cloud. The CAO is also deploying enhanced cloud security capabilities that will identify 

unauthorized or rogue cloud services connected to the House network and assist the 

CAO in its review of cloud services for use by the House community. 

To enhance secure access to House data via smartphones and tablets, HIR deployed a 

new identity management service software. The software uses multifactor 

authentication and allows users to access their files through mobile single sign-on 

security features with biometric sign-on capabilities. The new software was successfully 

rolled out to CAO employees and select users in November 2018 and provides them 

remote mobile access to their files from Box and One Drive cloud storage applications. 

House-wide deployment of the new rnobile access software is slated for mid2019. Once fully deployed to network-connected mobile devices, the software and its 

multifactor authentication capabilities will be deployed to network-connected desktops, 

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which will ultimately eliminate the requirement for entering passwords during network 

login. 

With the continued support of this Committee, the GAO will continue to enhance its 

cyber defense capabilities to match evolving threats. 

Controls Over Privileged Access to the House Network & House Information 

Security Policies 

Enhanced cyber defense technologies are vital to safeguarding the House network. 

However, these efforts must be reinforced by strong controls over access to the network 

and House Information Security Policies. 

To strengthen controls over network access, the Committee directed the GAO to 

develop standards intended to protect the financial and IT integrity of the House. The 

standards -developed in late 2018 and implemented in January 2019- include new 

controls over privileged access to the House network as well as access controls over 

House financial systems. They also limit the number of individuals with privileged 

access to the House network, require individuals to undergo background checks prior to 

being granted privileged access, and centralize the authorization processes within the 

GAO. 

To date, the GAO has initiated the new vetting and access processes with 90 percent of 

House shared administrative employees and is working with the remaining shared 

employees to fully implement the standards. Considering that these procedures are 

new, the GAO has and will continue to work closely with all impacted employees and 

the Committee to facilitate a smooth transition. The GAO is also actively monitoring the 

effectiveness of the new standards and their operational impact on shared employees 

and their employing offices and will present the Committee with suggested modifications 

to the standards later this year. 

To reinforce these new standards and other vital information security protocols, HIR 

regularly reviews and seeks Committee approval to revise the House Information 

Security Policies. 

Migration of House-wide Applications to the Cloud 

One of the largest HIR modernization efforts underway is the migration to cloudbased applications. House-wide cloud applications increase operational efficiency 

and workflow through expanded self-service IT solutions and improved service 

delivery speeds. Their House-wide deployment also saves offices money. With 

those benefits in mind, the GAO is constantly working to vet and deploy cloud 

applications to the House. 

For example, the GAO is in the process of upgrading all House offices from 

Microsoft's Office and email applications to the latest cloud-enabled Microsoft Office 

365 and Microsoft Outlook cloud-based email. Once fully operational, Members and 

staff will be able to securely access their documents and email from anywhere 

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April 2019 

using a House-issued device. They will also be able to collaborate with their 

colleagues in real-time and have five times as much storage space for emails and 

documents. The upgrade to Microsoft's cloud applications is expected to be 

completed in 2019. The standardization to a single licensed cloud version of 

Microsoft Office will also enhance network security and supportability while yielding 

cost savings for the House. 

In addition to the migration to Microsoft's cloud applications, the CAO continues to 

review and approve other cloud applications for use by House offices. There are 

currently multiple popular cloud services approved and in use by the House 

community, including Box, Dropbox, Linkedln Learning, SurveyMonkey, and 

EventBrite. The CAO is also implementing a cloud-based learning management 

system that will improve the registration experience for employee training and 

enhance the House's tracking capabilities. 

The House Web Services team, which has developed two-thirds of House.gov websites, 

is migrating the House's public facing websites to the cloud to ensure resiliency and to 

provide a seamless development environment. Cloud hosting also provides greater 

access to the latest hardware, timely security patching and updating of software, and 

around-the-clock monitoring of the sites and infrastructure allowing House Web 

Services staff to focus more on customer-oriented development needs instead of 

routine maintenance and backend processes. Additionally, the cloud provides robust 

resiliency across multiple data centers- ensuring the websites are always available. 

To date, House Web Services has migrated and is currently hosting all new freshman 

Member websites, House.gov, and a number of other websites on the cloud. Its goal is 

to have all GAO-hosted sites migrated to the cloud by July 2019. 

Technology Recapitalization 

As the House continues to increase its reliance on cloud applications, which optimize 

services, it must reduce its reliance on legacy technologies through recapitalization. 

Specifically, the House must look to offset IT hardware, software, and maintenance 

contracts at existing data centers. Though there will be a need to operate House data 

centers for the foreseeable future, the CAO can certainly cut back on the House's use of 

them and the associated costs, which are significant. With the uptick in cloud services, 

the CAO is actively working on a recapitalization plan for the House to scale down 

resources at existing data centers as appropriate. 

Internet Bandwidth & Data Upgrades for D.C. & District Offices 

Increased reliance on cloud-based applications and the internet in general also requires 

the CAO to make increasing bandwidth and improving data connections a priorityespecially for district offices. In August 2018, the CAO upgraded its internet circuits from 

two gigabits to three gigabits at each of its internet border routers. The upgrade of the 

circuits increased House internet bandwidth by 50 percent for D.C. and district offices. 

Since the beginning of the 1151

h Congress, the CAO has been actively engaged to 

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equip a lithe freshman district offices with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoiP) phone 

service. VoiP connections yield higher-quality data and voice connections, greater 

functionality, and cost savings. To date, 270 district offices are now either on the 

VoiP platform or are in the process of migrating over to the platform. During the 

1161h Congressional Transition, the CAO continued its effort to connect all freshman 

offices to broadband and VoiP platforms and is now focused on expanding VoiP to 

the remaining district offices. 

During the 1151

h Congress, all 441 district office data connections were migrated to 

broadband technology. This new service allowed for faster interaction with the CAO 

services located on the D.C. campus, faster downloads of larger files, and improved 

video teleconferencing. On average, district offices experience increased speeds up to 

five times faster on downloads and two to three times faster on uploads. The migration 

to broadband not only enhanced the performance for district office staff, but garnered 

annual savings of more than $2 million. 

With the $2 million in savings realized from the district office upgrades, the CAO 

invested in network and security infrastructure at a West Coast data center that will 

provide all West Coast district offices with the ability to access the internet 

locally. Under the current architecture, all West Coast district office data connections 

must travel across the U.S. in secure encrypted tunnels to D.C. to access the internet. 

Expected to be completed by the end of this month, the new architecture will deliver 

enhanced connectivity for all district offices located on the West Coast. Pacific offices, 

including those in Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American 

Samoa, are already on this new architecture and are experiencing increased speeds. 

Identity and Access Management 

Identity and Access Management (lAM) is a critical, multiyear program to improve 

controls over employees, contractors, detailees, fellows, and any other individual who 

may have access to House systems. lAM relates to how offices receive, update, and/or 

exchange identity-related information and use it to manage access to various House 

resources such as the House network, financial systems, and privileged accounts. 

Improving and streamlining the House's lAM is critical to enhancing cybersecurity, 

securing personal information, and improving the efficiency of House business 

processes. To streamline the House's current lAM processes, the CAO created a 

dedicated Identity Governance and Administration organization in January 2018. 

In May 2018, Identity Governance and Administration developed and deployed a new 

identity hub that integrates with My Paylinks and, as it continues to mature, will 

integrate with other House applications and identity sources starting with the House 

Sergeant at Arms' badging system. The goal is to create one system whereby the 

on boarding process for new hires includes adding information into the identity hub 

that triggers workflows to other CAO departments and House offices responsible for 

various aspects of the onboarding process such as badging and network account 

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creation. 

Once complete, the lAM system will provide the House with a consistent, secure, and 

reliable House-wide program for identity management and will improve the technology 

related to the authentication, authorization, management. and oversight of identity 

and user access to House systems. 

Simplified Online Access to House Systems & Services 

To simplify and streamline access to the House's financial systems regularly used by 

Member, Leadership, and Committee offices to manage their respective office budgets, 

the GAO launched the new Financial Systems Portal in 2018. In addition to streamlining 

access to financial systems, the portal provides a quick overview of each office's 

finances and an enhanced user experience similar to modern online banking systems. 

Additionally, to help offices quickly obtain the services they need, the GAO has 

continued to expand its online self-service tool- MyServiceRequests- that now 

includes 127 services. Since its creation, the self-service tool has grown in popularity 

with the number of monthly requests increasing from 350 in 2014 to 2,368 by the end of 

2018. 

Other Major Ongoing Initiatives 

In addition to the above-mentioned customer service and innovation initiatives that align 

with the GAO Strategic Plan, the GAO is responsible, either in part or in whole, for 

executing other major ongoing House initiatives. However, as mentioned, all GAO 

employees and services have been impacted by the implementation of the Strategic 

Plan, including the initiatives outlined below. 

Transition 

Every two years, the GAO partners with the Committee on House Administration, the 

Clerk of the House, the House Sergeant at Arms, the Architect of the Capitol, and 

additional House stakeholders to ensure a smooth and successful transition to a new 

Congress. The transition to the 1161

h Congress built on this history of cooperation. From 

office moves, to website development, to on boarding new employees, GAO business 

units played an important role in the transition. 

Representatives from a variety of GAO offices, including the new GAO Customer 

Advocates, participated in briefings to help departing Members wind down their 

operations and close their offices and help newly elected Members get their offices up 

and running. Working together, the GAO's technology and logistics divisions facilitated 

D.C. and district office moves and/or setups for returning and new Members as well as 

Committee and Leadership offices. 

To support the 1161

h Transition, to date, the GAO: 

• Facilitated 278 Member office moves 

• Created 91 new Member websites 

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CAO Submitted Testimony 

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• Coordinated modifications to and/or modified over 30 Committee 

sites and 9 Leadership sites due to leadership changes 

• Completed over 56,000 payroll actions 

• Reviewed and approved approximately 825 district office leases 

Cannon Renewal 

GAO business units continue to support the Cannon Renewal Project now in its second 

phase. To support phase one of the Project, the GAO's Modular Furniture and 

Transition team designed and outfitted 31 Member offices, 2 Committee offices, the 

Clerk's Legislative Resource Center and office spaces, the Office of the Attending 

Physician's Health Unit, the ID office, conference rooms, and other ancillary spaces 

occupied by an estimated 1 ,500 employees. Additionally, the team partnered with the 

Architect of the Capitol to host three "sneak peek" sessions for those with Cannon 

offices to view the furniture layouts and answer questions. HIR also supported the first 

phase by installing the network and telecommunications infrastructure, including the 

installation of414 VoiP phones. 

To support the second phase of the Cannon refurbishment, Modular Furniture staff 

reached out to all affected offices to provide guidance and assistance on the upcoming 

mandatory move processes. HIR is also working with the Architect of the Capitol on 

network and telecommunications infrastructure design. Lessons learned from phase 

one of the Project have yielded improvements to phase two coordination and 

communication between the GAO and Architect of the Capitol. For example, the 

placement of various building fixtures will be relocated to better align with furniture 

plans. 

Financial Services 

The GAO's Finance division continues to implement the actionable recommendations to 

improve accuracy, accountability, consistency, and customer engagement provided by 

an independent firm in September 2017. For instance, it is working on the ongoing 

development of its internal policies and procedures and using in-house knowledge 

management technology for GAO employees to establish and share precedents and 

resolution experiences. The knowledge management initiative will aid in standardizing 

activities using the appropriate process, procedure, and policy documents. In addition, 

organizational insights will be preserved. 

In October 2018, the GAO modernized the House's voucher submission process, 

transitioning to a completely digital submission process so offices can submit vouchers 

from anywhere at any time. Converting to digital submissions also increases voucher 

tracking capabilities and reduces the unnecessary use of staff resources and paper. 

The new digital process, which also allows GAO employees to accept and process 

vouchers from any location, promotes continuity of operations during emergencies or 

inclement weather events. 

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The Office of Finance is also working to implement the use of electronic signatures that 

will allow Members and staff to electronically complete, sign, and securely submit 

required financial forms. This modernization effort will save time and resources. 

At the beginning of the 116th Congress, the GAO completed a successful transition to a 

new House Finance Card Program, which impacted all existing and prospective House 

Travel Card and Purchase Card cardholders and their financial administrators. The 

transition required negotiating a new credit card contract and issuing more 

than 1 ,000 new cards and account numbers. It also presented an opportunity for the 

GAO to improve internal House Finance Card Program policies, card issuance and 

payment processes, and training and certification requirements. For example, under the 

new payment process, all card transactions now load directly into the House's financial 

system so offices can create vouchers with just a few clicks, eliminating both timeintensive data entry and potential human error. 

To increase understanding of the House's financial policies, processes, and its systems 

of record, the Committee on House Administration instructed the GAO to establish a 

House financial services curriculum for designated financial points of contact who are 

authorized to access the House financial systems and submit and/or approve financial 

actions. Working with the new Congressional Staff Academy, the Office of Finance has 

developed a two-part course curriculum to be delivered in person and online that will 

cover House policies pertaining to the use of official resources and mandatory financial 

procedures. It also includes in-depth, interactive systems training. 

Wounded Warrior Fellowship Program 

The House's Wounded Warrior Fellowship Program provides paid, two-year fellowships 

for wounded and/or disabled veterans to work for Congress. In 2018, the Program was 

expanded to accommodate 110 offices seeking participating fellows- more than 

doubling the size of the Program. The expansion is helping the GAO meet the 

increasing demand for fellows, illustrated by the Program's waitlist averaging over 100 

House offices despite the expansion. Fellows are currently placed in 55 House offices, 

and the additional 55 positions are in varying stages of recruitment with 15 fellows 

expected to be onboarded in House offices before the end of May 2019. 

Part of the GAO's expansion efforts included a robust education campaign to generate 

greater awareness of the Program and its benefits among Member offices. As a result, 

in 2019, the Program will realize record levels of office participation and diversity. 

Moreover, fellows will work in offices in more ethnically, culturally, socio-economically, 

and geographically diverse congressional districts. 

Working closely with the GAO's new Congressional Staff Academy, the Program 

continues to improve professional development opportunities for participating fellows to 

develop and strengthen their transferrable skills. For example, in 2018, it launched a 

four-day orientation program for new fellows. Located in Washington, D.C., the 

orientation includes briefings from various Executive Branch agencies, all branches of 

the military, the American Folklife Center, and the Congressional Research Service. 

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This year, the orientation will be expanded to a fifth day, further enhancing the skills of 

new fellows. 

To date, more than 250 fellows have participated in the Program, and more than 50 

alumni of the Program have been permanently hired by House offices. 

Asset Management 

The House has over 60,000 accountable equipment items assigned to over 1 ,500 

separate House office inventories. These inventories are spread across seven buildings 

in Washington, D.C., and over 900 district office locations. Approximately 30 percent of 

the inventory is over seven years old, and some items date back to the 1950s. The CAO 

is responsible for tracking all accountable assets. However, the autonomous nature of 

House office operations and equipment purchasing processes complicates CAO efforts 

to track, transfer, and dispose of House equipment, and deficiencies associated with 

asset management have been highlighted by House auditors dating back to FY13. 

To address the identified deficiencies, the CAO has undertaken several initiatives to 

yield immediate process and accountability improvements and facilitate a phased 

approach to develop and expand its asset management practices to the entire 

House. Immediate improvements include the implementation of a more stringent review 

policy for the disposal of assets, the standardization of asset tagging and tag placement 

to inventoried items, and the deployment of network discovery technology that detects 

approximately 22,000 computer assets on a daily basis. The CAO is also actively 

working to improve House office inventory education and awareness through the 

creation of management guides, customized training, increased hands-on assistance 

through its Customer Advocates, and greater access to real-time office inventory data. 

The FY17 House financial audit acknowledged the corrective actions taken in response 

to the House's previously reported internal control deficiencies and highlighted efforts 

underway to mature inventory policies and procedures, expand inventory processes to 

include capitalized property, and develop a risk-based approach to identifying inventory 

items and reviewing processes. With the continued development and implementation of 

the CAO's asset management objectives, the CAO is confident that the external 

auditors will identify continued improvement in the FY18 audit 

The CAO's long-term asset management goals were established using the results of a 

comprehensive, independent gap analysis completed in April2018. The analysis 

entailed a thorough review of House practices, audit findings, and industry best 

practices. It included recommendations to improve the effectiveness of end-to-end 

inventory processes performed by the CAO and establish clear program goals and tools 

to measure success. Per the recommendations, the CAO began with internal changes 

to its practices and plans to systematically expand the practices to other House offices 

as necessary. The CAO is also exploring House-wide expansion of centralized 

receiving, developing a risk-based approach to defining and tracking assets, and further 

improving access to inventory information and support Implementation of the 

recommendations is underway and slated to last through FY21. 

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Concluding Statement 

Philip G. Kiko 

Chief Administrative Officer 

CAO Submitted Test•mony 

April 2019 

Since I last testified, the GAO has made significant progress with its prioritized 

initiatives, especially the implementation of its customer and innovation-focused 

Strategic Plan. Implementing the plan and its objectives has forced the organization to 

step back and reevaluate the services it provides, examine them through its customers' 

eyes, and determine the best way to deliver them. 

I appreciate the opportunity to present these priorities on behalf of the GAO's dedicated 

employees and express my sincere gratitude for the Committee's support. 

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51 

The CHAIRPERSON. Thank you very much. 

And finally but not least, Mr. Ptasienski. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL T. PTASIENSKI 

Mr. PTASIENSKI. Good morning, Chairperson Lofgren, Ranking 

Member Davis, and Members of the Committee. I am both pleased 

and honored to appear before you today in my capacity as the Inspector General of the House. 

I would like to briefly provide a little bit of background on our 

office and work before talking about priorities for 2019 and beyond. 

Our core mission is to conduct audits of the financial and administrative functions of the House. Since the first Inspector General 

of the House was appointed in 1993, the OIG has worked closely 

with the House officers and those charged with oversight to improve the operations of the House, reduce inefficiencies, minimize 

costs, identify and prevent fraud, and mitigate risk. We provide 

traditional audit services as well as proactive analysis and guidance for improvement through our management advisory services. 

The priorities for my office are largely driven by those of this 

Committee and the House officers. As new initiatives are undertaken, policies are updated, technology and/or process changes are 

made, the risks also change. 

The House will face numerous challenges during the 116th Congress and beyond, some of which we know and others we do not. 

The OIG will continue to do our part to help the House officers and 

this Committee identify and manage risks wherever they exist. We 

are dedicated to making the House secure, safe, and more efficient 

and effective. 

I believe our independent, data-driven audit and advisory work 

is critical to both the officers and this Committee as you work to 

prevent issues that could adversely impact the operations of the 

House and the legislative process. 

At the direction of this Committee and in collaboration with the 

House officers we have revamped the audit planning process. This 

collaborative, transparent process involves discussions of risk, current and planned initiatives, and discussing existing operational 

challenges. We have these conversations with both the officers as 

well as the key staff that handle the day-to-day operations. 

Through our regular meetings with Committee staff, we also discuss the concerns and priorities of those with oversight responsibilities. These planning discussions allow us to gather a much more 

comprehensive view of the House environment and form our risk 

assessment process. I believe this communication has also improved coordination between my office, the House officers, and this 

Committee. 

We have submitted and reviewed our draft 2019 work plan with 

the Committee staff. It is a focused, risk-based audit plan that centers on critical aspects of the House administrative operations, legislative process, and security. I look forward to receiving approval 

on that plan so we can begin work on these important efforts. 

For the foreseeable future, it is apparent that cybersecurity and 

ensuring the resiliency of House systems and infrastructure will 

continue to be an area of focus. Technology is ever-evolving and 


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52 

continues to become much more embedded in all aspects of House 

operations. 

While technology offers great efficiencies and can dramatically 

improve the delivery of information and services, it also expands 

the number of attack vectors for cyber attacks and creates new 

risks, where even a simple outage can disrupt key services. 

In addition, the continued evolution of cloud services and applications offers a potentially limitless number of locations where both 

personal information and House data may reside. 

Being able to quickly deploy and take advantage of new technologies while also ensuring that processes are in place to manage 

information security is both critical and an immense challenge. 

Chairperson Lofgren, I wish to thank you, Ranking Member 

Davis, and Members of the Committee for the opportunity to appear before you today. I want to assure you that will we continue 

to provide our unbiased and independent assessment of risk, provide data-driven analysis, and offer practical recommendations to 

improve the effectiveness and efficiency of House operations. 

At this time, I would be happy to answer any questions you have. 

[The statement of Mr. Ptasienski follows:] 


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Statement of Michael Ptasienski, Inspector General 

Office ofthe Inspector General 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Before the Committee on House Administration 

April 9, 2019 

Chairperson Lofgren, Ranking Member Davis and Members of the Committee, I am 

both pleased and honored to appear before you today in my capacity as the Inspector 

General of the House. I would like to briefly provide a bit of background on our office, 

the role we perform, and highlight a few items before talking about priorities for 2019 and 

beyond. 

The OIG was established in the U.S. House of Representatives (House) by House 

Resolution 423 "House Administrative Reform Resolution of 1992" during the 103'd 

Congress. Its mission is to conduct periodic audits of the financial and administrative 

functions of the House and of joint entities. Since the first Inspector General of the House 

was appointed in November 1993, the OIG has worked closely with the House Officers, 

and those charged with oversight to improve the operations of the House, reduce 

inefficiencies, minimize costs, identify and prevent fraud, and mitigate risk. The OIG 

provides traditional audit services, as well as proactive analysis and guidance for the 

improvement of House operations through our management advisory services. Due to the 

importance of information technology and cyber security, the OIG continues to provide 

robust technology assessment and risk expertise to the House. 

Over the past two years, the Office oflnspector General's (OIG) objective, value-added 

reviews focused on improving the House's financial and asset management, administrative 

processes, workplace safety and security, the security of House data, and the information 

technology infrastructure. During the 115'h Congress, the OIG issued 22 reports, which 

spanned the diverse range of services the OIG offers including financial, performance, and 

information systems auditing services; and management advisory services. 

Financial audits examine the accuracy, effectiveness, and efficiency of House 

financial operations. A major portion of this effort involves our oversight of an external 

certified public accounting firm's annual audit of the House financial statements. For the 

20'h consecutive year, the external auditors expressed an unmodified opinion on the House's 

FY2017 financial statements. An unmodified opinion is the best rating given by auditors. It 

states the House's financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial 

position and results of House operations in conformity with generally accepted accounting 

principles. The external auditor did, however, report a repeat significant deficiency from 

the previous audit report, relating to the controls over property and equipment. 

Additionally, a significant deficiency was also reported relating to controls over financial 

statement presentation and disclosures. 

The Office ofinspector General recommends the selection and oversees the contract 

with the external auditing firm. Every 5 years the House requests proposals from firms and 

recompetes the award of this contract. While changing auditors can initially be more time 
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consuming as new auditors become familiar with the operations of the House, there is a 

benefit to having a "fresh set of eyes" doing this work. For the FY20 18 audit we have 

selected and engaged a new public accounting firm to conduct the external financial 

statement audit. This audit is currently underway, and we anticipate work concluding in the 

coming weeks and having the final report ready for publication this summer. 

The House will face numerous challenges during the 116'h Congress and beyond, some 

of which we know and others we do not. The OIG will continue to do our part to help the 

House Officers and this Committee identify and manage the risks that arise. We are dedicated 

to making the House secure, safe, and more effective and efficient. Our independent, datadriven audit and advisory work is critical to both the Officers and this Committee as you work 

to mitigate significant risks to the House. In doing our work, we also highlight any 

opportunities we identify that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of House 

operations. 

At the direction of this Committee, and in collaboration with the House Officers, the 

OIG has re-vamped the audit planning process. This collaborative, transparent process 

involves discussions of risk, current and planned initiatives, as well as existing operational 

challenges. We have these conversations with both the Officers and the key individuals that 

handle the day-to-day operations. Through our regular meeting with Committee staff, we also 

discuss the concerns and priorities of those with oversight responsibilities. These planning 

discussions allow us to gather a more comprehensive view of the House environment and 

inform our risk assessment process. In totality, this process has helped foster better 

communication and improved coordination with the House Officers and your staff. 

We have submitted and have reviewed our draft 2019 work plan with the Committee 

staff. This is a focused, risk-based audit plan that centers on critical aspects of the House 

financial operations, legislative operations, and the security of life and property. I look 

forward to receiving your approval of that plan, so we can begin work on several important 

efforts. 

For the foreseeable future, it is apparent that cyber security and ensuring the resiliency 

of House systems and infrastructure will continue to be an area of focus for us and for the 

House. Technology is ever evolving and will continue to become mueh more embedded in all 

aspects of the operations of the House. While technology offers great efficiencies and can 

dramatically improve the delivery of information and services, it also expands the number of 

attack vectors for cyber-attacks and creates new risks where simple outages can disrupt key 

services. 

Technology continues to offer great opportunities to reshape how work is accomplished. 

Being able to quickly and securely deploy these tools is a big challenge. The continued 

evolution of cloud services and applications offers a potentially limitless number of locations 

where both personal and House data may reside. Being able to quickly take advantage of new 

technology while also ensuring that processes are in place to assess and manage the risk and 

underlying security of these services is critical. It is also an immense challenge for any 

organization, but the unique nature of IT at the House makes that even more challenging here. 

To successfully perform our work, we all need to make sure we have the processes, tools, and 

structure in place to attract and retain the necessary talent to do this type of work. Staff 

development and acquiring the Human capital with the necessary technology knowledge and 

skills is a challenge; one which we will have to overcome. 

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Chairperson Lofgren, I wish to thank you, Ranking Member Davis, and the Members of 

the Committee for this opportunity to appear before you today. I want to assure you that we 

will continue to provide our unbiased and independent assessment of risk, provide data-driven 

analysis, and offer practical recommendations to help mitigate risk and improve the 

effectiveness and efficiency of House operations. I firmly believe our work is critical in 

helping protect the House from financial loss, and delays and dismption to House financial 

and administrative operations. We look forward to continuing our role of providing valueadded advice and counsel to this Committee and focusing on issues of strategic importance to 

the House. At this time, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

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The CHAIRPERSON. Thank you very much. 

And thanks to all of you, not only for your good work for this institution but for your testimony today. 

Now is the time when members of the Committee may ask questions of the witnesses, and I am going to turn first to the 

gentlelady from California, Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson. 

And thank you for all of you who make the House a better place 

for those who work here and, of course, those who visit here as 

well. 

My question is for Ms. Johnson and Mr. Kiko. I appreciate very 

much your willingness to work with me on an idea that we have 

had in my office to modernize the way that we add cosponsors to 

bills. 

As you all know very well, legislative staff and interns are constantly calling and emailing around for cosponsors and running 

signed cosponsor sheets to the Capitol when, in fact, they certainly 

could be doing other probably more important work. The processing 

of lists of names takes several hours of Clerk staff time as the cosponsor sheets are handwritten and can be easily misread. 

So there is really no good reason for our co-sponsorship process 

to be like this in 2019. It is neither efficient nor secure considering 

that there about 135,000 co-sponsorships every Congress, saving 

time here could certainly free up many hours of legislative and 

Clerk staff hours. 

I propose that we develop a new electronic system that would 

provide offices with a checklist of bills that they can sign on to and 

bill sponsors with a way to collect names and let others know their 

bills are open for cosponsors. An online system could increase efficiency and accountability, as there would be an electronic record of 

authorized staff signing on to bills. 

The creation of such a system would not be difficult but it certainly would require collaboration between the Clerk’s Office and 

the CAO’s Office. I wonder if each one of you, Ms. Johnson and Mr. 

Kiko, if you could tell me how you suggest we proceed and how the 

Committee can best support you as we explore this idea. What do 

you see as the next steps? 

Ms. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I would recommend that we begin talking to the 

Parliamentarian’s Office to make certain that we don’t in any way 

impose on the integrity of the current system, which I don’t see as 

a problem. We have started talking to our legislative computer people, and they are certain they can develop software to make certain 

this process is carried out efficiently. 

I think it is a matter of changing the culture of the Members because they are very accustomed to doing it the old-fashioned, manual way. It would certainly benefit the Clerk’s Office. We spend 

about 5 hours daily each day that we are in session between collecting the cosponsors, calling the offices back to make certain that 

the names are correct, and, even after that, just putting the data 

into the system of all the cosponsors. It is very, very time-consuming. 


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The Clerk’s Office prides itself on reliability and efficiency, and 

so we will look into it and just make certain that nothing is lost 

in the process. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Thank you. 

Mr. Kiko, did you want to comment? 

Mr. KIKO. We would be willing to assist the Clerk on the technology aspects if they need it. 

I know from my own personal—and I guess some of this is about, 

you know, figuring out a way, on your idea, just to validate what 

is currently already happening. Obviously, staff is making calls, 

you know, putting people on. Maybe that would be really critical, 

to make sure the validation process up front is correct. 

And so that is how I see it. I have worked on a personal staff 

before and I can attest to how difficult the process is and how it 

is time-consuming. We would be willing to assist the Clerk in any 

way we could. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Thank you very much. I appreciate 

that. 

Madam Chairperson, I certainly know how much time it takes in 

our offices. I had no idea how much time it took in the Clerk’s Office. 

The CHAIRPERSON. Thank you very much, Mrs. Davis. 

I turn now to the other Davis on the Committee, the Ranking 

Member, Mr. Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Thank you, Madam Chairperson. 

And hello, Mr. Kiko. How are you today? 

Mr. KIKO. I don’t know. I will tell you at the end of this hearing. 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. I see you brought your entourage back too. 

Mr. Clocker is having flashbacks to his time spent here. 

Phil, what do you see as the biggest technology challenges that 

Member offices face right now? 

Mr. KIKO. I think with regards to technology, it has to do with 

the interface sometimes with the Finance Office on how we interface on voucher processing. I think it has to do with an interface 

also just with regards to the computer requirements that we have, 

with regards to the IT requirements that we have. 

I think that the challenge is basically because there is a tension 

between security with regards to our whole technology system that 

we have, and then we have these many devices that Members have 

and it is not a very centralized function. And I think there is frustration sometimes on the interaction on IT things with regards to 

the CAO’s Office. 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Okay. 

Mr. KIKO. Does that make sense? 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Yes. I wanted to get your opinion on that. 

You certainly had to listen to mine sometimes and we did last 

week. We had a great conversation on the technological backbone 

of HIR and how do we create more competition within our CMS 

systems to be able to help get Member offices the most up-to-date 

technology to be able to communicate with our constituents. I look 

forward to working with you and your team on those issues. 

Mr. Kiko, it is my understanding that last year the CAO’s Finance Office was reviewed by an outside consulting firm. What 

were the recommendations from that study and when will they be 


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implemented? And, most importantly, how are they going to help 

Member offices? 

Mr. KIKO. Well, I think the recommendations—there were about 

30 recommendations that had to do with a lack of written processes 

for the CAO operation. And they took a deep dive into everything 

we did. I think that we are to implement the recommendations and 

the processes—there were several, like 200 or 300, process recommendations in addition to other recommendations. 

And we are supposed to have those implemented by the end of 

this year. I do think that it will tell employees in the various operations what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to 

do it, written down rather than just in somebody’s head and ‘‘this 

is the way we have always done it.’’ 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Okay. 

And I mentioned the Member offices. You and I and your team 

have gone through an office of finance review process. We updated 

some of the categories a few years ago. Thank you for your work. 

Obviously, you know my viewpoint is, I view the CAO and the 

Office of Finance as somewhat of an insulation point for Members. 

I want to make sure you know that this Committee, all of us on 

this Committee are hoping to work with you to make sure that 

Members don’t ask for things that get Members in trouble. We 

want to make sure that you have the tools that you need. 

And that is why I am most concerned—and we can talk later. I 

want to know how these changes are going to help Member offices 

too—— 

Mr. KIKO. Right. 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois [continuing]. Not just help the Finance Office. Because we want to make sure—it is not just about voucher 

times, processing times. It is, what the end result? How are your 

processes going to make it easier for Member offices to work in conjunction with the Office of Finance? 

Any comment there? 

Mr. KIKO. No, I mean, I am trying, especially on the voucher 

processing, on making the processing time shorter. 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. I understand that, but that shouldn’t be our 

only focus. The voucher processing time is not the only focus. 

Mr. KIKO. Right. 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. That is, you know—— 

Mr. KIKO. Well, I think, overall, we are going to have more integrity in the system, and we are going to be able to rely on the system. 

But with regards to, you know, the finance audit, we have been 

doing okay with regards to the auditors. But we need to do better, 

I agree, with regards to how we interface with Member offices and 

make things better and faster and less bureaucratic. 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Thank you. 

Mr. Irving, thanks for your badge implementation. I don’t have 

enough time, so I have to skip you. 

Ms. Johnson, quick question. What steps is OHEC taking to 

proactively reach out and educate Members about best practices in 

workplace rights? 


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Ms. JOHNSON. We have a series of trainings. We are working in 

conjunction with the CAO’s Office in training chiefs of staff, and we 

also offer trainings to Members on workplace rights. 

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Okay. Thank you. 

The CHAIRPERSON. Thank you very much. 

I would like to recognize the gentleman from North Carolina for 

his questions. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson. 

And let me say good morning to all of you and thanks very much 

for your testimony today. 

In my prior life, I was a judge for some 15 years, and I would 

show up in superior court every Monday morning and have a courtroom full of people and full of defendants and full of lawyers, but 

I could not do my work without the court personnel. I was useless 

as a judge. As Members of Congress, we are—I am not going to say 

‘‘useless,’’ but we are marginalized unless we can have the support 

of men and women like yourselves. 

I want to thank you very much for the incredible work that you 

do on behalf of all of us. And not just you. You are at the top of 

the chain, but you have many, many people who work with you and 

for you who give of themselves every day. I just want to ask you 

to extend to them our appreciation for all the work that they do. 

This is serious work that we do here in Washington. We all know 

that. The Sergeant at Arms, I have really developed an appreciation for the incredible role that your office plays in the life of Members of Congress. I am not sure that the newer Members of Congress really understand and appreciate the depth of the work of the 

Sergeant at Arms, and, hopefully, as the years go on, they will develop an appreciation for it, as I have done. 

I am always looking for ways to increase Member security without being ridiculous, and there is a fine balance between that. You 

know, whenever Members have an emergency in their lives—and 

we have known some over the last few years—we become very attuned to the risks that we face, but as time goes on, that kind of 

wanes and we kind of relax. 

Many of us are from rural communities. I have 14 counties in my 

district. Some are urban; some are rural. I find myself, from time 

to time, on back roads late at night all alone, sometimes with staff, 

sometimes without staff. Sometimes the cell phone works, and 

sometimes it doesn’t work. 

I guess what I need to ask you, is there technology in place 

where you can locate a Member if there is an emergency? I know 

the technology exists. I mean, right on our phones, we can enable 

our devices to allow designated people to know where we are. And 

if we were to call you in an emergency, would you be able to—I 

know the police can do it as well. Can you identify where we are? 

Mr. IRVING. Congressman, it is a great question. The technology 

does exist. We do have a system in place. It is a matter of us working closely with the individual Member so the Member is okay with 

us tracking their movements. That is the key. Is the Member authorizing us to—— 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Do Members know that? Do Members know 

that that capacity exists, that that technology exists? Because I 


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would be delighted for the Sergeant at Arms and the Capitol Police 

to be able to know my location in case of an emergency. 

Mr. IRVING. It certainly is an ongoing education to the Members. 

I will say that Members all have cell phones, or most have cell 

phones, and with those cell phones we can track. We do have everyone’s contact information so we do have the ability to certainly 

track them. Again, it is just a matter of ensuring that they are 

okay with that service. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Sure. But please—and I know you are going 

to do this, but please continue to remind Members of the incredible 

security risk that all of us face every day. 

I think we heard from one of the other gentlemen about the 

hackers, the thousands and thousands of attempts being made 

every hour, I suspect, of people trying to infiltrate the workings of 

the House. 

To Mr. Kiko, I didn’t realize the severity of the bad actors—and 

I guess they are not just domestic; they are international as well— 

who are constantly trying to hack into our systems. Would you repeat that data again? I was caught by surprise. I knew it was a 

serious problem, but I didn’t know the magnitude of the problem. 

Mr. KIKO. Well, in just 1 month—I will read my statement—— 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Yes. 

Mr. KIKO [continuing]. The CAO blocks an estimated 1.6 billion 

unauthorized—— 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Are you saying ‘‘billion,’’ ‘‘B’’? 

Mr. KIKO. Yes. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Billion? 

Mr. KIKO [continuing]. Probes, scans, and connections and 300 

million to 500 million cyber-attacks each month. 

Now, you know, on the first—— 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Is the trend line increasing, or is it flat? 

Mr. KIKO. It is increasing. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. It is increasing by the year. 

Mr. KIKO. It is increasing. It is getting more intense and the actors are getting more sophisticated. The trick is for the CAO to 

stay ahead. We try to stay ahead of the curve. We have a lot of 

ways to try to block things from coming in. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. I would suspect your office interfaces with the 

CIA and the FBI and the—— 

Mr. KIKO. Yes, we interface with all the law enforcement agencies, correct. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Even at the State level. 

Mr. KIKO. At the State level if we need to, yes. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Okay. 

In your testimony to the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, you mentioned $2 million in savings was realized from 

district office upgrades. Is that accurate? 

Mr. KIKO. Yes. And it has to do with the technology for VoIP, you 

know, and replacing it—you know, not replacing VoIP, but having 

a better, cheaper system in district offices than what they have. We 

have been working our way through that with new Members. So, 

overall, it has been a cheaper system. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Again, thank all of you for your incredible 

work. 


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I yield back. 

The CHAIRPERSON. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Georgia is recognized. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Thank you, Madam Chairperson. 

I appreciate all of you, what you are doing, and the time you are 

spending with us today. 

Security, Mr. Irving, has been a key issue for your office especially over the past few years. We have had even some classified 

briefings on the increased security threats. Many of us have lived 

through some of those, like you and I. I like you, but I never wanted to spend this much time with you on an official basis. 

But a couple of questions. I remember not long after the baseball 

shooting that Mr. Davis and I were out there on the field with, the 

policy was changed, apparently, where if there was a significant 

number of Members together that we were going to get security. 

Are we still doing that? 

Mr. IRVING. Yes. Absolutely. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Is there a magic number or formula that we 

use for that or—— 

Mr. IRVING. No. We ask Members to let us know when they are 

off campus—— 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Okay. 

Mr. IRVING [continuing]. And let us make the determination. 

Frankly, I would rather know when Members are off campus and 

make that decision. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Okay. All right. 

You also mentioned that you are enhancing local security back 

in the districts for different events and coordinating with law enforcement, and you mentioned even having Capitol Police potentially come. What is the trigger mechanism to determine when you 

are going to bring a Capitol Police Officer in the district? 

Mr. IRVING. A host of factors. We first will solicit local law enforcement support. They are the ones who can respond the quickest 

and have the most assets in the district. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Right. 

Mr. IRVING. If we feel comfortable with local law enforcement 

support, we will leave it at that. 

If for some reason local law enforcement cannot support the 

Member event, then I will authorize the Capitol Police to deploy to 

the district, again, depending on the event and whether I see the 

risk is such that we need to send additional law enforcement. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Okay. 

The other question is regarding the implementation of the enhanced screening in the parking lot that is going to be done this 

year—or in the parking areas. 

What changes would we see, operationally, for us? I mean, would 

that put us in a situation where access to the Capitol is more like 

it is in Senate? Or will we have fewer areas of ingress into the 

building from the parking areas? If you could just kind of touch on 

what changes we would see after this is implemented. 

Mr. IRVING. Yeah, the real positive change I see is that the 

screening on the House side will be similar, almost identical, to 

what we see on the Senate side, which is no magnetometer screening from the Capitol to the Senate office buildings. 


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Mr. LOUDERMILK. Okay. 

Mr. IRVING. I foresee a day where there is no magnetometer 

screening and much more free flow of staff. Members, obviously, 

bypass the magnetometers, but much more of the free flow of staff 

that are many times with a Member from the House office buildings to the Capitol. 

Now, on the House office building side, there would be some 

business process change. As staff enter the garages, we will ask 

them to be screened at that point, similar to them screening from 

the street. Now, all pedestrians coming into the House office buildings will be screened, and that will, again, alleviate the concern of 

additional screening into the Capitol. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. The staff-led tours would not have to go 

through the magnetometer in the Cannon tunnel per se once it 

is—— 

Mr. IRVING. Technically correct. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Okay. Thank you. I think that will be a great 

enhancement. 

Mr. Kiko, you and I have discussed this in the past, and I just 

want to ask—and Mr. Irving can weigh in, too, if it is an area of 

concern there. Mine is dealing with the district offices and cyber— 

not district offices but Members’ home offices and cybersecurity. 

I see, coming from the IT background, that one area of weakness 

is just someone at home goes to Walmart or any other business and 

buys an off-the-shelf router that the password is ‘‘password,’’ they 

put it on with their cable system, and all of a sudden now somebody driving down the road can get into their local network. 

Is that something that is being addressed? Is there something to 

look at best practices or some training of how to best secure your 

homes? 

Mr. KIKO. Well, I would say that all the practices that we ask 

Members to do here on campus are applicable to what you do at 

home. You know, whether it is changing passwords, you know, we 

will sit down and talk to you about how to best do that. We have 

done that with other Members. 

We are going to have some kind of a fair coming up, I think, in 

a couple of weeks—and I will send that out—where it is basically 

a bunch of people in the cyber world meeting with Member offices 

on this particular issue. It is Members, you know, their offices, and 

these kind of things. 

It is basically the same practices that we try to do here, but it 

is more difficult with regards to what you do at home. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Madam Chair—— 

Mr. KIKO. Does that make sense? 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Yeah, it does. 

I saw the Inspector General was nodding his head. I didn’t know 

if you had maybe some comments on that as well. 

Mr. PTASIENSKI. I would agree. The practices that are in place 

here at the House would be wholly applicable to Members working 

from home or from their offices. Some of the toolsets that the—if 

they are using VPN technology to get in, there is some degree of 

security that goes in there. 

But, also, on the back end, those threats that the Chief Administrative Officer blocks all the time, they come from a variety of 


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sources. And now we have many more endpoints than we used to 

and IP-enabled devices. So my advice to Members would be: Be 

cautious anywhere you are, if you are in a hotel, if you are at home 

working. There really aren’t safe locations to do your work. 

Mr. LOUDERMILK. Thank you. 

Mr. KIKO. I just want to say one thing. One of the biggest areas 

that we have where computers are ruined is people opening up 

phishing emails. And that would be one thing at home, which is 

hard to do because you get so much, but that would be the first 

one. If you don’t know who is sending it, don’t open it up. 

The CHAIRPERSON. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Maryland. 

Mr. RASKIN. Thank you, Madam Chairperson. 

Mr. Kiko, let me start with you. It was a pleasure visiting with 

you the other day. 

I want to follow up on Mr. Butterfield’s question about the numbers of cyber intrusions and attacks we are fending off every day. 

I was also staggered by those numbers. I just couldn’t believe we 

are dealing with hundreds of millions or billions of attempts a year. 

My question is, are we just playing defense on that? In other 

words, are we just trying to screen them out? Or do we actually 

go after the people who are doing it and attempt to prosecute cases 

and figure out where it is coming from? 

Mr. KIKO. Well, we are in constant communication with law enforcement agencies on this matter. As was indicated earlier, a lot 

of these are from nation-states, and so that presents a different 

scenario and different complications. 

But some of it is just, you know, when they do the probes and 

they do the scans, and then they will see where some 

vulnerabilities are. Then they will try to do the probe, and then 

they will try to get in so this is sort of a constant kind of thing. 

We do work with law enforcement where we can, but a lot of it 

is just, you know—— 

Mr. RASKIN. Yeah. 

Mr. KIKO. It is so hard. A lot of it starts in the dark web, and, 

you know, it is just hard. 

Mr. RASKIN. You have described in your testimony the CAO’s efforts to expand access to cloud services, like Microsoft Office 365, 

which would allow Members to access email and Word documents, 

Excel spreadsheets, other Members, and so on, all by using a 

House-issued device. 

And we obviously use a lot of PDF documents here in the House. 

That is the standard file format for final legislative text, for constituent casework. Is there a CAO effort underway to examine the 

feasibility of House-wide access to cloud services that will support 

PDF documents? 

Mr. KIKO. I would have to check on that. Hold on. 

The answer is yes. 

Mr. RASKIN. Good. Okay. Because I think that would—— 

Mr. KIKO. We will follow up with you on that. 

Mr. RASKIN. It would make our lives a lot easier. Thank you very 

much. 


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Ms. Johnson, let me come to you. Do you have the resources and 

personnel in place to achieve all the goals of your office that you 

have developed? 

Ms. JOHNSON. At this time, I do. I certainly have the resources 

in place. 

My concern is that this area is just such a competitive technological area, and I concern myself with our salaries being able to 

keep up with IT salaries in the area and particularly with the oncoming of Amazon in the area. About a fourth of the Clerk’s Office 

work staff is IT. I am just concerned about the competitive salaries. 

Mr. RASKIN. I got you. Okay. Well, that is something that we will 

keep our eye on, too, then. 

And is it true that you are a resident of Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District? 

Ms. JOHNSON. You are my Congressman. 

Mr. RASKIN. Well, that is wonderful. Well, a special welcome to 

you. 

I have just a final question for Mr. Irving—a couple questions. 

One, what is the significance of prescreening Members, staff, and 

visitors to the Capitol complex, Mr. Irving? 

Mr. IRVING. We employ the concept of prescreening to attempt to 

encounter a problem as far outside an office building as possible. 

We don’t want the security issue to be inside. And if our prescreeners can identify a problem and hopefully neutralize a problem outside, we feel it puts us at a far advantage versus, again, inside an existing secure perimeter. 

Mr. RASKIN. I got you. You have procedures in place for that prescreening process? 

Mr. IRVING. Yes. And we do this because the campus is so open. 

We really attempt to balance the openness of the campus with security. And one way to put the advantage on our side, with such 

an open campus, is to push out our security to be able to identify 

things before they get to us. 

Mr. RASKIN. Okay. 

And, finally, Mr. Irving, I think I raised this with you when you 

were kind enough to drop by my office. Those of us who are on the 

House Administration Committee have two sets of constituents. 

One is our constituents back home, and then, by virtue of being on 

the House Administration Committee, our colleagues become constituents, in a way. 

And I wanted to ask your help with a recurring constituent complaint I have gotten from some of my colleagues. And this is just 

about the hours of the House garages, specifically the Cannon garage, where I have heard a number of Members say they could be 

waiting 15 or 20 minutes before they leave because they have to 

go radio and ask someone else to come over. 

I am just wondering whether we could work on extending the 

hours of the House garages for Members who work late. I mean, 

it seems to me like midnight would be a reasonable time to go. A 

lot of Members, you know, will be here for, you know, dinner meetings and events and late-night caucuses and so on. And I just wonder whether that is something we might be able to explore. 

Mr. KIKO. Absolutely. We will certainly look into it. 


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We end up really balancing the number of Members utilizing 

those doors with the cost for the Capitol Police to staff them. But 

having said that, we want to make sure that every Member has access to the garage when they need it. 

I commit to working with you on that, and I promise I will follow 

up. 

Mr. RASKIN. Thank you very much. 

I yield back, Madam Chairperson. 

The CHAIRPERSON. The gentlelady from Ohio is recognized. 

Ms. FUDGE. Good morning. Thank you all so much for being here. 

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. 

As I have read and listened to your testimony, I really do see 

some commonality of purpose between your various offices, especially as it relates to systems. You are concerned about your security of the system and the efficiency of the system. 

Do you all ever talk to each other about your systems? Because 

maybe they could work together better. 

Mr. KIKO. We have frequent meetings all the time—— 

Ms. FUDGE. That is great. 

Mr. KIKO [continuing]. Among the officers and frequent meetings 

with the IG. 

Ms. FUDGE. The four of you get together on a regular basis? 

Mr. PTASIENSKI. We do talk. 

Ms. FUDGE. That is great to hear. 

Just for each of you, what are the top two things that you would 

like to make sure you accomplish by the end of this Congress? And 

what do you see as the priority and vision for your offices for the 

next 5 years? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I will go first. 

I would say one of the top priorities is just to continue to recruit 

the best and the brightest staff from a very diverse pool of highly 

qualified applicants. We are working—whenever we have an opening, we are certainly consulting with the new House Inclusion and 

Diversity officer as well as working with minority-serving institutions and HBCUs. Number one is just, again, to have the best talent available and to recruit and retain that talent. 

And, again, secondly, I would say just being able to be competitive with salaries. I am just afraid people are not going to stay unless they are paid a good wage for this area. 

Thank you. 

Mr. IRVING. I would say my two biggest priorities in the short 

term for this year would be the garage security project, to ensure 

that our House office buildings are within the secure perimeter, 

and the second would be to finish our Joint Audible Warning System to ensure that we have true redundant communications in the 

case of an emergency and we need to evacuate the premises or tell 

Members to go some other place other than their office. 

In the next 5 years, I would focus on the districts and try to be 

more consistent with our protocols in the districts. As Mr. 

Butterfield indicated, I would like to ensure better coordination 

with all the Members with regard to the tools that we have at our 

disposal to keep them safe and ensure that Members take advantage of all of those tools. 


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Ms. FUDGE. Would that include continuing to put resources in 

our MRA for security in our district offices? 

Mr. IRVING. That would be one, but I don’t want to over-speak 

on that, but—— 

Ms. FUDGE. Right. 

Mr. IRVING [continuing]. Yes. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you. 

Mr. KIKO. I would say that my biggest priority is to—we started 

a strategic plan a year ago, and it is about customer, process, stewardship, and employee. And if it is successful, it will basically 

transform how delivery of services are made to Members. It will be 

faster; it will be better. 

And so that is sort of what my focus is, as far as in the next 2 

years and beyond. I don’t want to just deal with what is in front 

of me. I want to have the CAO’s office, let’s say, at the end of this 

Congress, to where it should be for the next 10 years, you know? 

And the other one is a focus on professional and engaged CAO 

employees. Development of employees, training employees, upward 

mobility of employees—it has to do with that. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you. 

Mr. PTASIENSKI. Congresswoman, from my perspective, near 

term, some of the things that we are looking at or planning to look 

at have to do with technology resiliency and disaster recovery. It 

is an area that, with the amount of change and new technologies 

being brought into play, making sure that we are helping validate 

that the House is as resilient as it needs to be in case something 

bad were to happen, be it natural, unintentional, or deliberate or 

outside. 

I think, longer term, I share some of the same concerns as the 

House officers, and that is making sure that the House—that we 

can get the talent that we need for our positions. As the Clerk 

noted, you know, with Amazon moving across the river, again, it 

is an additional entity that we will be competing with for talent, 

and particularly in technology areas. Making sure that we bring in 

the right people and can retain them and train them, I think that 

is a longer-term issue that we are going to have to continue to address but one that is, I think, going to become very, very important. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson. 

The CHAIRPERSON. Thank you very much. 

Just a couple of closeout questions. 

First, thank you all for your testimony and for what you have 

done here today. 

Looking at what the House institutionally has to offer Members 

and what Members understand about that is sometimes disconcerting. For example, HIR technology partners, I think, only has 

about 30 Member offices, if I have been told correctly, and yet it 

is—I have used it, it is a very efficient service and Members are 

spending money needlessly for outside vendors. 

So the question, Mr. Kiko, is, how aggressively are we marketing—I guess, is that the right word?—to Member offices the IT 

service support? Are there cybersecurity benefits to having more 

Member offices supported exclusively by the HIR technology partners? And if so, what are we doing to increase the uptake? 


dlhill on DSKBBY8HB2PROD with HEARING
67 

Mr. KIKO. Well, we do have a marketing team, and we are going 

to be marketing those kind of services. 

I think that, in the past, some of those services have not been 

very well-received. And I am not going to judge that, but, you 

know, once you get off on the wrong foot, sometimes it is basically 

hard to dig yourself out. 

So what we are trying to do is increase, you know, the training, 

increase the people that we hire, increase how they interact with 

Member offices. And we are pitching the service with the customer 

advocates, you know, that we have hired to circulate around the 

Member offices. 

I am sort of hoping the combination of all those will be better, 

because I think, from a security perspective, we would prefer that 

our people be working on the system. 

The CHAIRPERSON. I would love to work with you on that, and 

sometimes Members can market to other Members. But if we are 

going to do that, I think we are going to need to incorporate the 

feedback from Members and then to you for corrections if there are 

things that people are unhappy with. You only get one chance to 

make a first impression. 

Mr. KIKO. That is right. 

The CHAIRPERSON. On the cyber issue, our policy is that critical 

updates have to be installed within 10 days, which I think is actually a pretty long—too long a time, and that noncompliance will result in disconnection from the House network. That is, I think, our 

policy. 

Has that been enforced? And if so, how quickly? And what has 

been the feedback? 

Mr. KIKO. Well, I think that I would have to defer, you know, on 

this, but it is my impression from what I know that we try to enforce those policies, but sometimes it is very difficult to enforce 

policies, especially dealing with a bunch of Member offices, and 

there is a lot of noncompliance. 

And what we are trying to do on some of this stuff is, if we move 

into the cloud, we can automatically—— 

The CHAIRPERSON. You do it yourself. 

Mr. KIKO [continuing]. Do it ourselves. And then that takes that 

off the table. 

The CHAIRPERSON. I am going to follow up on an issue we have 

been working with you on. The National Institute of Standards and 

Technology is the gold standard on technology in the Federal Government. And they apparently have suggested that, instead of 

changing passwords constantly, it would be better to have an extremely long and complicated and secure password that is not necessarily changed a lot. 

And you can go into any office and you will find by the Member’s 

computer the password written down because they can’t remember 

it. I think, you know, human behavior being such, we have been 

looking to move to that. Where are we on that? 

Mr. KIKO. Well, I think recently we have changed, you know, the 

passwords to six characters, and you are only going to have to 

change them once a year. 

And once we implement the multifactor, you know, in the next 

couple of months with regards to mobile devices, and once we move 


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to it, you know, at the end of the year so everybody can access it 

from their mobile devices and their desktop, I think that you could 

have that long password at the beginning when you enter it in but 

then, after that, you are not going to have that. 

The CHAIRPERSON. Very good. 

Mr. KIKO. That would be the way to go. But we can engage you 

further on that. 

The CHAIRPERSON. That would be great. And it is one of the 

things that Members complain about, constantly changing it. And, 

really, because of human behavior, you end up with a less secure 

system because of people, you know, sending emails with ‘‘password’’ as the—— 

Mr. KIKO. Correct. 

The CHAIRPERSON [continuing]. Tagline. 

Mr. Ptasienski, in your answer to one of the questions—I think 

it was, what is your, kind of, work effort for the coming year—you 

talked about the IT strategies. 

When was the last time the inspector general did an IT analysis 

of the House? And do you think that is something that would help 

us improve our IT landscape? 

Mr. PTASIENSKI. We are constantly looking at various aspects of 

IT within all the House officer organizations. With Mr. Kiko and 

his organization, we spend a lot of time with HIR. 

I am not sure if you mean holistically how we handle IT or what 

aspect you may be concerned with, but I am more than open to 

working with you and the staff to—if there are some specific concerns or areas, we can definitely—— 

The CHAIRPERSON. Great. 

Mr. PTASIENSKI [continuing]. Look into those. 

The CHAIRPERSON. I will just close with this. Rather than get the 

answer here today, I am wondering if I could ask you to submit to 

us your progress on diversity in hiring, what your plan is. 

As you know, we are establishing a diversity office here in House 

Administration. But one of the things we want to make sure is 

that, you know, the employees of the House look like America and 

that we have made every effort to make sure that we have an excellent and diverse workforce. 

And if you could, offline, submit what you are currently doing, 

what your plans are in that regard, it would be greatly appreciated. 

And then we will have an opportunity to have a further dialogue. 

And with that, I see I am the only member of the Committee left, 

so I will thank you for being here today and note that we will adjourn. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 11:09 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 


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Questions for the Record 

Committee on House Administration Hearing 

"House Officer Priorities for 2019 and Beyond" 

April 9, 2019 

The Honorable Cheryl L. Johnson, Clerk of the House of Representatives 

Majority Question 1: Is the current organizational structure one you feel confident 

can meet the challenges ahead or are you contemplating any reorganizational 

efforts? 

I am confident in the Office of the Clerk's ability to meet the challenges we face 

and will face with our current organizational structure. I am not contemplating 

any reorganizational efforts. Should that ever change, I certainly would consider 

appropriate reorganizational efforts. 

Majority Question 2: Do you have the resources and personnel in place to achieve 

the goals of your office for this year and the year to come? 

Our requested budget for FY 2020 would enable us to meet our goals. Areas of 

particular budgetary focus are ensuring we continue to have the resources to meet 

this Congress's hearing and oversight needs, fill the new positions described in my 

written testimony, and remain competitive in an increasingly challenging job 

market. 

Majority Question 3: How does the Clerk's Office intend, in the coming years, to 

work toward achieving a more diverse workforce while ensuring that specialized, 

institutional skills are carried forward? 

It is very important to me that the Office of the Clerk's staff be diverse and highly 

skilled. It has been my observation that we currently are both of those things. At 

the same time, it also is very important to me that we continually improve our 

performance against each of those measures. 

As I noted in my written testimony, we will continue to develop our existing staff 

and recruit highly qualified new employees and will reach out to a diverse pool of 

applicants. I will ask my managers, as they think about staff development, 

retention, and recruitment, to continue to do so with both these goals in mind and 

to invite the ideas of their staff on these topics. 
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We also will continue to utilize all available House resources, including working 

with this Committee and your Director of Diversity. !look forward to an ongoing 

dialogue with the Committee on this critical issue. 

Majority Question 4: At the end of your time as Clerk, where would you like the 

Office to be in terms of its functions, and what three things would you like to be 

remembered for? 

1 hope that at the end of my time as Clerk, we will have continued to ensure the 

integrity and modernization of the legislative process and improved public access 

to House Floor and Committee proceedings; supported the work of House 

Committees; and supported our outstanding staff to enable them to continue to 

flourish in their jobs and fully support this institution. 

The three things 1 would like to be remembered for are ( 1) that I recruited and 

retained a diverse and highly skilled workforce in a competitive job market; (2) 

continued and enhanced collaboration and a close working relationship with the 

other House Officers; and (3) promoting technological advancements in support of 

the House's work, particularly modernization of the Legislative Information 

Management System (LJMS). 

Majority Question 5: The STOCK Act mandated the creation of an online 

financial disclosure filing system for filers in the legislative branch. Your office 

created and administers the online system for filers who are Members of or 

candidates for the House, as well as House officers and employees and filers who 

are employed by certain other legislative branch offices. You indicated in your 

written testimony that you continue to "improve both the filing system and public 

access to records on our website," in close collaboration with the Ethics 

Committee. What improvements are you currently pursuing? With the benefit of 

six years administering the online filing system, as well as intervening changes in 

technology, are there any other aspects of the filing system and/or public access to 

the records on your website that need to be updated or changed? 

In the current year, we are in maintenance and support mode and not pursuing 

major enhancements. 

The financial disclosure system has been extremely reliable since its launch in 

2014. Each year we meet with Committee on Ethics representatives to discuss 

areas of improvement and changes to the financial disclosure filing system. Most 

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change requests are executed and made available for the subsequent annual filing 

date. 

Majority Question 6: In your written testimony, you indicated that since the 

online filing system was implemented, the percentage of filings made using the 

online system has increased "from 68 percent of filings in 2013 to 87 percent in 

20 18," which is impressive. Are you aware of any concerns or challenges that 

prevent filers who continue to file on paper from using the online system? If so, 

how do you anticipate addressing those challenges? 

We believe that some filers simply prefer filing paper forms to online forms. in part 

because paper filers can add attachments. However, we believe that the 

percentage of online filers will continue to increase. 

Majority Question 7/8: When has the online system typically been made available 

in advance of the annual May 15 filing deadline? Would additional resources or 

information from other House offices help your office make the system available 

to filers sooner? To the extent that it may be necessary to receive and analyze 

payroll data to assess which employees may be required to file, would it be feasible 

to make the system available earlier to Members and staff whose obligation to file 

is already known while the analysis continues for other potential filers? 

Since its adoption, the online filing system typically has been made available each 

year as of the first or second week of April. 

Regarding the remainder of this question (and your parallel question included in 

Question 9), given the multiple parties involved with the administration of the 

financial disclosure system, it is difficult for us to reliably make recommendations 

at this time that would impact and potentially have to be executed by parties 

outside the Clerk's office. 

However, we share your desire to ensure that the system is available to filers as 

early as possible and is otherwise efficient and would welcome the opportunity to 

work with this Committee, as well as the Committee on Ethics, to identifY 

appropriate options for achieving that goal. 

Majority Question 9: When and how does your office notify new Members and 

staff about the fact that they are, or may be, subject to financial disclosure filing 

obligations? Would additional resources or information from other House offices 

help your office make these notifications sooner? 

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New Members are required to file their annual financial disclosure forms on May 

15 and are notified by email on the same day as all other Members of Congress 

that the filing system is available. New staff who are hired at or above the "senior 

staff" compensation rate must file their financial disclosure within 30 days of 

receiving notice (by email) that they are subject to the filing requirement. 

See also response to previous question. 

Majority Question 10: Do you have sufficient staff and resources to continue 

administering the system as it exists today? Would additional information and/or 

resources from other House offices assist you in administering the online filing 

system and/or public access to reports? If any additional updates or changes to the 

filing system and/or public access were to be considered or implemented, would 

you need any additional resources to undertake them? 

Maintaining sufficient staff and resources has been challenging. Additional staff 

and resources would enable us to reduce the burden of supporting multiple 

disclosure systems and would be necessary to support major improvements or 

changes to the system. 

Majority Question 11: Please update the Committee on the status of your 

presence at the Redstone-Turner datacenter. 

As of April 18, 2019, our backup data center presence at Redstone-Turner was 

fully operational for all Clerk .1ystems. We no longer utilize the Alternate 

Computing Facility as a data center for any Clerk systems. 

Majority Question 12: Please update the Committee on the status of the BioGuide 

and B ioGuide Content Management system. Your predecessor advised the 

Committee that it anticipated completion would be the end of the second quarter of 

2019, is that still the timetable? 

The BioGuide Content Management System (revision 1. 0) will be ready for 

deployment by the end of the second quarter of 2019. However, the public-facing 

BioGuide website launch will be delayed to the end of the third quarter to give us 

additional time to standardize the format of the Member biographical data from 

the old repository. 

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Majority Question 13: The Cannon Basement is an underappreciated space of the 

visitor experience to the Capitol complex. Please discuss your work on the 

Rotunda exhibits and provide the Committee the latest timetable for installation of 

the exhibit. 

The Cannon basement rotunda is a major intersection of work and tours, a hub 

between buildings and the gateway to the Capitol for constituents taking staff-led 

tours. As part of the Cannon Renewal Project, we are installing permanent 

exhibition cases in the space, to provide a point of interest for constituents and 

other visitors to the House. 

The initial exhibition, "How the House Works," will expand on what research 

shows is visitors' single biggest surprise when they visit the Capitol- that this 

historic building is also a working complex. More than 100 historic artifacts (from 

early l91

h century House Chamber desks to early 2 l-'1 century BlackBerries), 

documents, and images will tell visitors stories of how the variety of work in the 

House is done by and for people like them. 

Installation begins May 20 and will be completed by June 7. An exhibit app and 

mobile website will launch at the same time, to support staff who are leading 

constituent tours. 

Majority Question 14: In the Committee's oversight plan for this !16th Congress, 

we note that we will review the printing needs of the Clerk to evaluate the potential 

for eliminating duplication. Have you reviewed the printing requirements of your 

office and do you recommend eliminating any printed publications at this time? 

Due to the unique nature of the items created by the publications team within our 

Documents and Requisitions section, and their role as the primary source of the 

information they contain, we have no duplication with other departments; 

therefore, we would not recommend eliminating any publications that we create 

internally. 

Although we have not eliminated any printing publications completely at this time, 

we have reviewed the number of documents printed by the Government Publishing 

Office (GPO) at our request versus the number of documents we print on-demand 

and have relied increasingly upon our own on-demand printing to fulfill our needs. 

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Questions for the Record 

Committee on House Administration Hearing 

"House Officer Priorities for 2019 and Beyond" 

Apri19, 2019 

The Honorable Cheryl L. Johnson, Clerk of the House of Representatives 

Minority Question 1: What have your initial observations been of the Clerk's 

operation? 

My primary observation is that the more than 200 staff that make up the Office of 

the Clerk have an unwavering commitment to working hard and with great 

professionalism to support the mission and goals of the House as an ongoing 

institution. I am deeply grateful for that commitment, and of course, share it. I will 

do everything I can to ensure that our staff continue to have a positive work 

environment that supports them and their professional needs. 

Minority Question 2: What areas are going to be of focus to you? 

I intend to focus on continuing the diverse ongoing activities of the Office of the 

Clerk as well as various special priorities and points of emphasis that I described 

in my written testimony- always with the highest professionalism. 

These special projects include, among others, the JACK Act, the comparative print 

project, the Consensus Calendar, the BioGuide, LIMS, the Electronic Voting 

System, storage for Congressional records, high-speed printing, and the possibility 

of other lobbying disclosure enhancements. We will also continue to recruit, hire, 

and support a diverse, highly qualified worliforce, and, of course, support the 

Cannon renovation. 

I will also focus on the office's continuing ability to nimbly and successfully 

respond to unforeseen contingencies. 

Minority Question 3: House rules require non-governmental witnesses appearing 

before any committee of the House to disclose recent grants or contracts from the 

Federal or foreign governments. That format often results in witnesses' hand 

writing their information on the disclosure form. Has any progress been made to 

develop and make available to all committees a disclosure document in webform to 

ensure the required information is typed and clearly readable? 

Yes, the Truth in Testimony form is a witness disclosure document completed by 

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witnesses appearing before committees in accordance with Rule XI, clause 2(g) 

(5), of the US. House of Representatives. The form is uploaded to the Committee 

Repository by committee staff on https:l/docs.house.gor, according to standards 

set by this Committee and applicable House rules. 

The creation of a standardized Truth in Testimony form was initiated at the request 

of the House Appropriations Committee as part of the FY 2019 Appropriations 

cycle. The report language can be found in House Report 115-696, accompanying 

the Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill, 2019. 

To comply with the report language and provide a solution at the start of the I 16th 

Congress, the Clerk's office created a standardized fillable PDF form. The 

standardized PDF form was made available to all committees at the start of the 

I 16th Congress (January 2019) on the internal HouseNet website. 

This standardizedfillable PDF form provided to the House committees and 

subcommittees meets the requirements of the House rules and satisfies the request 

in the Legislative Branch subcommittee report with the following guidelines: 

• The form is completed by invited witnesses electronically, rather than by 

hand. 

• The form is available to committee staff on https:/lhousenet.house.gov. 

• Form instructions, iriformation, and training are provided to committee staff 

by Clerk stqffiriformally or ad-hoc. Formal training is available as part of 

the Clerk-sponsored and Clerk staff-led Committee Repository training 

classes held at the Congressional Staff Academy. 

To create the form, Clerk staff received input from this Committee and other 

committee counsels to gather initial requirements and iriformation. Following 

that, all committees were invited to a meeting in fall 2018 to review the draft form 

and provide feedback. After the form was made available in January 2019, 

committees made minor change requests to the form. Clerk staff implemented 

those change requests, and again, made the form along with instructions available 

on HouseNet. 

At this time, committees are not required to use the standardized form, although 

many committees are providing it to their witnesses. The form can be completed 

electronically and provided to committees for posting on https:lldocs.house.gov. 

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Following are links to a sample form and the instructions. 

Form: https://housenet.house .gov lsites/housenet.house. gov/fi les/formsiTTF .pdf 

User Guide: 

https://housenet.house.gov/sites/housenet.house.gov/files/doeuments/TTF-UserGuide.pdf 

Minority Question 4: Your office's staff was largely impacted by Phase 1 of the 

Cannon Renovation project. Now that many of your staff have moved back into the 

Phase 1 space what has their feedback been? 

With all moves associated with the end of Phase 1 of the Cannon Renewal Project 

now complete, the Office of the Clerk has moved approximately 50 staff members 

into newly renovated Cannon office space. These moves began in December of 

last year and the final move was completed in mid-March. While these moves were 

delayed from the original time fi·ame and had to take place during the transition to 

the !16th Congress, which is a ve1y busy time for our offices, staff from the 

Architect of the Capitol and the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) 

worked hard to support us and the challenges we faced during these moves and we 

have been able to get everyone into their new spaces without negatively impacting 

the important work they do to support the House. From the reports I've heard 

from Clerk staff, they enjoy their bright, newly-renovated spaces. 

Minority Question 5: Ms. Johnson, given that the primary mandate of the Clerk's 

office is to support the Legislative Process and the CAO office is to provide 

support services, how effectively does the Clerk's office utilize the specialized 

services provided by the CAO in terms ofiT maintenance, specialized cyber 

security services, and advanced IT planning? 

The Clerk's Office of Legislative Computer Systems (LCS) maintains a close 

working relationship with various divisions under the CAO and utilizes a wide 

range ofCAO IT services and expertise to support our mission. We participate in 

a number ofCAO technology working groups and utilize CAO enterprise license 

software, such as Windows and Office 365, to support the business and IT security 

needs of our organization. 

Because of the critical role that Clerk IT systems play in supporting the legislative 

processes of the House, the availability andfimctionality of these systems against 

all risks is of paramount concern to me. As a result, Clerk LCS staff are directly 

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responsible for the development, maintenance and security of these systems. That 

said, we rely heavily on the CAO IT security staff to ensure a secure House 

network, to provide us guidance on IT security matters, and to conduct audits of 

new Clerk systems and equipment. Whenever possible we utilize CAD-provided 

technology to help protect our public-facing websites. We also work very closely 

with the CAD's Asset Management group to ensure that our Clerk equipment is 

properly handled upon disposal to appropriately protect House information. 

Minority Question 6: Your FY 2020 budget request asking for $3.12 million to 

fund the next phase of the multi-year modernization plan of the House Legislative 

Information Management System. 

a. Can you briefly summarize this project? 

The multi-year modernization project for LIMS seeks to build a flexible system that 

can address every component of a bill's history. The system will be more flexible 

and create cost savings because the outdated code that supports the :,ystem will be 

updated. 

b. How many phases are left and what do they entail? 

We are currently in Phase II using previous no-year funding to cover costs 

associated with this phase. There are three phases remaining (Ill, IV, and V). 

Phase Ill will be comprised of development of the core backend system 

components such as creating a user management module, a messaging platform, a 

workflow engine which is flexible and configuration-based, as well as a user 

interface stylesheet which will be used throughout the application and application 

data modeling. In addition, design and development will begin on individual LIMS 

modules and analyzing data migration requirements, as well as moving legacy 

data to a new platform and performing quality assurance and testing. The 

individual LIMS modules will include: Floor Action Reporting System (FARS), 

Committee Action Reporting System (CARS), Executive Action Reporting System 

(EARS), Reports Due to Congress, and Senate Action Reports (SARS). 

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Phases IV and V will include data modeling, user acceptance testing, running 

parallel systems as well as Alpha and Beta systems testing, and then a full 

production launch. 

c. How will this benefit the House and specifically Member offices? 

LIMS is a critical part of the flow of legislative information. It brings in bill 

information, Floor activity, Member and Committee information, and Executive 

Communications from the House and Senate and distributes that information to 

GPO, the Library of Congress. Members, Committees, House Officers, and the 

public. 

Minority Question 7: The Clerk's office is the owner/maintainer of the US 

Government's sensitive legislative data. Cybersecurity has been a key 

theme/concern oftechnology-based organizations for several years now, with an 

organization's cyber hygiene being a strong indicator of the organization's security 

posture and readiness. 

a. Given that the main mandate of the Clerk's office is to support the Legislative 

Process and the CAO office is to provide support services, how effectively does 

the Clerk's office utilize the specialized services provided by the CAO in terms of 

IT maintenance, specialized cyber security services, and advanced IT planning? 

Please see response to Question 5. 

b. What coordination occurs between the specialized cyber security organizations 

of the CAO and the Clerk's office to ensure that the Clerk's office is adequately 

aware of and protected against internal and external cyber threats? 

In addition to regular IT coordination meetings between senior Clerk, CAO, 

Sergeant-at-Arms and Inspector General staff, LCS staff meet with the CAO 

Information Security team monthly to discuss security-related information and 

issues. We are also members of a systems administration distribution list and get 

updates from CAO Cybersecurity on a regular-basis. 

c. Are Clerk IT systems at recommended patch levels and utilizing best practice 

cyber security standards and frameworks? 

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Yes, we follow all House Information Security Policies guidelines as well as 

National Institute of Standards and Technology and Center for Internet Security 

benchmarks when building and auditing our IT infrastructure. All Clerk servers 

connected to the House network have security software agents installed on them 

that provide the CAO Cybersecurity team with real-time visibility into our 

computer security compliance status. Our systems, computers, and laptops are 

patched regularly for critical security updates (after testing to ensure system 

stability). 

d. Are the Clerk IT systems actively monitored for attempted internal or external 

intrusions and is this monitoring effective against the most advanced threats 

documented in the current cybersecurity threat landscape? 

We utilize best-in-class internal and CAD-provided threat protection systems to 

identifY and block malicious activity on Clerk systems and equipment. We monitor 

our own security systems daily and receive notifications from CA 0 Cybersecurity 

about any activity that their applications detect. 

e. Given the recent disinformation campaigns targeted at election campaigns by 

sophisticated adversaries, what advanced mitigations does the clerk deploy to 

ensure protection and prevent tampering of the Nation's legislative data systems? 

The Office of the Clerk employs a range of physical and technical security 

strategies to protect our legislative systems from threats. Adhering to the House 

cybersecurity policies is our first line of defense. Implementation of real-time 

monitoring tools and intrusion protection systems plays a vital role in enhancing 

our security posture. Also, our stqff has been trained to stay operationally vigilant, 

monitor for any anomalies and provide remediation promptly with each mission 

critical system. Finally, our contingency plans, which we review and exercise on a 

regular basis, are in place to mitigate situations if necessary. 

f. The last several IG audits have highlighted several strategic cybersecurity 

concerns, in addition to the tactical findings requiring mitigation. Does the Clerk 

have a broad cybersecurity strategic plan that is being coordinated with the CAO to 

ensure consistent and uniform cyber protection across both the CAO and Clerk 

organizations? 

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The Clerk IT infrastructure operates under the umbrella of the CAO 's House 

network infrastructure. We adhere to House Information Security Policies which 

are regularly updated and meet cybersecurity best practices. In addition, we 

maintain our own IT security layer and monitoring that provide additional 

protection for the Clerk systems. 

To ji1rther enhance our IT security posture, we have hired a Senior IT Security 

Analyst whose primary task is to oversee IT security related activities within the 

Clerk's Office. This analyst's responsibilities include incorporating security best 

practices during software development lifecycles and performing regular review of 

existing systems for potential vulnerabilities. 

g. What steps is OHEC taking to proactively reach out and educate Members about 

best practices and workplace rights? 

The Office of House Employment Counsel (OHEC) conducts training for Members 

and other management, as well as training for non-management staff Focusing 

specifically on Member and other management training, OHEC offers training on 

a variety of employment law topics, including an Overview of the Congressional 

Accountability Act (CAA), Interview Essentials, the Family and Medical Leave Act, 

Sexual Harassment, and Litigation Landmines. This training is offered through the 

Congressional Staff Academy and upon request. 

In addition, OHEC is currently working with this Committee to provide Members 

with Anti-Harassment/Anti-Discrimination training developed for and delivered 

exclusively to Members as part of the CAA Reform Act and related reform 

measures. 

OHEC also reviews employee handbooks and, in doing so, advises Members and 

other management on specific policies including EEO, Open-Door, and AntiHarassment/Anti-Discrimination policies. This process prompts discussions 

regarding the types of training OHEC offers both for managers and nonmanagers. OHEC routinely conducts all-staff training on a variety of topics in both 

Washington, DC and district offices. 

OHEC proactively reaches out to offices in anticipation of the OSHA safety and 

health and Americans With Disabilities Act accessibility inspections conducted by 

the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR) (formerly the Office of 

Compliance). OHEC sends a "pre-inspection e-mail" to all House employing 

offices to inform the appropriate management staff of the inspection process, and 

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to provide information on the most common safety, health, and accessibility issues. 

This email includes contact information for the Legislative branch entities 

responsible for assisting offices in addressing these issues. 

As management's legal representative OHEC cannot provide advice to employees 

regarding their individual workplace rights. However, as part ofOHEC's preinspection e-mail, it will include a reminder that each office is required to post the 

Notice of Workplace Rights published by OCWR. 

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The Honorable Zoe Lofgren 

Chairperson 

Committee on House Administration 

1308 Longworth House Office Building 

Washington, D.C. 20515 

May 15,2019 

Re: Response to Questions for the Record 

Dear Chairperson Lofgren and Ranking Member Davis: 

The Honorable Rodney Davis 

Ranking Member 

Committee on House Administration 

Longworth House Office Building 

Washington, D.C. 20515 

Enclosed are the Office of the Sergeant at Arms responses to the Committee's Questions for the 

Record. 

Please note that the information contained in the USCP related answers were supplied by the 

Department. 

Please feel free to contact me if either you or your staffs should have any additional questions. 
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Questions for the Record 

Committee on House Administration 

Hearing "House Officer Priorities for 2019 and Beyond" 

The Honorable Paul Irving, House Sergeant at Arms 

Question 1: What has been the most important factor in the District Security Service 

Center development of its District Office outreach program? 

Feedback from district offices has been the primary factor in the development of our outreach 

program. Identifying opportunities where outreach is necessary, appropriate and most 

importantly relevant to district offices has been and will continue to be a primary focus for the 

District Security Service Center (DSSC). Our outreach efforts include on boarding of new Law 

Enforcement Coordinators (LECs), educating district staff on the resources available to them, 

outreach regarding local emergency events and providing useful and timely LEC notices (i.e. 

reminders about requesting law enforcement support for events prior to recess periods). While 

we continue to seek relevant topics to expand our outreach efforts, we are fully aware of the 

daily burden placed on district staff so we seek to provide as much information as possible 

without unnecessary interruption to their other responsibilities. 

Question 2: How many district offices have been impacted by the District Security Service 

Center program? How many new Members of the 116th Congress and Members' District 

Offices availed themselves of security awareness briefings as well as the installation of 

security monitoring systems and Mail Hood devices? 

The DSSC has assisted more than 400 district offices with security upgrades to date. Nearly 

every district office has been impacted when the DSSC security system, mail hood, LEC, 

training and outreach initiatives are all considered. 

Nine freshman Member offices have received Security Awareness Briefings since the start of the 

!16th Congress. More than 50 freshman Members have received a security system assessment 

from our vendor and 28 freshman Members have a mail hood in their district. 

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Question 3: How bas the District Security Service Center outreach been received by 

Members and District Staff? 

The DSSC outreach has been well received by Member offices. We have found that many 

district office staff felt isolated from the support provided on Capitol Hill and the creation of a 

team dedicated to address their security concerns has been welcomed. In particular, we have 

received many notes of appreciation from our proactive outreach efforts which involve us 

contacting district staff when a security related incident occurs near a district office; events such 

as the active shooter incident in Thousand Oaks, California; the synagogue shooting in 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the series of package bombs in and around Austin, Texas; the active 

shooter incident in Aurora, Illinois; and the recent shooting at a Denver area charter school. The 

effort is intended to make sure all staff from the office are safe and accounted for and to open a 

line of communication should the office need any guidance, direction or assistance. 

Question 4: Is there currently an established risk/threat assessment analytical protocol 

established to support the District Security Service Center? Is USCP Intelligence Analysis 

Division (lAD) a key component supporting the District Security Service Center? Describe 

how intelligence is collected, assessed and disseminated to appropriate law enforcement 

partners, as well as Members and Staff? 

The DSSC falls within the Police Services Division of the Sergeant at Arms and is dedicated to 

coordinating District Office security system installation, monitoring and billing support, 

managing the mail hood program, administering the Law Enforcement Coordinator (LEC) 

program, conducting outreach, assisting with security training programs and acts as a call center 

for any security related questions. The District Security Service Center is supported within the 

greater framework of the joint House Sergeant at Arms (HSAA)/U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) 

protective services program by serving as an intake point for staff referrals of events and 

incidents that would benefit from intelligence collection and reporting, and subsequent 

assignment of law enforcement resources. Congressional staff may visit the District Security 

Service Center in person, telephone HSAA Police Services directly, or connect online via the 

HSAA Web EOC portal to initiate HSAA and USCP action. Regardless of the method of intake, 

the USCP and HSAA follow a systematic and standardized process to collect relevant 

intelligence, assign appropriate protective resources, and brief cooperating law enforcement 

partners and stakeholder customers. 

At the point of intake, HSAA Police Services staff will ensure that all referrals contain the 

essential elements of information, and then pass that information to the USCP. At the USCP, the 

Intelligence Analysis Division (lAD) and the Investigations Division (ID) will collect 

intelligence based on established intelligence priorities and assess the intelligence for 

proportionate law enforcement action. The lAD's key role in this process is to draw relevant 

information from the U.S. Intelligence Community, connect with state and local government 

fusion centers, and monitor relevant social media and internet sources. The !D's key role is to 

evaluate the USCP's holdings of known subjects of concern and to connect with Federal, state 

and local law enforcement officers for relevant information with any nexus to the subject event 

and participants. 

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The USCP considers a diverse set of factors when making a risk assessment for a Member of 

Congress (MOC) event. These factors include, but are not limited to: 

• Number ofMOCs attending; 

• Positions of attending Congressional leadership; 

• Persons of interest concerns; 

• Organizational/interest group concerns; 

• Demonstration/disruption concerns; 

• Terrorism threats; 

• Crime threats; and 

• Position and relevant security threats of other attending dignitaries. 

Risk assessment information is collected from a variety of sources including, but not limited to: 

• Classified Sources The U.S. Intelligence Community 

• Sensitive But Unclassified Sources- Regional/state fusion centers 

• Law Enforcement Sources -LE partners 

• Open Sources- News outlets, social media 

• Human Sources- MOC staff, interest group spokespersons 

Sworn law enforcement personnel from the USCP will share the results of the USCP assessment 

with HSAA Police Services personnel as well as Federal, state, and local law enforcement 

partners. The USCP will tailor its final action to the level of concern prompted by the 

assessment. At the lower end of the spectrum of concern, the USCP will conduct further 

outreach to the local law enforcement agency of jurisdiction to request an appropriate level and 

type of police presence at the event. At the higher end of the spectrum of concern, the USCP 

will plan for more direct involvement by USCP resources, based on the specific circumstances of 

the individual assessment. Final briefings to Members and staff will be provided by HSAA 

police services personnel. 

Question 5: What can be done further to strengthen the District Office Security Center 

program moving forward? 

As the DSSC continues to mature, we seek to identifY additional offerings above and beyond the 

installation of security systems that will support district staff in improving their overall security 

posture while harmonizing areas where we overlap with the interests of other partner 

organizations on the Hill (CAO, USCP). 

Some of our focal points over the next year include: 

Onboard New Program Manager Position: The Committee's recent approval of the 

creation of a DSSC Program Manager position will allow SAA to expand program offerings for 

district offices and drive greater success of the DSSC program. In particular, this position will 

be the primary driver of the below listed initiatives. 

Enhance the Law Enforcement Coordinator (LEC) Program: The LEC program serves as 

a force multiplier for the SAA. While we maintain more than 600 active LECs in our database, 

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we are exploring ways to better connect with each LEC in the district and increase frequency of 

two-way dialog with these personnel. Defining a learning path through the CAO's online 

training system will allow us to standardize baseline training for LECs and the exploration of a 

periodic, recurring conference call/check-in with LECs will open the door to topics of interest or 

concern for the LECs. 

Increase Training Offerings: The SAA is exploring opportunities to expand the types of 

security courses offered to district office staff. To date, we offer Security Awareness Briefings, 

Mail hood training and active shooter training online. We intend to offer more online training 

opportunities so that staff can take training at their convenience in a cost-effective manner that 

has more immediate reach than scheduling face-to-face training in the district. While we initially 

intend to pursue online self-paced trainings, we are also exploring opportunities for live, remote 

conferencing style training to increase participation and two-way dialog. 

Expand Knowledge Base ofDSSC Team: To continue the development and maturation 

of the program, we plan to pursue additional training and education opportunities for the DSSC 

personnel. As the primary call point for district security related questions, increasing the 

knowledge base ofDSSC personnel can serve to ensure district staff are able to obtain quick and 

accurate answers to their wide-ranging needs. 

Coordinate with CAO, USCP: The SAA has had a longstanding relationship with the 

CAO and USCP, although our District Security Service Center has existed for just over one year. 

We continue to work with both entities to ensure aligning interests can be capitalized on and to 

identify additional converging topics for which we can combine efforts. 

Question 6: What is the significance of "Pre-screening" of Members, Staff, and visitors to 

the Capitol Complex? 

The significance of pre-screening individuals coming into the House Office Buildings to enhance 

the USCP ability to mitigate a threat prior to entering a building. The USCP deploys vapor wake 

canine units, as well as additional officers as needed, around the campus to address any potential 

threat before it enters a building. 

Question 7: What are the risks of not having 100% of the Members, Staff, visitors and 

vehicles being fully screened prior to entering the Capitol Complex? 

If individuals are not screened, they could introduce dangerous items into the building, such as 

firearms, explosives, and knives of prohibited length. 

Staff and visitors are screened when coming into the buildings from any of the external entry 

points. Presently, staff entering the building from the Rayburn or Cannon garage are not 

screened. Screening from the Rayburn and Cannon garages will begin August 5, 2019. 

With regard to vehicles, Members and staff are only allowed to park in the garages and most lots. 

The USCP conducts vehicle checks and patrols the garages and lots. 

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Question 8: How will the establishment of a North and South Capitol Screening Kiosk 

solidify the security of the Capitol? Will the development of these screening Kiosks allow 

the USCP to better align its sworn personnel resources protecting the Capitol Complex? 

The establishment of a South Capitol Screening Kiosk will solidify the security of the Capitol by 

removing the screening of staff and guests out of the Capitol building. In addition, the Kiosk, as 

currently envisioned, will have certain security features such as blast protection which will 

mitigate any damage resulting from an explosive device. In addition, the Kiosk will be equipped 

with a portal scanner similar to those currently deployed around the House Chamber. This will 

detect any non-metallic hazards, before it enters the Capitol Building. 

The USCP will still need to staff the screening in the Kiosk. Any realignment of posting will be 

determined in the future based on the impacts of the Kiosk. 

Question 9: The Capitol Complex Garage Security Enhancement Project is in its final 

phases. How will this modified infrastructure harden the garage complex security and 

improve Members and Staff movement between the House buildings and Capitol? 

The Office of the Sergeant at Arn1s continues to work with the Committee, the Architect of the 

Capitol and the Capitol Police to implement screening in the House garages. Garage security 

modifications will bring the Capitol complex closer to 100% screening by adding USCP officers 

and screening equipment at all accessible entrances from the Rayburn and Cannon garages. 

Once implemented, staff parking in the Rayburn and Carmon garages will be screened prior to 

entering the House Office Buildings. This will ensure the same level of screening whether using 

the pedestrian street entrances, the garage entrances to all House (and Senate) Office Buildings 

or the pedestrian entrances to the Capitol. The addition of the garage screening will harmonize 

our security posture with the Senate Office Buildings. This improvement should eventually 

allow Members and staff to move from the House Office Buildings to the Capitol without 

additional interior magnetometer screening in the Rayburn and Cannon tunnels since House 

Office Building occupants have all passed through screened entrances. 

Question 10: Is the USCP prepared to physically cover the expansion of garage and new 

screening positions for the final phases with its current resource constraints? 

Yes. The garage security initiative is a multi-year project, and the USCP has been hiring 

additional FTE for this initiative since 2018. The USCP has hired, trained and graduated all of 

the necessary 52 new sworn officers necessary to implement the House Garage Security 

Initiative. The final portion of these new sworn officers will complete their Police Training 

Officer (PTO) program in late May 20 !9, after which all 52 sworn officers will be ready for the 

full implementation of the Initiative 

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Question 11: The USCP-OIG has outlined several challenges facing the USCP moving into 

the future. Has the USCP completed a new strategic plan to improve its recruitment, 

development, and retention of a sworn and civilian diverse workforce? 

The USCP Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2020-2024 is currently under development. The new 

strategic plan will highlight mission and mission support goals and strategies that will provide 

the roadmap into the future. The success of the Department's mission relies upon a highly 

engaged, highly skilled and diverse workforce. The new plan will define new and evolving law 

enforcement strategies to strengthen the USCP's mission; those that further the overall global 

protective approach to security and protection, leverage specialized units and functions in the 

Department in new ways; and expand in a more significant way the cyber and technological tools 

needed in the investigation of threats. Additionally, the new plan will address and emphasize the 

USCP's human capital and the human capitallifecycle. The strategic goals contained in the 

USCP Strategic Plan will be the foundation for informing the USCP Human Capital Strategic 

Plan, which is also under development. 

The Human Capital Strategic Plan will outline specific goals, objectives and critical success 

factors supporting recruitment, retention, development, and rewards incorporating human capital 

and diversity and inclusion best practices across both law enforcement and Federal communities. 

Finally, diversity and inclusion strategies, action plans, and measures will be outlined to ensure 

the USCP workforce reflects the diversity across our nation. USCP priorities and measures of 

success will be clearly defined and communicated across the Department to ensure the visibility 

and support critical to increasing diversity, inclusion, and equity while increasing employee 

engagement and commitment to USCP Human Capital goals. 

Question 12: The collection, evaluation, and dissemination of intelligence is important for 

the protection of Members, Staff, visitors, as well as District Offices. What is the USCP 

plan of action to modernize its intelligence processes and cadre? 

The USCP maintains a professional staff of intelligence analysts, sworn fielcl agents, and 

technical support personnel well trained in modern techniques and methods that support the 

Department's mission to protect Members of Congress, Congressional staff, and visitors to the 

Capitol Complex. The USCP maintains full IT connectivity to classified channels of the U.S. 

Intelligence Community. Furthermore, the USCP sustains full-time liaison positions with 9 

Federal partner task forces/organizations to facilitate the exchange of intelligence and law 

enforcement information with a nexus to Congressional protection. The USCP coordinates on a 

daily level with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Department 

of Homeland Security on intelligence related matters. 

In 2018, the Investigations Division (ID) opened 5,206 protective intelligence/threat 

management cases and 640 law enforcement coordination cases for off-campus Member of 

Congress (MOC) events. In 2018, the lAD prepared and delivered 3,533 intelligence products 

that were utilized to make significant operational decisions and dlive the assignment of law 

enforcement resources for protective services. 

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In 2018, the USCP pursued a number of initiatives to enhance and expand upon intelligence 

collection and analysis. The ID was expanded by the reallocation of 15 sworn personnel from 

elsewhere in the Department to keep pace with increasing numbers of protective intelligence 

case investigations. The IAD completed training for the implementation of newly acquired 

computer software that enhances the USCP's ability to proactively search for, and respond to, 

internet/online threat streams. Finally, the USCP created an additional dedicated liaison 

position on a Federal cyber-crime task force to increase its existing ability to detect and 

investigate cyber-crime that targets MOCs. 

Currently, the USCP is pursuing a number of new investments in its overall intelligence 

program. First, the USCP is evaluating the addition of new full-time equivalents (FTEs) to the 

IAD to expand its hours of operation, strengthen supervision and management, and enable 

proactive searches of intelligence sources at a deeper and more detailed level than can be 

pursued at the current staffing level. The USCP is also evaluating the assignment of a dedicated 

liaison position to coordinate protective intelligence concerns occurring outside the continental 

United States (OCONUS). Finally, the USCP is evaluating the addition of further new 

technology and methods to enhance the collection and assessment of internet/online threat 

streams. 

Question 13: The OIG recommended the elevation of USCP's Intelligence Analysis Division 

to a Bureau or Office level iu a previous OIG report? What progress has the USCP made 

to transform the intelligence structure? What is the impact positive or negative of the 

USCP transforming the intelligence structure? 

In 2016, the OIG completed an audit report of the USCP Intelligence Analysis Section and 

issued 6 recommendations as an outcome of that report. The Department has successfully closed 

al16 of those recommendations. In 2018, the OIG completed a resolution analysis of the previous 

report and issued 5 recommendations as an outcome of that report. The Department has 

successfully closed all 5 of those recommendations. The OIG has not issued any formal 

recommendation in either of those reports, or any other report, in which the OIG recommended a 

reorganization. 

The Department has been planning a reorganization since 2015 and the Department's 

reorganization plan was implemented on January I, 2018, following the approval by the 

Department's oversight authorities, and included a change to elevate the Intelligence Analysis 

Section, previously organized under the Investigations Division to become the Intelligence 

Analysis Division, now organized under the Protective Services Bureau. This option was taken 

as the best combination of increasing the stature of the USCP intelligence analysis function, 

along with maintaining the necessary close connectivity to the ever-increasing protective 

intelligence investigations and law enforcement coordination operations undertaken by the 

Investigations Division. 

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The USCP continues to pursue initiatives that will further transfom1 the Intelligence Analysis 

Division. Of particular note is a proposal currently being evaluated within me Department's 

established business process for new investment to increase the staffing level of the lAD (see 

response to Question 12) to expand its hours of operation, strengthen supervision and 

management, and enable proactive searches of intelligence sources at a deeper and more detailed 

level than can be pursued at me current staffing level. 

Since 2016, the Intelligence Analysis Division has undergone a number of internal changes, 

including the adoption of a standardized intelligence priorities framework, the revision of many 

operating procedures, the refocusing of its intelligence products, me adoption of new 

technologies and methods of collection and analysis, and the establishment of new partnerships 

with other agencies. These progressive transformations have enhanced the USCP's ability as a 

whole to protect Members of Congress both within and beyond the U.S. Capitol Grounds. 

Question 14: Does USCP current intelligence structure efficiently and effectively support 

the SSA's District Security Service Center needs? Is there appropriate integration to 

address Members and District Offices needs with vetted and validated intelligence? 

Please see the response to Question 4 of this document for a detailed description of how the 

current USCP intelligence structure is aligned to the House Sergeant at Arms (HSAA) District 

Security Service Center. HSAA Police Services staff interact and coordinate on a daily basis 

with USCP personnel from the Protective Services Bureau (PSB) to address me security needs of 

Members of Congress (MOC). Working in close cooperation with the HSAA, the USCP believes 

that the current processes and procedures support the needs of the District Security Service 

Center and the overall effort to provide effective and efficient protective services to Members 

outside the U.S. Capitol Grounds. 

Question 15: What is the status of the USCP and :FOP Collective Bargaining Agreement 

(CBA) which was last ratified in June 2010? When was the last time the USCP Executive 

Management and FOP formally met to discuss the development and ratification of a new 

CBA? 

The development of a new CBA is on hold pending me resolution of several ongoing court cases. 

As per the provision in me contract, the USCP and FOPIUSCP Labor Committee will continue to 

operate under the existing contract until such time a new contract is finalized. The delay of a 

new CBA has not impacted the union and USCP management relationship or the implementation 

of new and improved programs and policies. To that end, USCP management and me FOP will 

continue their regularly scheduled biweekly meetings and work through matters on a case-bycase basis, as needed. 

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Question 16: What is the USCP doing to update its Disciplinary Policy? 

Over the last several years the Department has been working to update and implement a 

discipline process that captures the current practice. The Department has drafted a policy that 

does such, and when published, will apply to all USCP employees, to include employees within 

the collective bargaining units. The USCP intends to issue the draft policy as Interim Guidance, 

which will articulate the revised discipline process and ensure transparency for the employees, 

until such time as the unresolved issues can be addressed. 

Question 17: How do the new employee standards integrate with USCP Disciplinary 

Policy? 

The USCP Employment Suitability Standards (Standards) for new employees were revised and 

approved by the Capitol Police Board on September 26, 2018. These new Standards were 

designed to identify the best qualified applicants by increasing the objectivity, clarity and 

consistency of the minimum requirements to become a police officer, hazardous material 

technician or civilian with the Department. The previous USCP hiring standards were issued in 

1997, and were considered dated for the recruitment and hiring of the best qualified personnel to 

fill the USCP's law enforcement and civilian positions. 

Separate from the Standards is the Department's disciplinary process. The disciplinary process 

addresses behavior post-employment, with the employee's conduct and performance being 

measured against the Department's policies and procedures. However, by ensuring that the 

USCP is hiring the best qualified applicants, the Department believes that the individuals hired 

under the new Standards will have the depth and breadth of knowledge and skills to successfully 

apply the Department's established policies and procedures in conformance with the respective 

expectations, thereby having a direct effect on the frequency of the application of discipline. 

Question 18: What is the USCP doing to update outdated corporate policy and guidelines? 

The USCP Office of Policy and Management Systems (OPOL) is responsible for the overall 

management of the Department's Directives and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The 

creation, revision, and rescission process for Directives and SOPs is continuous and can be 

initiated at any time by any USCP subject matter expert with chain of command review and 

approval. Per Department policy, at a minimum, OPOL facilitates an annual review of the 

Directives and SOPs with the respective USCP Bureaus/Offices to ensure those policies are both 

current and applicable. Currently there are 37 Directives and 87 SOPs in the revision process. 

Since January 1, 2013, 98 new SOPs adopted, 367 old SOPs have been revised, 59 new 

directives have been adopted, and 67 old directives have been revised. 

Accordingly, the Department will continue to maintain its review and issuance posture of 

Directives and SOPs to ensure law enforcement and/or other specialized best practices are 

included in USCP policy and practice, and that all Directives and SOPs are accurate for the 

respective Department elements' area(s) of responsibility. 

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Question 19: What is the USCP strategic plan to recruit and retain a diverse workforce? 

A new USCP Human Capital Strategic Plan is currently expected to be completed at the end of 

calendar year 2019. It will outline very specific goals and strategies with action plans and 

metrics that address the recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce. Developing a hiring 

strategy to recruit a diverse workforce, one that reflects om nation, is a high priority. Increasing 

the diversity within the USCP workforce, at all levels, will allow for greater employee 

productivity, unity, and engagement within the Department. The USCP will continue to look at 

best practices in law enforcement organizations as well as across all sectors, to ensure success in 

gaining the benefits of increased diversity and inclusion. More specifically, as an organization, 

the USCP is reviewing the implementation of potential practices such as: 

review and craft job postings that will attract a more diverse workforce 

update and offer new policies that appeal and support diverse candidates 

implement recruiting tools based upon compatible personality traits, motivations, 

and skills that do not differ across minority groups 

implement sourcing methods (third party websites etc.) that contain more diverse 

candidate pipelines 

"seed" pipelines with more diverse candidates (Harvard Business Review noted 

research "two in the pool effect" represents a promising method for overcoming 

unconscious biases and increasing diversity) 

increase professional development and training 

improve the management and implementation of reasonable accommodations 

Specific diversity and inclusion strategies and actions will be highlighted and emphasized as the 

USCP develops its overarching Strategic Plan and the resulting Human Capital goals and 

strategies. 

Question 20: The USCP has noted it has difficulty training its personnel without allocating 

over-time. What is the direct impact of minimal training and career development of USCP 

personnel? 

For the Department to meet its basic operational mission requirements, there is a delta of nearly 

200 sworn personnel shortage to mission requirements, which significantly impacts the USCP's 

ability for officers to be off post to train beyond mandatory life-safety training requirements. 

Therefore, the Department requests 24,000 hours a year for overtime to be specifically utilized 

for in-service training for sworn personnel in its annual budget request. However, in the interim, 

the Department will continue to apply available resources from the Training Services Bureau to 

deliver the most critical life-safety, use of force, and legal update training to all sworn personnel. 

In FY 2021, the Department will be reviewing this level of request to account for the increased 

sworn staffing levels recently hired to address the four enhanced security initiatives. 

While the Department intends to further develop its succession planning process as well as other 

types of training and career development opportunities, it would be difficult for the USCP to 

holistically implement, rather than case-by-case, such programs with the current mission 

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requirements and sworn staffing delta as stated above. Nevertheless, the Department will be 

including these important and necessary developmental processes in both the USCP Strategic 

Plan for Fiscal Years 2020-2024 and the Hmnan Capital Strategic Plan, which will include 

diversity, inclusion and equity. 

Question 21: What progress has USCP made to enhance the capabilities ofthe Office of 

Information Systems protect USCP IT systems? 

The USCP Office of Information Systems (OIS) protects the Information Technology (IT) 

infrastructure and endpoints as defined by the goals presented in the USCP IT Strategic Plan, 

Fiscal Year (FY) Operating Plans, and system enhancements through the Force Development 

Business Process. The OIS partners with other Legislative Branch Offices (LBO) through both 

the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Councils 

and continually collaborates on security issues within the Legislative Branch Cyber Threat 

Intelligence Working Group (LBCTIWG) and the SOC-to-SOC Working Group. Monthly 

meetings are held with the USCP Executive Team (COP, COO, CAO, OGC) to discuss current 

status of ongoing projects, upcoming initiatives, and current risks and issues. 

The USCP OIS Information Security Division's (ISD) mission is to" .. .implement and provide a 

secure enterprise solution which embraces the Department's mission and utilizes technology to 

operate securely and efficiently while reducing operational risk." The ISD has successfully 

become a business integrator, has increased transparency, enhanced visibility, and ensured 

business continuity. OIS has defined mission objectives with high level milestones to reduce 

risks and further the protection from various cyber threats at an enterprise level. 

Some notable successes supporting the maturity of one or more of the cyber domains are listed 

below: 

Implemented certificate-based authentication on wireless mobile devices and 

finalizing other multi-factor authentication initiatives. 

Implemented a new enterprise Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) 

solution. 

Implemented Senate threat feeds into our SIEM. 

Implemented the advanced Security Awareness Training solution utilizing a twophase approach to increase training and user awareness. 

Established the vulnerability management program using Qualys for advanced 

vulnerability assessments and continuous monitoring. 

Enhanced two-factor authentication with an advanced solution and use of soft 

tokens. 

Completed full integration of the Security Orchestration Analysis and Response 

(SOAR) utilizing Swimlane for automation of security events to lessen time spent 

on false positive, faster response times for actionable alerts, and a consistent 

method for all alerts. 

Partnered with MindPoint to structure and mature the Assessment and 

Authorization (A&A) program and establishing four Authority to Operate (ATO) 

certifications and supporting documents. 

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Implemented Qmulos in support of the A&A program; providing security control 

status, POAMs, and document repository. 

ISD is achieving its annual targets and moving closer to achieving the strategic goals and 

objectives outlined in the IT Strategic Plan. A great deal of progress has been made in securing 

the USCP environment combined with overall user awareness and training. 

Question 22: What bench marks have been achieved per OIS's outlined Strategic Plan FY 

2017-2021? 

The USCP IT Strategic Plan 2017-2021 is reviewed annually to ensure it remains current and 

aligned with USCP mission priorities. Near the end of each fiscal year, the OIS conducts an 

annual review to highlight accomplishments from the previous year, identifies new opportunities 

and challenges, and develops streamlined governance and service delivery processes to become 

more efficient and effective. During this period, OIS develops an operational plan outlining 

priorities (projects and initiatives) for the upcoming fiscal year based upon organizational 

priorities, funding, commitments, and essential operations and maintenance ofUSCP IT 

infrastructure. 

The OIS has been very successful in delivering products and services as defined in the annual 

operational plans. Each year, as projects are delivered and services enhanced, the OIS is closer 

to achieving the strategic goals outlined in the IT Strategic Plan. As new mission priorities are 

introduced, the OIS remains nimble and adjusts resources to focus on new or unplanned 

requirements. Strong program and project management with OIS-wide quarterly reviews, 

ensures projects stay on track and/or risk mitigation practices are put into place. The strong 

governance process allows for transparent and sound decision making and critical adjustments 

without compromising day-to-day operations. Across the board, OIS is consistently improving 

and meeting both strategic and annual commitments and planned targets. 

OIS will begin the development of the new IT strategic plan upon the completion of the 

Department Strategic Plan to ensure the strategic goals for information and technology both 

align, support and lead the Department into a more modern, premier, technology driven law 

enforcement organization. 

Key accomplishments include: 

Joint Emergency Mass Notification System (JEMNS)- USCP hosts this LEOshared emergency notification solution 

Web EOC implemented an emergency and operations incident management tool 

supporting the Command and Coordination Bureau in command and control 

operations 

Skype for Business an enterprise solution that is federated with the LBOs for 

enhanced communications and collaboration 

Remote access solution deployed - Citrix 

Radio System (infrastructure) Lifecycle Refresh 

Radio Systems Updated (Congressional Leadership) 

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MPD data integration completed • iPhones and Air Watch implemented a USCP 

mobile application "store" with security enabled mobile application vetting 

(moved away from once standard BlackBerry devices) 

VTC upgrades 

Radio- Red One Back-Up 

Firing Range Tracking System (FRTS) 

Soft Tokens- supports remote access to USCP employees without the need for a 

separate physical device 

Modernized security incident alerts 

Implemented and operate under a new Cyber Maturity Model 

OIS-wide Process Improvement: new and improved processes have proven to add 

greater efficiency, role clarity, and increased collaboration, ultimately improving 

our service delivery 

Question 23: The Committee's oversight plan for the 116th Congress notes that we will 

review staff ID standards. Are the IDs provided to staff appropriate as a form of security 

identification? 

The staff identification badges do act as a sufficient form of security identification for an open 

campus. 

The ID's are printed on HID RF-Progran1able 125KHZ cards. These cards have encryption keys 

for purposes of proximity access. 

The badge is provided to staff members and paid interns only after the appropriate I-9 and 

payroll paperwork has been filed with the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, the 

Architect of the Capitol or other supporting agencies. In addition, all staff and all interns must 

present a fonn of government identification to the SAA ID office prior being provided the badge. 

Acceptable government identification includes a US passport, State issued drivers license or nonoperators ID, and US Military ID. For individuals who may not be United States Citizens, they 

must produce a valid passport or a USCIS issued Green Card. 

Contractors are required to produce to the ID office acceptable government identification, as 

outlined above, and a certification of their completed background check must be approved on 

their application form. 

As the House Office Buildings are open to the public, the IDs are color coded. The codes 

identify those staff who are permitted access to the buildings at any time (currently a red badge) 

and those staff and interns who may only be in the buildings during business hours (currently a 

yellow badge). The lD also contains the office for which the individual works in the event that 

there is a situation where the individual is found to be in space where the individual is not 

authorized. 

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Questions for the Record from the House Administration Minority 

Question 1: You are planning to spend $3 million dollars to replace annunciators in offices, 

the new units will cost $1,500 each. Are we investing in dated technology? What market 

research was done to see if a more cost-efficient solution exists? 

The annunciator replacement project, also known as the Joint Audible Warning System (JAWS) 

will replace an outdated, non-secure emergency notification system with a digital solution that 

provides greater clarity and audibility of message, encryption for security, and enhanced 

resilience to ensure emergency messages reach all parts of the Capitol, CVC, and House Office 

Buildings when required. The annunciators serve as the only effective way to ensure every office 

and area of the Capitol and House Office Buildings receives necessary safety information. 

In 2017, HSAA, SSAA, AOC, and USCP began the project to replace the aging annunciator 

system by conducting market research that examined what products or solutions may fit a base 

requirement of in-office verbal emergency notification. The market research effort was led by the 

subject matter experts within the USCP radio unit who know the radio transmission industry and 

supported the House, Senate, and AOC project team in the development of the initial 

requirements. The initial requirements framed the Request for Information that was put out to 

industry on FedBizOpps (www.fbo.gov and operated by the General Services Administration). 

The Request for Information allowed companies in the public address/emergency notification 

industry to provide products, concepts, and solutions that could possibly meet a wide set of 

requirements set by the Legislative Branch. 

At the same time, USCP evaluated the option of using existing radio or communications 

infrastructure to support this project. Due to security vulnerabilities that would be created using 

existing USCP infrastructure to meet this requirement, this concept was removed from possible 

options. 

Upon review of the provided responses and obtaining a better understanding of the current state 

of the marketplace, the project requirements were further refined. A Request for Proposals was 

released in December 2018. Those proposals are currently under evaluation by the project team. 

Question 2: In recent years a top priority of your office has been enhancing physical 

security in district offices and at district events. Can you highlight some of the specific 

services your office provides in that effort? 

Over the past 19 months the Sergeant at Arms (SAA) has worked with more than 400 district 

offices to upgrade or add security systems in their offices. In addition to allowing Member 

offices access to our national contract, the SAA funds the installation of one base system per 

Member. Our standard system includes an intrusion detection system which can serve to notify 

staff and law enforcement in the event of a break-in outside of business hours, a duress system 

which allows staff to discreetly notify law enforcement should a threatening visitor cause a 

disturbance and a video intercom system which allows staff to speak with visitors before 

allowing them into the office. In addition to funding the installation of an alarm system, the SAA 

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covers the cost of monthly monitoring fees for all district offices thus reducing MRA expenses 

for security services. 

The SAA Police Services Division also offers law enforcement coordination services for 

Member events in their district. Upon notification of a district town hall or other event, the SAA 

with the assistance of the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) will contact local law enforcement 

agencies to request security support for the event. USCP also conducts an open source check to 

identifY any known or potential protests related to the event so that the Member office and local 

law enforcement can be made aware. Since January of last year, SAA has coordinated support 

for more than 600 such district events. 

The SAA also maintains a Law Enforcement Coordinator (LEC) program. This initiative seeks 

to identifY at least one staff Member in the district who serves as the primary liaison between the 

office, local law enforcement, the SAA and USCP. We view this program as a force multiplier, 

expanding the overall security support provided by our office. Our service center conducts 

regular outreach and awareness messaging to these personnel and we continue to expand this 

program today. The SAA also provides mail hoods to allow for safe handling of incoming office 

mail and training to district offices to increase security awareness amongst staff. 

Question 3: Since completing this last Congressional transition what is the status of 

outreach to the new Members and their participation in the standard security system 

package for their district office? 

The District Security Service Center (DSSC) has successfully reached out to all freshman 

Member offices to educate them about the DSSC and the security services and support available 

through the SAA. We are happy to report that many Members obtained an office previously 

secured by their predecessor which reduces the overall need for security upgrades. Although 

leases continue to be signed, the SAA has completed security upgrades at more than 30 district 

offices for freshman Members. At this time, only four freshman Members have not yet made a 

decision to proceed with SAA standard security system package although none have formally 

declined. 

Question 4: What are your thoughts on whether we should have a dedicated coordinating 

office to make sure events that Members hold off the hill have adequate security? 

Based on the feedback we have received to date, the current structure provided by the SAA 

appears to provide adequate support for Member events. SAA Police Services Division offers 

security assessments and law enforcement coordination for Member events on and off Capitol 

Grounds. Upon notification of an event, the SAA with the assistance of the USCP will contact 

local law enforcement agencies to request security support for the event. USCP, with information 

collected from staff, local law enforcement and open source checks, completes a security 

assessment. This assessment attempts to identifY any known or potential protests related to the 

event and any known persons of interest in the area of the event. Since January of last year, SAA 

has coordinated support for more than 600 such events. 

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Question 5: Many government agencies have adopted a badging process to enable 

utilization of a trusted workforce with specific privileges in terms of ensuring trust, easing 

access, and promoting efficiency. 

The implementation of a trusted agent badge would require the creation of a specific process to 

allow for the vetting of staff backgrounds. Currently, it is up to each Member to determine what 

level of background investigation is conducted for each employee. This could delay the hiring 

and badging process if applied to new employees. However, a program such as this will shortly 

have little impact on the ability of staff to traverse the campus. Staff will still be required to be 

screened at the entrance to the buildings. Screening at the entrance to the buildings is necessary 

due to items, such as firearms, that are prohibited. With the implementation of garage security, 

the House Office Buildings will be brought within the secure perimeter and upon the 

harmonization of the prohibited items list between the Capitol and the House Office Buildings, 

staff will be allowed to traverse throughout the Capitol complex without going through 

screening, making all staff, in a sense, trusted agents. 

Question 6: What steps are the CAO and SAA offices taking together to improve identity 

management and governance throughout the House? 

The CAO has implemented the Identity Hub, which streamlines the processes for entering, 

updating, and accessing employee identity-related information. The Identity Hub improves 

controls for managing access to various House resources such as the House network, financial 

systems, and privileged accounts. Once complete, the House will have one reliable system of 

record that will improve data security and the efficiency of House business processes. 

The House Sergeant at Arms, working with the House CAO, has initiated the use of a unified 

Identity Hub to share information between the two House Officers. We are currently piloting a 

paperless submission program for ID Badge requests, that will be made available House-wide in 

the coming months. This new process will enhance security around ID Badge distribution 

through the use of an automated workflow to ensure we are receiving badge requests only from 

the appropriate personnel. As the collaboration between the SAA and CAO continues additional 

data sharing processes will be implemented, to include automatically updating the status of 

House personnel in SAA and CAO systems as they are on-boarded and off-boarded. 

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Question 7: What steps are the SAA taking to improve badging, authenticating, identifying 

and vetting of individuals with access to the Capitol Hill complex? 

The badge is provided to staff members and paid interns only after the appropriate I-9 and 

payroll paperwork has been filed with the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, the 

Architect of the Capitol or other supporting agencies. In addition, all staff and all interns must 

present a form of government identification to the SAA ID office prior being provided the badge. 

Acceptable government identification includes a US passport, State issued drivers license or nonoperators ID, and US Military ID. For individuals who may not be United States Citizens, they 

must produce a valid passport or a USCIS issued Green Card. 

The House Sergeant at Arms, working with the House CAO, has initiated the use of a unified 

Identity Hub which shares information between the two House Officers. We are currently 

piloting a paperless submission program that we will roll out House-wide in the coming months 

further ensuring we are only receiving paperwork from approved senders. Additionally, HSAA 

Staff recently reviewed hardware solutions that would act as an additional check to ensure that 

Identification (Passports, State Drivers Licenses, Green Cards) are valid. 

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Philip G. Kiko 

Chief Ailministrative Officer 

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren 

Chairperson 

Q!'}ffice of tbe 

C!Cbief )gJ:lmint£ltratillt Q!'}ffictt 

'm:.~. j!\)OU£)C Of l\cpre£)cntatibe5 

~aSf)ington, Jlllt 20515-6860 

May15.20!9 

Committee on House Administration 

1309 Longworth House Office Building 

Washington. D.C. 20515 

Dear Chairperson Lofgren: 

HB-28, The Capitol 

Attached are the Chief Administrative Officer's written responses to the Committee on House 

Administration's questions tor the record following the April 9. 2019, hearing, "House Officer 

Priorities tor 2019 and Beyond.,. 

Additionally. per your request, a summary of the Chief Administrative Ofticer's diversity hiring 

practices is attached. 

Please contact me or Anne Binsted at 202-225-5555 if you or your staff have questions regarding 

the written responses. 

Sincerely, 

Philip G. Kiko 

Chief Administrative Officer 

cc: The Honorable Rodney Davis 

Ranking IV·Iember 
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Philip G. Kiko 

Chief Administrative Officer 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Questions for the Record from the House Administration Majority 

Question 1: CAO plays an integral role in transition operations between 

Congresses. What challenges did the office face transitioning into the 116th 

Congress? 

Answer: There were a number of factors that made this transition more challenging than 

years past However, the transition was a success thanks in no small part to the overtime 

hours worked by dedicated GAO staff and the close collaboration with the Committee and 

other House partners. Highlighted below are a few challenges specific to the transition to 

the 1161

h Congress. Additionally, attached is an infographic providing an overview of CAO 

efforts to support the transition. 

• Historic class size: The 1161

h transition marked the second largest transition in 

GAO history. Providing administrative, technical, financial and logistical support to 

this tremendous number of new, departing, and returning Members and staff was 

challenging for our finite number of staff. While we had some staff augmentation 

contracts in place, the volume of work was still impressive. 

• Leadership changes: The last Committee and Leadership moves precipitated by a 

flip occurred eight years ago. Therefore, the guidance documents and processes 

needed to be refreshed and executed in a very short timeframe while new, 

departing, and returning Member activities were simultaneously underway. The 

GAO's staff worked collaboratively and adjusted quickly to last-minute schedule 

changes and office requests. 

• Number of Contested Races: In addition to the large class of new Members, there 

were a large number of contested races that remained uncertain for a number of 

weeks. When election results are uncertain, CAO teams have to delay office setup 

actions for the potential new Members involved in the race. Similarly, they have to 

delay office shutdown actions for the potential departing Members. These delays 

ultimately shrink the timeline to accomplish the tasks necessary for new Member 

offices to be operational at the start of the new Congress. 

• Government Shutdown: The government shutdown presented challenges for the 

transition in that our GSA partners were initially furloughed at the beginning of the 

shutdown in late December. After GAO leadership engaged GSA leadership about 

the critical support needs, GSA Congressional Support Representatives resumed 

their activities after a one-day lapse in service. 
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Question 2: How often does CAO review and revise its procurement guidelines? 

Answer: The CAO continuously reviews and evaluates the House procurement guidelines 

to identify opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the House 

acquisitions processes. The last revision of the Guidelines for Procurement of Goods and 

Services for the House of Representatives was adopted by the Committee March 18, 

2010. In February 2017, the GAO's Office of Acquisitions Management submitted 

suggested revisions to the procurement guidelines to the Committee for its consideration. It 

is the GAO's understanding that those revisions are still under review. 

Question 3: How will CAO measure success with the Customer Experience Center? 

Answer: The GAO's vision is, "to be an essential resource for every Member of the 

People's House through outstanding customer experiences delivered by exceptional 

employees." In its Strategic Plan, the CAO identified customer goals, including increasing 

customer satisfaction through improved service delivery. To help fulfill its vision and 

achieve its customer goals, the CAO created the Customer Experience Center (CEC). 

The CEC is comprised of existing, modified, and new services focused entirely on serving 

Member, committee, and leadership offices versus the organization itself. For example, it 

combined its graphics and photography shops and added videography capabilities to what 

is now House Creative Services - a one-stop-shop for offices' digital needs with a 

modernized online platform and enhances product offerings. Its new Congressional Staff 

Academy offers professional development courses specifically requested by House offices 

as well as required technical training courses. The CEC also includes new Customer 

Advocates dedicated to helping their assigned Member offices navigate and access 

services provided by the entire organization. Advocates also gather and relay customer 

feedback to CAO service providers so that services can improve and evolve as needed to 

best meet customer needs. 

The best measure of the CEC's success will be whether the use of CAO services increase 

and whether customer satisfaction with its services - old and new- improves. The CAO is 

incrementally increasing the use of customer satisfaction surveys, which are currently 

being deployed to recipients of over 30 transactional services provided by the CAO. As its 

survey capabilities mature, it will survey satisfaction with consultative services and use the 

baselines of each to measure varying levels of customer satisfaction. 

The CAO will also measure the success of the CEC by periodically gauging its brand 

awareness and ease of access as reported by its customers. To improve its brand 

awareness, its Communications and Marketing team has been tasked with ensuring 

communications from every service division within the CAO are accurate, easily 

understood by our customers, and consistent. CAO Communications and Marketing is also 

working to ensure the CAO is communicating with modern methodology that our customers 

expect in the 21st century. 

The CAO wants Members to rely on its services by choice and measuring the number of 

offices the choose to use CAO services and their satisfaction will determine if the CEC is 

successful. 

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Question 4: Responding to district office concerns presents unique challenges. How 

does CAO adapt to that? 

Answer: From technology support, to staff training, to financial services, the CAO 

offers a broad spectrum of services to House employees. Though the services 

provided by the CAO are generally available to both D.C. and district offices, 

familiarizing district office staff with the services and ensuring they have equal 

access to them remotely can be challenging. 

To address this challenge, the GAO's Customer Experience Center (CEC) has 

partnered with its service teams to improve district office access to and awareness 

of CAO service offerings. For example, the GAO's Office of Finance collaborated 

with the CEC's Congressional Staff Academy to offer required financial training 

courses online. The Office of Employee Assistance has also partnered with the 

Congressional Staff Academy and House Information Resources to provide district 

staff with remote access to their live training sessions on personal and professional 

wellbeing. The Office of Employee Assistance also regularly consults with District 

Directors about performance matters and training opportunities to support staff 

development 

The newly formed House Wellness Center is recording their training offerings and will 

make them available on their website. Once those training offerings are posted, D.C. and 

district-based staff can log into the site to view them at any time. 

The GAO's technology support for district offices has also improved. In addition to 

facilitating new technology requirements that improve office connectivity and operational 

capabilities, such as broadband and VoiP, the CAO has worked to improve internet 

connections for district offices on the West Coast. 

The GAO's asset management efforts are complicated by the geographic dispersion of 

district offices. Not having district office inventories within arm's reach of the GAO's asset 

management team requires great reliance on district office staff and others to tag new 

assets, conduct physical inventories, and provide confirmation/documentation for 

equipment disposals and/or hard drive destruction. To address the challenges specific to 

district office inventories, the CAO has increased proactive and follow-up communications 

between its asset management team and GSA's Congressional Support Representatives 

to ensure necessary inventory processes are being executed. In fact, the CAO utilized 

SharePoint collaboration software for the first time during the transition to the 1161

h 

Congress to automate and expedite communications with GSA 

To support district office transition activities, the CAO looked for opportunities to clarify and 

add new tasks that would assist their transition efforts. For example, the CAO added new 

streamlined forms, supplemental materials, and district-specific tasks to the departing 

Member website. For the returning Member website, a new district office task-tracking 

section was added that focused on district office lease renewal requirements and other 

critical district move-in/move-out tasks. District office survey outreach has also been more 

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robust this year compared to past transitions with the addition of Customer Advocates. 

Leveraging their regular communications with offices, they have been able to gather 

valuable feedback that is being incorporated into our holistic transition after-action review. 

The GAO's newly formed Office of Employee Assistance works to ensure that district office 

staff have equal access to its free legal services and regularly utilizes a range of electronic, 

telephonic, and video technologies to communicate with staff. When appropriate, attorneys 

also travel to district offices to assist employees. Similarly, at the direction of the 

Committee, the CAO has worked to ensure that the required, in-person Workplace Rights 

and Responsibilities Training is hosted in locations geographically convenient to Members' 

district offices. 

To promote greater awareness of all of the CAO service offerings and to learn more about 

district offices needs firsthand, the Customer Advocates have been visiting district offices 

across the country. Since the program started, Customer Advocates have visited district 

office staff from over 60 congressional offices - half of which are freshman offices of the 

1161

h Congress. The CEC also participates in the district office outreach initiative to identify 

opportunities to improve services provided to district offices. 

Question 5: In your testimony to the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee you 

mention $2 million in savings from district office upgrades. Can you expand on that? 

Answer: The savings were directly related to the migration of all Member flagship or 

primary district offices from data routing technology called Multiprotocol Label Switching 

(MPLS) to Broadband. The cost to provide MPLS data connectivity to a district office 

located in the continental U.S. was $542.00 per month, per office. The MPLS cost for all 

flagship or primary district offices totaled $2,829,240 annually. By comparison, broadband 

costs $147.00 per month, per office, which totals $767,340.00 annually and yield a savings 

of approximately $2 million annually. 

Question 6: CAO currently employs 719 authorized fulltime employees with 75 

vacancies and nearly 300 contractors working across eight CAO business units. What is 

the internal process the CAO uses to evaluate whether to use an employee or a 

contractor for a given project. Are you satisfied with the management of the contractors? 

Answer: The GAO's Human Resources' workforce planning team works with all 

departments to analyze the organization's current and emerging workforce requirements 

and ensure the organization has the appropriate employees and talent on board to meet its 

operational and strategic needs. The workforce planning processes identify gaps and 

situations where utilizing contract support is a value-added strategy. 

The following criteria is considered to determine whether to utilize an employee or 

contractor to work on any given project, program, or activity: 

• The nature of the work (the CAO has a wide breadth of services with various 

operational demands). 

• The duration of the work to be completed (short-term project, long-term service 

delivery, etc.). 

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• The timeliness of the completion of the work (an immediate requirement or a future 

project/activity). 

• The required skill set needed to accomplish the work (due to the breadth services 

across the business units, the skillsets across the organization vary greatly). 

• The impacted business unit's available resources (both personnel and nonpersonnel resources). 

As explained in the GAO's response to question 9 below pertaining to Contracting Officer's 

Representatives (CORs), the CAO has improved its COR training curriculum to better 

assist CORs in performing their required duties. Contractor management has improved as 

a result of the enhanced training, and the CAO is currently satisfied with its management of 

contractors. 

Question 7: During transitions, there is a spike in contactor support. What is the average 

number of contractors retained to support transitions? 

Answer: During transition years, there is an influx of contractors on boarded between 

October and December to support transition efforts. The CAO on boarded 324 contractors 

in 2016 and 372 in 2018 between October and December. 

Question 8: The Committee understands the CAO uses Contracting Office 

Representatives (CORs) to manage contracts. What is the total number of CORs and 

how many contracts are they managing? 

Answer: There are 31 CORs across the House who manage 94 contracts. This includes 

House Officers. 

Question 9: The Committee understands a new COR training program was 

implemented last year. Do you believe the training give CORs the education and tools 

necessary to execute their responsibilities? 

Answer: Yes. The GAO's Chief Procurement Officer drafted new COR training curriculum 

to better assist CORs in performing their required duties. The improved training is designed 

around House operations and better equips CORs with the tools necessary to execute their 

responsibilities. The new curriculum is also taught by the Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) 

and now provides CORs with the opportunity to discuss issues with the CPO directly as 

well as with contracting staff during the training. 

Question 10: Please give us a status update on the FY18 audit. 

Answer: The FY18 financial statement audit is in process and the CAO anticipates results 

soon. The CAO is closely monitoring the progress of the financial statement audit and will 

provide an update on the audit results and any matters once they become available. 

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Question 11: Management of capital assets has been a consistent issue in previous 

audits and currently identified as a significant deficiency. Has any progress been made 

addressing this issue? 

Answer: The House has long struggled with managing its assets. Even though auditors 

have identified significant deficiencies with the House program since FY13, it is more than 

likely the deficiencies existed well before then. To address the long-standing challenges 

associated with asset management, the CAO has recently taken the following actions: 

• Established an Asset Management Compliance group to improve review of financial 

statement information and processes 

• Implemented procedures that include a review of all capital asset purchases and 

disposals 

• Implemented monitoring controls for all processes related to capital assets 

• Performed annual inventories of all House capital assets in 2017 and 2018 with 99% 

accuracy 

• Implemented two key technology modernization initiatives: 

o IT Asset Management- a perpetual inventory self-discovery tool for networkconnected computer equipment and devices 

o Bar Code Scanners- a system that expedites and reduces human error in 

asset receiving, transfer, inventory, and disposal processes 

Question 12: Has the west coast Point of Presence (POP) program cut response 

time? 

Answer: Yes, the new West Coast POP program has reduced roundtrip times for internet 

traffic to, on average, 120 to 130 milliseconds. Offices are now experiencing response 

times in the 20 to 40 millisecond range. 

Question 13: How many district offices are using VOIP connections? 

Answer: 247 

Question 14: Do all district offices now have a broadband connection? 

Answer: Yes 

Question 15: Since 2011, how much money as the CAO invested in retaining consultants 

to assess the voucher processing and payroll and benefits components of the Finance 

office? 

Answer: In 2016, after operational irregularities and inconsistencies within the CAO's 

Office of Finance were identified, the Committee on House Administration encouraged the 

CAO to initiate an independent organizational assessment of the department. In 

September 2016, the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer awarded a contract to an 

independent firm to assess the capability and capacity of the Office of Finance to provide 

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customers and stakeholders with the support and information they require to fulfill their 

constitutional duties. The cost of the contract was $855,535. 

Question 16: Since 2011, how much money has the CAO invested in retaining 

consultants to assess and make recommendations to our asset management 

program? 

Answer: Since 2011, with the concurrence of the Committee on House 

Administration, the CAO has invested $1,246,220 in contractor support to assist the 

organization with its asset management program responsible for tracking the 

House's over 60,000 equipment items assigned to over 1 ,500 House inventories 

spread across seven buildings in Washington, D.C., and over 900 district office 

locations. 

Question 17: Has thee-voucher program helped reduce the number of voucher 

errors? 

Answer: 100 percent e-voucher processing was mandated in October 

2018. Automation facilitated bye-voucher decreases the potential for manual data 

entry errors, drives greater efficiency in workflow, and improves continuity of 

operations as e-vouchers can be submitted and processed by staff remotely. While 

the CAO has not seen measurable improvements in voucher processing error rates 

as a direct result of thee-voucher mandate, it believes the transition was a 

necessary modernization initiative that has improved House operations. The CAO 

will continue to identify and implement improvements to its voucher processing 

procedures. 

Question 18: Please update the Committee on the Smart Pay 3 roll out and 

improvements that have been made to payment processing. 

Answer: At the beginning of the 116th Congress, the CAO completed a successful 

transition to a new House Finance Card Program, which impacted all existing and 

prospective House Travel Card and Purchase Card cardholders and their financial 

administrators. The transition required negotiating a new credit card contract and issuing 

more than 1,000 new cards and account numbers. It also presented an opportunity for the 

CAO to improve internal House Finance Card Program policies, including card issuance 

and payment processes and training and certification requirements. For example, under 

the new payment process, all card transactions now load directly into the House's financial 

system so offices can create vouchers with just a few clicks, eliminating both time intensive 

data entry and potential human error. 

Question 19: According to HISPOL 8.1, the House Security Policy for Mobile Devices, 

Critical Operating System Updates must be installed within 72 hours and general OS 

updates must be done within 10 days. The consequence for non- compliance is: "(d]evices 

that do not comply ... will not be permitted to operate and could be disconnected from the 

House network." 

a. In practice, how does HIR enforce this consequence? 

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Answer: Noncompliance is enforced using mobile device management 

technology called AirWatch. The technology detects when a House networkconnected device does not meet specific criteria deemed non-compliant. 

If/when non-compliant criteria are detected on a House-connected device, the 

device is quarantined within AirWatch and blocked from accessing the House 

network. 

b. How are non-compliant users notified? 

Answer: All House Systems Administrators are notified about device security 

policy requirements 20 days prior to enforcement. When non-compliant 

devices are identified, the users are notified directly via email a minimum of 

five separate times prior to the device quarantine. 

c. How quickly is a non-compliant device disconnected from the House 

network? 

Answer: This action can happen immediately. However, HIR usually provides 

multiple notifications to the user community prior to taking action. 

d. How many times has a non-compliant mobile device had to be 

disconnected from the House network? 

Answer: Since the deployment of AirWatch, there have been 

two separate compliance enforcement events to date. 

e. Short of disconnecting a device from the network, what other ways does 

HIR enforce this policy? 

Answer: Notification of non-compliance and disconnecting the noncompliant device are the only methods of enforcement. 

f. The policy states that non-compliant devices are "[not] permitted to 

operate," what does it mean that a device is "[not] permitted to operate"? 

Answer: It means the device is blocked from accessing the House network 

and its resources via the AirWatch software, including work email, contacts, 

calendar, and associated work mobile applications such as Office 365. 

g. Does HIR currently have the capability to automatically force a mobile 

device to update its OS? Does such a capability exist for any of the mobile 

device OSs? 

Answer: Once Android Enterprise is fully rolled out to all House Android 

devices, AirWatch will be able to require these Android Enterprise-managed 

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devices to be updated automatically. This rollout is planned to be completed 

in 2020. This capability is not currently possible for iOS (Apple) devices due 

to technical controls in place from Apple. To acquire this capability would 

require a major change to how the House procures and distributes iPhones 

and iPads. It would require the use of Apple DEP (Device Enrollment 

Program). The Apple DEP is a centrally managed program where HIR would 

purchase all the devices, configure them, and then issue them to authorized 

House users. 

h. The HISPOL discusses responsibilities and consequences for not updating 

critical flaws in the OS, but does not mention what to do about critical flaws in 

non-OS applications. Do the same policies apply? Should this be clarified? 

Answer: HIR does not currently enforce updates to individual applications 

unless made aware of a significant vulnerability to a specific application 

through the required mobile device security app (Lookout for Work) or 

through another cyber threat reporting mechanism. If H IR is notified of a 

specific vulnerability, the user(s) will be contacted to update or remove the 

application. HIR does recommend that applications are routinely updated to 

the most current version and users turn on the auto-update feature on their 

device. HIR uses Lookout for Work for security monitoring of device 

applications and to detect and notify users when vulnerabilities are detected. 

This protocol will be clarified in future House Information Security 

publications. 

Question 20: It is the Committee's understanding that Multifactor Authentication for 

mobile devices is currently undergoing a limited roll-out and should be rolled out to all 

House mobile devices by the middle of this year: 

a. Can you please provide an update of this progress? 

Answer: The CAO rolled out a Multifactor Authentication product for all House 

mobile devices this past November for the Microsoft Productivity applications 

(Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) and Box. This product is currently available to 

the entire House, and HIR is in the process of migrating House mail to the 

cloud (Microsoft Exchange Online) with Multifactor Authentication applied to all 

House mobile devices. This migration is scheduled to be completed in 2019. 

b. What factors are HIR currently using for mobile devices? 

Answer: Factors currently in use include: (1) a certificate issued to only the 

person for each mobile device that must be managed by the House 

AirWatch/Workspace ONE environment; (2) mobile single sign-on that requires 

the person to use a biological factor, such as their thumb print, or the device 

PIN. 

c. What factors are HIR considering for mobile device MFA? 

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Answer: Additional Multifactor Authentication capabilities that could be used in 

the future include Mobile Push Notification and/or texting of an additional PIN, 

as well as integration with a token, a one-time password application, and 

adding specific IP ranges as a factor. 

d. How do you plan to evaluate the various MFA factor options? 

Answer: HIR will continue to work with the Committee and leverage current 

working groups such as the Technology Task Force to gain input from the user 

community on what MFA options are most palatable for the House community. 

Question 21: It is the Committee's understanding that Multifactor Authentication for 

desktop computers should be in place for all House computers by the end of this year: 

a. Can you please provide an update of this progress? 

Answer: HIR is currently conducting an MFA pilot using a module of an 

existing (in House) product and evaluating available Multifactor Authentication 

options. The House community is using a component of this product today for 

Multifactor Authentication access to the NetiQ solution. HIR installed the 

additional MFA components specific to Multifactor Authentication for desktop 

computers and is testing the available methods. The plan is to rollout 

Multifactor Authentication for desktop computers as a pilot to 50 users by June 

2019 and then to the entire CAO by September 2019. The CAO plans to be 

prepared to support the House-wide rollout by the end of December 2019. 

b. What factors are HIR considering for desktop MFA? 

Answer: The Multifactor Authentication product to be piloted provides many 

authenticators including card authenticators, PKI, RADIUS Client, YubiKeys, 

email, voice call, SMS one-time passwords, facial recognition and fingerprint, 

passwords and security questions, Bluetooth devices, and smartphone 

applications. It is possible to combine more than one authentication method to 

form an authentication chain where multiple factors are required. 

c. How do you plan to evaluate the various MFA factor options? 

Answer: HIR is validating whether available options are viable for the House 

environment from a technical standpoint. It will then work closely with the 

Committee and stakeholders across the House to demonstrate the viable 

options and obtain feedback and guidance on the specific options to use. The 

goal is to determine the most secure methods viable and provide users a 

handful of different options to choose from that are secure, user friendly, and 

supportable. 

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Question 22: When HIR purchased NetiQ for user account management in 2017, the 

Committee understands that the application also included the ability to authenticate 

users using Multifactor Authentication: 

a. How does this impact the deployment of MFA for desktops? 

Answer: The authentication capabilities included in the existing product will 

help expedite the deployment of Multifactor Authentication for House desktops. 

b. Should we expect HIR to be able to deploy MFA more quickly, if not, why 

not? 

Answer: The current plan is to rollout desktop Multifactor Authentication by 

the end of 2019. This timeframe allows for a consultative approach with 

stakeholders across the House to provide feedback and guidance. 

Question 23: Identity and Access Management (lAM) was a major initiative of the 

House Technology Task Force started in 2017: 

a. What are some of the practical benefits our offices will see from this 

system? 

Answer: The Identity Hub will streamline the processes for entering, 

updating, and accessing employee identity-related information and 

improve controls for managing access to various House resources 

such as the House network, financial systems, and privileged 

accounts. Once complete, the House will have one reliable system of 

record that will improve data security and the efficiency of House 

business processes. For example, when an individual is hired, the 

GAO's Office of Payroll and Benefits will enter the initial onboarding 

information into the Identity Hub, which will then trigger workflows to 

other CAO departments and House offices responsible for various 

aspects of the onboarding process such as network account creation. 

b. Can you please provide an update on the implementation of this system? 

Answer: In May 2018, the CAO rolled out the Identity Hub integrated with the 

House payroll system for use during the on boarding process. During the 

transition to the 116th Congress, the Identity Hub was used to generate data 

files for the Office of the Clerk more quickly and with increased frequency than 

prior transitions. Working closely with the House Sergeant at Arms, HIR is 

piloting an integrated, entirely online badge request process that will eliminate 

paper forms and automate workflow approvals. The pilot has started with HIR 

and will expand to other select offices in August 2019. Integration with Active 

Directory is planned to begin in 2020. 

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Question 24: Recently the startup ArticleOne, which provided AI based voicemail 

transcription services to member offices, featured a significant outage that prevented 

some of their member office customers from getting constituent voicemails. It is the 

Committee's understanding that the company is now going to be shutting down and the 

remaining member offices are being moved back to the House voicemail system: 

a. What important lessons, if any, were HIR able to learn through the 

process of originally assisting member offices in integrating ArticleOne 

and then ultimately having to unwind the integration? 

Answer: The primary lesson learned is that balancing innovation and 

office technology demands with thorough vetting beyond cybersecurity is 

difficult. Going forward, the CAO can more rigorously vet a company's 

operational and financial sustainability prior to approving its technology for 

use. However, that would certainly slow the House-wide rollout of new 

technologies. One way to improve the vetting of technologies will be the 

technology innovation lab being created by the CAO where Member 

offices will be able to test, evaluate, and share innovative tools and ideas. 

The lab will also help House offices, including the CAO, better understand 

the benefits, risks, and challenges associated with emerging technologies 

before House-wide deployment. 

b. Service like ArticleOne, is undeniably beneficial, but probably only 

necessary due to a lack of innovation in our own telephone and voicemail 

service offerings, is HIR looking at ways to be more innovative in this area? 

Answer: Yes, as mentioned, the GAO's innovation lab will improve the 

ability to identify, acquire, and implement innovative technical services for 

the House that improve operational efficiency and save money. In the case 

of ArticleOne's services, HIR already had some of the capabilities provided 

by ArticleOne, including unlimited voicemail and voicemail to email 

conversion. However, the CAO acknowledges that it needs to improve the 

marketing of these services, so more Member offices can take advantage of 

them. 

Question 25: There are startups, and members, that are interested in offering new 

innovative services to member offices. As innovative as some of these startups are, 

there is also a risk of these companies going under or having a significant outage: 

a. What is HIR's role in helping member offices when the worst occurs with 

one of these services? 

Answer: HIR is always available to answer questions, provide guidance 

and assistance, and coordinate action/communications between the House 

and vendors. This coordination might include, but is not limited to, legal and 

contract assistance, billing issues, technical assistance, new vendor 

selection, vendor transition, and communications. For Correspondence 

Management Systems under the Technology Services Contract or web 

services under the Master Web Services Agreement, the contractual terms 

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are standardized to protect the House, so we are better positioned to assist 

in a resolution. However, for any products or services where no contract 

exists, options are more limited. 

b. What contracts does HIR have in place with these vendors to deal with 

the worst-case scenario? 

Answer: For vendor services that fall outside of the Technology Services 

Contract (Correspondence Management Systems, maintenance, systems 

administration) and the Master Web Services Agreement, HIR has no 

contractual protections with uniform contract and/or legal requirements. 

When HIR becomes aware of offices seeking technology products or 

services from a vendor outside of its standard technology and web 

contracts, HIR offers to advise them on formalizing the relationship 

contractually in a way that protects the office and allows the CAO to 

intervene when needed. However, HIR is not a party to those contracts 

and does not play a formal role in that relationship. 

c. If need be, could HIR confiscate/repatriate member data from a failed 

company? 

Answer: The CAO can only confiscate/repatriate data from a vendor 

with a contractual agreement with the CAO. 

Question 26: HIR has recently started setting up regional Internet Points of Presence 

(POP), which will allow district offices to reach the internet without their traffic having to 

travel all the way to Washington D.C. and back, which should increase Internet speeds: 

a. Where else is HIR looking to put a regional POP? 

Answer: HIR is currently looking to place POPs in regional hubs with a large 

concentration of district offices that experience slow internet speeds due to 

various factors, including their distance from the East Coast 

b. It seems to me that the greater benefit might be when HIR combines the use 

of a POP with cloud hosted House services, what will the benefits be to district 

offices if/when that occurs? 

Answer: HIR has been in discussions with Microsoft and Equinix to 

discuss their network topologies and how the House can leverage their 

partnership to enhance access and speeds to Office 365 (Microsoft Cloud). 

HIR is currently testing the feasibility of the integration of this technology. 

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Question 27: Currently HIR Technology Partners only support a very small 

number of the House's total member offices (about 30): 

a. Is HIR currently able to take on more member offices should they want to 

sign-up? 

Answer: Is HIR currently able to take on more member offices should they 

want to sign-up? 

Answer: Yes, given HIR's current staff augmentation support, it could take on 

additional Member offices. However, the CAO believes that the program must 

first improve and mature before it is expanded and heavily marketed to House 

offices. While the CAO is eager to expand the program, it understands that first 

impressions are vital and that the rollout needs to be done methodically as to 

prevent any false starts and negative experiences. 

b. What is the level of satisfaction these offices have with their Technology 

Partners? 

Answer: CAO customer satisfaction survey results collected since 

January 2019 for transactional services provided by Technology Partners 

indicate that the average satisfaction score is 4.83 out of 5. This level of 

satisfaction represents a 24 percent response rate for recipients of 

transactional services and does not reflect levels of customer satisfaction 

for consultative services, which the CAO believes requires improvement. 

In April 2019, the CAO started to deploy satisfaction surveys for some of 

its consultative services- including Technology Partner consultations. 

Once a statistically significant sample is collected, the CAO will analyze 

the quantitative and qualitative service satisfaction data for its transactional 

and consultative services and make needed improvements and/or 

adjustments to the program. 

c. How aggressively is HIR marketing its free IT support services? 

Answer: The best marketing is being recommended to a Member by a 

colleague. New Members were advised of the free service during the 116th 

Congressional Transition activities. The fact that more offices did not request to 

use the free service means work must be done to improve the service. When a 

CAO service is good, offices spread the word. If the service is subpar, no 

marketing campaign, no matter how aggressive, will overcome a bad reputation. 

That said, the CAO acknowledges the need for an effective marketing campaign 

and will have one ready to deploy when the Technology Partner program is 

ready for expansion. 

d. Are there cybersecurity benefits to having more member offices supported 

exclusively by HIR Technology Partners? 

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Answer: Yes. Technology Partners ensure clear lines of responsibility for IT as 

well as consistent adherence to cyber policies and procedures. 

Question 28: HIR offers free website development to member offices, what 

percentage of members use this service? 

Answer: Approximately 60 percent of Members use this service. 

a. What is the level of satisfaction these offices have with the Web Systems 

team and end result? 

Answer: The feedback on the service has been positive, particularly since the 

CAO improved its approach to processing site development requests. Starting 

this Congress, House Web Services has implemented a new paradigm 

whereby a web site development team is immediately assigned to a 

requesting office versus being placed in a queue. The new assignment 

paradigm has eliminated the waitlist and increased production speeds. This 

has had a positive result and has increased the demand for HIR's Web 

Services website development services. 

b. How aggressively is HIR marketing this service? 

Answer: HIR Web Services aggressively marketed this service during New 

Member Orientation and will continue to work with CAO Communications and 

Marketing on ways to market this service in the future. 

Question 29: While some member office issues are able to be handled entirely by 

vendor/contractor or shared-employee IT support personnel, in general, how many 

technology support issues would you say still require HIR personal to assist or 

support the vendors and shared employees in order to resolve the issue? 

Answer: There are some actions that only HIR staff can execute. These include 

adding devices to the mobile device management system (AirWatch), issuing 

SecuriDs, and approving equipment requisitions. Since January 2019, HIR has added 

1,200 devices to AirWatch, issued 1,500 SecuriDs, and approved 745 requisition 

forms. Additionally, there are several complex troubleshooting issues that routinely 

require HIR support, such as assisting with integration of third-party vendor products 

within the House environment (cloud products, telecom, etc.), and mobility 

applications, among other items. 

Question 30: It is my understanding that HIR is currently reviewing its Security Policy 

for Protecting House Data in Cloud (HISPOL 17) to increase the transparency and 

efficiency of the reviewing process for authorizing the use House Data in cloud 

services. What kind of changes is HIR looking at? 

Answer: HIR refined the scope of its cloud security policy review as defined in 

HISPOL 17 by focusing on systems that store House data versus systems that only 

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store publicly shared data (i.e., social media, email marketing tools, etc.). HIR has 

streamlined the review process and intends to leverage a cloud registry that includes 

cloud product risks. 

Question 31: A number of member offices unofficially use cloud-based products in 

unauthorized ways for example using cloud word-processors to work on legislation or 

cloud based online forms to capture signatures for appropriations letters. Of course, the 

desire to use the products is understandable because they offer many benefits, but 

there is significant risk to offices that do this. Will upgrading to Office 365 be able to 

provide member offices the benefits of these cloud services without the same level of 

risk? What are some of the biggest benefits that member offices can expect to seem 

from upgrading to Microsoft Office 365? What are the benefits to the House as a 

whole? 

Answer: From a risk perspective, using Microsoft Word instead of unauthorized cloudbased word processors provides these benefits without the same level of risk. The 

Office 365 suite is an approved House cloud service that incorporates the same 

collaborative benefits afforded by products like Google Docs with the following benefits. 

Benefits for the House as a whole: 

• Ensures protection and integrity of House data and improved ability to support 

customers 

• Improves the security of data through remote desktop software patches that 

prevent exploitation of known vulnerabilities 

• Provides Speech and Debate protections incorporated into our contractual 

agreement with Microsoft to protect data in Office 365 

• Available as an enterprise service from the CAO that any office can use readily 

rather than purchase other cloud services 

• HIR Technology Partners provide full support to help customers with Office 365 

free of charge 

Benefits for individual offices: 

• 5 Terabytes of secure cloud storage for each user with One Drive 

• Ability to edit files in real-time with multiple users 

• Share files with users across the House via links rather than email attachments 

• Ability to automatically save and access previous file versions without taking any 

extra storage space 

Question 32: It is the Committee's understanding that House email services are on 

track be transferred to a Microsoft US government cloud data center by the end of this 

year. Could you please provide an update on this? 

Answer: HIR is currently planning to migrate all users from on-premises Microsoft 

Exchange to Exchange Online before the end of the calendar year. HIR has prepared 

for this by successfully piloting this process and transferring email services for the entire 

CAO to Microsoft's U.S. government cloud data center(s) last year. HIR is planning to 

complete the House-wide migration during the August 2019 recess period to minimize 

the impact to customers. 

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Question 33: How will moving House email services to the cloud impact the 

cybersecurity of our email system? 

Answer: Office 365's cloud email services are built to the highest compliance 

specifications, which is why a majority of the Executive Branch agencies are 

using Office 365, including the Department of Defense, as well as many Fortune 

500 companies. Microsoft also obtained FedRAMP certification for Office 365 in 

the U.S. Government Community Cloud environment where House data is 

stored. 

Question 34: What are some of the biggest benefits that member offices can expect to 

seem from moving email services to the cloud? What are the benefits to the House as 

a whole? 

Answer: The greatest benefits of migrating email services to the cloud include: 

• Increased inbox storage capacity: up to 100GB for a primary mailbox and unlimited 

archive storage 

• New webmail access: Users will have a new option to access email from a web 

browser (portal.office.com) when connected to the House network and/or using the 

VPN client to access the House network from home or another location 

• More stable email archive solution: To prepare for the large migration, all House 

user email data has been migrated out of Enterprise Vault to a larger, more stable 

archive solution- called the Online Archive 

• Improved collaboration: Users can email file links versus files as attachments and 

have the ability to set file permissions after sending the link and can collaborate 

across mobile devices 

Question 35: The Committee has long understood the House's investment at the 

Redstone Turner Data Center to be part of a strategy that allowed the House to minimize 

disruption to the users of the House network during disruptions, maintenance, etc. 

However, recent outages at the Alternate Computing Facility have impacted users 

experience for hours. Why is the House not using the Redstone Turner Data Center to 

provide uninterrupted access to the House network? What tangible benefits should 

ordinary users of the House network expect from our substantial investment at Redstone 

Turner? Was the Committee wrong in its expectation? 

Answer: As the Committee is aware, the House has a business continuity and 

recovery posture that includes geographically dispersed data centers. This 

posture ensures House data is replicated to other locations to allow recovery from 

a disaster. For many IT services, the backup location is Redstone Turner and all 

CAO data hosted on premises is migrated to the backup in real time. 

Tier One services such as email, mobile support, and network and communications are 

active at both sites. While the network and associated communications paths require no 

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manual process to failover, some of the Tier One services such as email and mobile 

support do require a manual process. Their recovery can and has been executed quickly 

-usually in a matter of minutes. However, the Committee is correct that technical 

anomalies complicated failover during recent power outages at the Alternate Computing 

Facility. The CAO believes these anomalies have been resolved. 

The CAO moved the primary location of many IT services to Redstone Turner. Redstone 

Turner is a highly reliable Tier 3 facility and has proven invaluable during the recent 

challenges at the Alternate Computing Facility. 

Finally, it is worth noting that the CAO has adopted an aggressive cloud strategy and is 

actively moving email, storage, and public facing websites to the cloud, improving the 

resiliency of these services. 

Question 36: HIR is about finished with its House Cloud Strategic Plan, could you 

please discuss some of the benefits of moving House services to cloud providers? 

a. What is the timeline for implementing the policy? 

Answer: HIR has developed a Cloud Road map that tracks critical path actions 

for implementing the Cloud Strategy. HIR has already begun executing on the 

Roadmap and will continue to do so over the next few years. Some short-term 

deliverables on the Roadmap include: 

• Microsoft Office365 (end of 2019) 

• A new learning and recruiting platform (mid 2019) 

• House website migrations to the cloud (mid-late 2019) 

• Cloud Access Security Broker (mid 2019) 

• Cloud enablement of House institutional vendors (CY19-20) 

• Continued workload migration and tenancy maturation (2020 and beyond) 

b. How does moving these services into the cloud impact House 

cybersecurity? 

Answer: Moving services to the cloud provides greater access to the latest 

hardware, timely security patching and updating of software, and around-theclock monitoring of the sites and infrastructure allowing House cybersecurity 

staff to focus more on critical tasks and customer needs. Additionally, the 

cloud provides robust resiliency across multiple data centers ensuring the 

services are always available. HIR's cybersecurity program is evolving to 

account for the shift to the cloud by prioritizing Fed RAMP authorized 

solutions, developing security and risk management policies and frameworks 

that work within a cloud environment, and implementing security tools that are 

purpose-built to maximize visibility and control of the cloud environments. 

c. Will there be some services that will continue to be hosted in House data 

centers? 

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Answer: Yes, House data centers will continue to be leveraged for certain 

workloads and capabilities. 

d. What analysis is HIR doing to determine which services hare hosted in 

the cloud and which are hosted in House data centers? 

Answer: HIR has developed an Application Rationalization Framework to 

assist leadership with making data driven decisions about where to host 

specific workloads. This is in addition to HIR's cloud-first approach for 

procuring new Enterprise services. 

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Questions for the Record from the House Administration Republican Office 

Question 1: Given the requirement to maintain a public campus, unique and extended 

protections should be required to prevent inadvertent or nefarious access to House 

information systems. What are the plans and measures being considered/implemented to 

provide additional protections against inadvertent data loss in public settings from House 

information systems, including from direct introduction of non-House systems to the 

network, over-the-air data capture/passive data-sniffing, non-House staff accessing nonattended systems, non-authenticated access (shared or stolen passwords/identities), and 

malicious file introductions? 

a. What steps are being taking to remediate possible insider threat types of 

activities? 

Answer: HIR has made extensive investments in cybersecurity and network management 

platforms and toolsets to strengthen the House's cybersecurity capabilities. However, 

opportunities exist to further leverage this investment through continued implementation 

and optimization activities. Based on the current business and technical operating realities 

of the House, the largest vulnerabilities are employees, contractors, or other trusted 

parties who may intentionally or unintentionally try to harm the House through their 

approved access to the networks, systems, services, and/or data. 

To mitigate this risk, the Office of Cybersecurity will implement an insider threat program 

and port control program to identify, assess, and respond to risks and events related to 

insider access. To address this over the coming months, the Office of Cybersecurity, in 

conjunction with other HIR stakeholders, will review the current toolset configurations, 

status, and reporting capabilities and better integrate the toolsets and reporting to 

enhance their value. Additionally, HIR plans to implement the following initiatives to help to 

mitigate the insider threat: 

Short-term Initiatives: 

• Enhance port, protocol, and service limitation controls 

• The goal is to obtain complete visibility of all devices accessing network 

resources, including the ability to identify House-owned or approved devices. 

Additionally, the goal is to develop the capability to control the network 

access of any device, including the ability to block, quarantine, or isolate 

risky or unapproved computing devices accessing House systems or 

resources. 

Long-term Initiatives: 

• Enhance wireless controls 

• The goal is to develop effective controls to prevent and detect 

rogue/unauthorized wireless devices and access points as well as effective 

management and control policies for wireless capabilities. 

• Implement advanced data protection capabilities 

• The goal is to develop required policies, mechanisms, and detections to 

control the review, transfer, disclosure, or loss of information to unauthorized 

individuals inside or outside the House. 

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• Develop insider threat program 

• The goal is to develop methodologies, practices, and tools to detect, limit, 

and prevent individuals with authorized access to House systems from 

intentionally exceeding or misusing access to negatively affect the 

confidentiality, integrity, or availability of House systems or resources. 

Question 2: Phase 1 of the new child care center was opened this January. While you 

have physically expanded the facility have you had the opportunity to examine and 

evaluate the operations of the Center? 

a. What changes, if any, have been made to operations? Has the curriculum 

been reviewed? 

b. Have you experienced any major concerns from the parents who bring 

their children there? 

Answer: The major operational changes are new positions created for the expansion that 

ensure continuity in child development and safety and provide improved services for 

enrolled children and their families. For example, Age-Group Coordinators have been 

added to the administrative team and are dedicated to each of the three age groups 

(infant, toddler, and preschool). They provide more oversight and support to the 

classrooms and spearhead curriculum decisions and enrichment opportunities for each of 

the age groups. The Nurse position has been added to provide more oversight to health 

and safety within the Center, and dedicated kitchen staff allow the classroom teachers and 

the administrators to focus on the children and families. 

As the Center continues to adapt to its new space and prepare for its second expansion, it 

will continue to engage in an ongoing process of program improvement. That includes 

collecting data about practices and customer feedback and using that information to 

create plans for improved operations and enrichment opportunities. 

The vast majority of parents have been very positive about the expansion. The bulk of 

parent concerns raised since the Center expanded to the O'Neill House Office Building 

have centered around parking and security. Some concerns that came up about the 

physical space have included the positioning of classroom telephones/telephone cords, 

the hardwood floors for newly mobile infants, and the weight of the doors into and 

between classrooms as well as the main entry door into the O'Neill Child Care Center 

space. The Center's administrators are working with the Architect of the Capitol, House 

Sergeant at Arms, and U.S. Capitol Police to address those concerns. 

The Center also receives the occasional parent concern about typical child 

development/child care issues, including sleep and other routines, contagious illness, 

biting, and other challenging behaviors. For example, concerns have been expressed over 

infants acclimating to the new crib area that does not have floor to ceiling walls. The 

design ensures that caretakers can supervise infants by sight and sound at all times as 

required for the Center's continued accreditation by the National Association for the 

Education of Young Children. Working within the appropriate confines, the Center's faculty 

has and will continue to work with parents to address their concerns and help children 

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successfully and safely transition to their new environment. 

Question 3: The House's Wounded Warrior Program is one of the most popular 

initiatives. Currently the program has a balance of nearly $7 million dollars and is 

requesting another $3 million dollars in FY2020. Why can't we spend the money? It 

is not because of a lack of disabled veterans seeking employment. Would you 

recommend any program changes to make this hiring process more efficient? 

Answer: Since its inception, more than 250 disabled and/or wounded veterans have 

participated in the Program. Since 2017, the Program has continuously set records for the 

number of participating Fellows. In January of 2017, there were only 35 active Fellows in 

the Program. As of May 6, 2019, there were 61 active Fellows in the Program. Another 16 

Fellows are scheduled to start on June 3rd, 2019 and as many as 10 more will start in July 

2019. It is anticipated there will be close to 100 active Fellows by the end of December 

2019. 

With record levels of participation coupled with a rising average fellowship salary, which 

has now reached $47,000, the Program anticipates annual spending in calendar year 

2020 will approach $5 million dollars. As such, assuming funding levels remain flat and 

fellowship participation continues to grow, the Program will not need to request a funding 

increase until FY 2022 or possibly FY 2023. 

The Program's recent growth is due, in part, because of its improved recruitment efforts. 

The CAO is also exploring options to rebrand and better publicize the program. The CAO 

believes that there are other ways the program can improve, specifically in areas related 

to Fellow placement in district offices, the timing of applicant selections, and Fellow 

training opportunities. 

The program's administrators generally find the veterans who would benefit the most from 

the Program's career transition assistance are in congressional districts around the 

country. Our fellowships provide a unique and often life-changing opportunity to veterans 

in cities like Cheyenne, Maryville, or Woodstock. Notwithstanding the importance of the 

legislative and oversight activities occurring on Capitol Hill in D.C. offices, the knowledge, 

skills, and abilities gained by Fellows in the district offices can also afford our veterans 

with valuable professional experiences. 

Veterans in district offices forge partnerships with key stakeholders from local, state, and 

federal government agencies as well as non-profit organizations. The training and 

experiences gained by working in the district offices make the veterans from our Program 

a viable employee in their home area once they complete their fellowship. In fact, over the 

history of our program, most veterans from district offices have moved into a full-time role 

in their local community. 

Currently there is no time limit as to how long offices have to make a hiring 

decision. There are offices that may take nine or ten months to make a hiring decision 

despite receiving a considerable volume of qualified applicants. Limiting the timing of 

applicant selections would benefit the applicants, the participating office that could use the 

22 
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Fellow's support, and the other Member offices that have expressed interest in the 

program and are waiting for an opportunity to participate themselves. 

Finally, the CAO believes that allowing Members to use their MRA on their office's desired 

training would help enhance the Fellows' contributions to their respective offices. 

Currently, Members are at liberty to utilize their MRA to enhance the professional 

development of their permanent staff. This may include staff attending conferences, 

forums, seminars, or other training not readily available to House staff. Training not only 

fosters good morale and job satisfaction but also increases the skill sets for all who 

participate. 

Members recognize the inherent value of their Fellows and are often committed to hiring 

their Fellows following the completion of their two-year assignment. Accordingly, Members 

would like to invest in the professional development of their Fellows as if there were their 

own staff. This has elicited an increase in requests from Members to use their MRA to 

send their Fellows to seminars, conferences, etc. 

As we move into 2019, the Program will continue placing a premium on professional 

development by expanding the orientation program to five days. Additionally, the Program 

is creating an advanced orientation program for seasoned Fellows to enhance their 

understanding of House operations. 

Although the Program has an outstanding professional development program, it lacks the 

ability to target training for the specific needs and interest of a Member office. As such, 

Members should be authorized to utilize their MRA to send Fellows for training, 

conferences, or professional development as they deem appropriate. 

Question 4: Last year the Legislative Branch bill provided $20,000 per Member office 

for the sole purpose of paid internships, effective April 1 regulations authorizing it 

were implemented. Currently, how many Members are taking advantage of this 

program? 

Answer: As of the end of Apri12019, 146 Member offices are employing House 

Program Interns. 

Question 5: Last year the Office of Employee Advocacy was created to offer 

assistance to employees as they navigate the Congressional Accountability Act's 

dispute process. That office falls under your organization. How has the roll-out of this 

office gone? Are staff taking advantage of the office's services? 

Answer: The rollout of the Office of Employee Advocacy (OOEA) has been 

successful. Since hiring the Director of the OOEA in September 2018, the CAO has 

retained experienced employment and litigation attorneys. As of May 2019, the OOEA 

composed of four attorneys (the Director, one Senior Associate Counsel, and two 

Associate Counsel) and a Paralegal, with a Legal Secretary to be added in late Spring 

2019. 

23 
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Working with the CAO's Communications and Marketing Team, the OOEA has engaged a 

targeted marketing strategy to inform the House community of OOEA's mission and its nocharge, complainant-side legal services. The marketing initiative has included various 

forms of communications media and outreach aimed at employees located in Washington, 

D.C., and in district offices across the country. 

Since opening its doors, the OOEA has counseled and/or represented House employees 

on a wide range of matters. It has handled 97 legal issues and cases that House 

employees have presented to the OOEA for consultation, advice, or 

representation. Employees across the country and across the House's business units are 

taking advantage of the OOEA's services, including employees in Member offices, 

Committee offices, and the offices of the various Officers. 

The OOEA workload continues to grow as awareness of the OOEA grows. 

Question 6: It is our understanding that last year the CAO's finance office was reviewed 

by an outside consulting firm. What were the recommendations from that study; when will 

they be implemented and how will they help Member offices? 

Answer: An independent, comprehensive assessment of the CAO's finance division was 

completed in September 2017 and provided the CAO with 30 actionable 

recommendations. The recommendations focused on codifying the CAO's financial 

management framework, improving customer service, and human capital improvementsall of which will improve accuracy, accountability, and customer engagement. Since the 

assessment, the CAO has worked to implement the recommendations. For instance, The 

CAO is working on the ongoing development of its internal policies and procedures to be 

completed and deployed in May 2019. In addition, a pilot project is currently underway 

using in-house knowledge management technology for CAO employees to establish and 

share precedents and resolution experiences. The knowledge management initiative will 

aid in standardizing activities using the appropriate process, procedure, and policy 

documents and preserve valuable organizational insight. Implementation of all the 

recommendations is on track to be completed by end of 2019. The goal of this effort is for 

Member offices to receive more efficient and seamless customer experiences through 

routine transactional services executed by employees with improved operational 

knowledge and resources. 

24 
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Philip G. Kiko Ch1sf Admu1!SH<ltlve OffiCtH 

~ffirr of t!Jr 

l!t.!Jtef I!Ibministratibe ®fftcer 

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lmm:ibington, i!f.l( 20515-6860 

MEMORANDUM 

TO: 2· onorable Zoe Lofgren 

.. · .· h · rson, Committee on House Administration 

M(\ { )i I G. K1ko 

( , .I 1\ · V · ' Chief Administrative Officer \~ ) 

SUBJECT: CAO Recruiting and Diversity Strategies 

DATE: May 15,2019 

HB-28. The Capitol 

This memorandum is in response to your request for information at the April 9, 2019, 

Committee on House Administration hearing entitled "House Officer Priorities for 2019 

and Beyond." The information outlined below provides insight into the Office of the Chief 

Administrative Officer's (CAO) recruiting and hiring activities to ensure diverse, qualified 

candidates to serve in our organization. 

The CAO Human Resources (CAO-HR) team is responsible for designing and 

implementing the CAO's recruiting and hiring program. With over 700 employees who 

execute a broad spectrum of services for the House, the CAO organization is inherently 

diverse. It employs accountants, engineers, technology experts, childcare professionals, 

and skilled laborers of varying ethnicities, gender, and educational backgrounds. 

To ensure we recruit diverse candidates to deliver the many services the organization 

provides, the CAO adheres to its strategic plan employee goal to recruit from a growing 

and diverse group of applicant pools. We are currently deploying a new cloud 

technology that will enhance and simplify the recruitment processes for both prospective 

hires and hiring managers. Once deployed, the new system will free up CAO-HR 

resources that can be dedicated to expanding CAO diversity and inclusion initiatives in 

the 116th Congress, such as forging relationships with diversity-related professional 

associations, local colleges, and attending job fairs to continuously attract diverse, 

qualified talent. 

Strategic Planning Framework and Technology Upgrade: 

The CAO's recruitment activities are guided by the CAO and CAO-HR strategic plans. 

As illustrated in the graphic, the recruiting and hiring efforts are directly linked through 
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Objective 4.1 of the CAO's Employee goal, which requires the deployment of a talent 

framework for our organization. 

The CAO-HR strategic goal to "Recruit 

Talent" ensures the CAO organization has a 

rigorous process to recruit and hire qualified 

staff. These activities are guided by an 

objective to "Enhance the CAO's recruiting 

program by improving collaboration between 

HR and hiring managers, increasing 

applicant pools, and strengthening candidate 

assessment strategies." 

By including specific language in this 

objective to "increase applicant pools" our 

team is focused on expanding our outreach 

activities to attract diverse talent into our 

organization. In 2018 alone, the CAO posted 

over 70 job announcements and filled 115 positions through our recruiting and hiring 

process. During these efforts, the CAO-HR team received and manually reviewed 

approximately 100 resumes per job announcement. Based on the number of 

applications, we do not believe there is a shortage of interest from candidates wishing to 

serve the CAO organization. 

However, the manual nature of our processes coupled with the associated workload 

demands that we improve our recruiting and hiring program has stretched our team thin. 

To this end, we are currently designing a cloud-based applicant tracking system for 

deployment this summer. This new automation will (1) create more efficient processes; 

(2) enhance the experience for applicants, hiring managers, and the HR team (3) 

provide access to data and metrics to improve the way we recruit and hire a diverse 

talent into the organization; and (4) free up CAO-HR resources that can be dedicated to 

organizational diversity and inclusion initiatives. 

Accomplishments in the 1151

h Congress and planned activities for the 1161

h 

Congress: 

1151

h Congress: 

• Developed a comprehensive list of diversity related career sites and professional 

associations to expand where our jobs are posted. 

• Increased the minimum days a vacancy announcement will remain posted from 5 

days to 10 days to expand our applicant pool. 

• Increased minimum number of interview panel members and required that one panel 

member be from outside the hiring department to ensure diverse opinions contribute 

to the hiring selection. 
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1161

h Congress: 

• Deploying an applicant tracking system to automate our manual hiring process. The 

system will allow the GAO organization to: 

o Track key recruiting/hiring data (e.g., number of applicants received, number 

of qualified applicants, number of applicants interviewed, number of 

applicants hired) 

o Analyze how many applications we receive through each recruiting source 

(e.g. professional and trade associations, colleges/university, House.gov, 

USAJOBS, other) 

o Dedicate more CAO-HR resources to diversity and inclusion initiatives 

• Building relationships with diversity related professional associations and career 

sites that align with the types of occupations within the GAO. For example, 

developing connections with the National Association of Black Accountants for 

finance-related jobs. 

• Enhancing entry level recruitments by building relationships with local colleges, 

universities and trade schools. 

• Attend targeted job fairs to increase diversity and outreach for mid-career and senior 

level positions. In March, CAO-HR and Finance attended a job fair for returning 

Peace Corp Volunteers. 

### 
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129 


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itltrlwl t. :IJt.lSitnstu ]Josrph (. :Puotl,J .llnsttHIOl t">rnn.ll l}rpU(I1 311!SilfiiO!f\E!Ifl,l\ 

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TO: 

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Wasbmgton, Dlt 20513-9990 

MEMORANDUM 

The Honorable Zo.: Lofgren. Chairperson 

Committee on House Administration 

The Honorable Rodney Davis. Ranking Minority Member 

Committee on House Administration 

FROM: Michael Ptasienski #J/t"' -:::?::::::::::,.. 

Inspector General 

DATE: 

SUBJECT: 

May 14.2019 

Response to Questions for the Record - "House Ofticer Priorities lor 2019 

and Beyond'' Hearing 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide the Committee with an overview of the important 

activities of the Office of Inspector General (O!G) at the April 9. 2019 hearing titled "House 

Officer Priorities for 2019 and Beyond'". I have included responses. below to the questions lor 

the record. and would be happy to meet with you at your convenience. if you would like to 

discuss these or any other issues. 

Questions for the Record from House Administration Majority: 

Question I: The Inspector General is responsible for overseeing the audit of the House's 

financial statements on an annual basis: what does that proct:ss entail? 

The OIG solicits and evaluates proposals before recommending the selection of the financial 

statement auditor. Once the contract is awarded, the OIG manages the contract with the 

exttrnal auditing firm. In addition to vetting all contractor staff: this responsibility includes 

ensuring the vendor performs in accordance with the contract terms. adheres to all House 

policies. and meets all contract deliverablcs. The OIG also serves as the liaison between the 

external auditor and all House stakeholders. This function includes coordinating meetings, 

assisting with document requests. and ensuring the follow-up on action items. 
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Question 2: You have testified before the House Subcommittee on Legislative Branch 

Appropriations that your funding request remains flat but arc the needs of the I louse the same 1( 

you to be able to operate without an increas<: in funding? If the needs of the House are greater 

how are you managing to provide adequate oversight necessary to fultill your mission? 

The operations of the House change over time and we have evolved our staff and expertise t 

meet those needs. For example, where significant time and effort had once been required to 

audit financial transactions. the automation of manual processes. increased anal)1ics. and th< 

use of electronic storage has made financial auditing more efficient and less resource 

intensive. The greater n:liancc on technology. across the House. has increased the need tor 

our oftke to do much more auditing of the systems and networks that support House 

operations. We han: also worked extremely hard to become more efficient internally by 

strengthening our back-office operations. 

To date, we have been able to meet the changing needs of the House by utilizing existing 

resources. We continuously invest in and develop our stalTto ensure we can meet current 

and future !louse needs while operating as cftectively and efficiently as possible. Whcnevc1 

possible. we utilize our internal staff fi:lr audit work. The OIG has contracting funds that ma 

bt: utilized to meet specific or urgent needs that cannot be fultilled using our permanent stafl 

Question 3: One of the tocuses of your office includes fraud prevention; have you seen any 

scams or frauds against the House for the !16th Congress? If so. what arc they? 

There has been one reported case where unsolicited boxes of toner were sent to a House 

office along with an invoice. The vendor tht:n called the office demanding payment for the 

items. Working together with the Office oftht: Chief Administrative Oflicer (CAO) and 

Office of General Counsel (OGC). we have emphasized onict: education so Members and 

staffwon"t fall victim to these unscrupulous vendors. As recently as Monday, May 13. the 

CAO. OGC. and the OIG met with the House Professional Administrative Managers (PAM) 

group to provide an update and remind them of the resources thc:y have available to protect 

themselves from these scams. 

Question 4: What have you seen as the most popular scams against the House communi!)' in 

general? \Vhat steps has your office taken to address fraud or scams that are occurring in the 

House? Has law enforcement nt:eded to be involved? 

Since 20! I. the House has received solicitations from toner. Yellow Pages listings. 

subscriptions. and domain name listing vendors. Tht: toner vendors have been the most 

aggressive and prevalent. The OlG has taken the following steps to address tht:se fraud 

scams: 

• Educate and alert House oftlces through Dear Colleagues Lel/ers. 

• Provide information on fraud scams and prevention methods on the OIG website. 
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• Work with Office of General Counsel (OGC) and Office of Financial Counseling 

(OFC) to coordinate fraud prevention tactics. 

• Provided names of vendors to OFC/ Accounting to prevent payment to these 

questionable vendors. 

• Coordinated with the mailroom to stop delivery of toner from confirmed frauduknt 

vendors and return-to-sender. 

• Refer offices that are being harassed by aggressive vendors to OGC. 

• Monitor OIG hot! inc and respond accordingly. 

In October 2011. there were discussions with the US Posta! Inspection Service to determine 

what actions could be pursued against the toner vendors. It was revealed that gathering 

enough evidence against specific vendors would be very time consuming for !-louse offices. 

In addition. these vendors change names and locations ti·equently. making criminal cases 

very dil1icult to prosecute. Given that inforn1ation. we chose to instead focus on educating 

House offices. These efforts continue and I believe they have been very successful. 

Question 5: With such rapid changes in technology cyber security remains a constant issue; what 

are some of the recommendations the House should adopt to better address cybcr security'? 

Cyber Security is a major issue and one that requires constant vigilance due rapidly evolving 

threats and bad actors. The House needs to continue to invest in the people. processes. and 

t.:chnology that can help protect !-louse networks, systems, and data. 

The management of technology at the House is decentralized. Each office has a great deal of 

autonomy in the selection of what tools the:; use and provisioning access to systems. With 

this autonomy comes great responsibility. This presents uniqut: challenges not found in other 

organizations. Typically. there is a central organization. stafTed by experienced IT 

professionals, that have the overall authority and responsibilities when it comes to managing 

IT configurations and access. The mission and core competency of Member and Committee 

offices is not and should not be managing IT. I believe the House should provide and 

manage more IT services centrally. 

In our technology environment, Members and staff arc the most important de tense against 

cybcr security threats. Understanding the risks. being vigilant. adhering to House policies. 

exhibiting good cyber security practices, and reporting issues promptly is our best defense. 

!laving strong. I louse-wide IT policies that are actively monitored for compliance and 

consistently enforced is an extremely critical facet of protecting the House. 

Question 6: Do you know the last study that your office performed on strategic IT planning for 

the House? Is this an area that you think should be explored? 

In 1016. our oflice looked at the overall structure of IT and how it is managed at the House. 

Succinctly. today. there is no central process to establish I louse-wide IT priorities. make 

strategic decisions. and prioritize !T investments. 
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Today, IT planning and direction is largely addressed independently within each House 

organization. As such, their IT decisions arc primarily focused on their own mission and 

s~rvice priorities. The result is that IT planning across the I louse tends to be more tactical 

versus strategic in nature. 

This is an area and a challenge that should be examined further. 

Question 7: When is the last time that the !G has done a holistic review of the overall 

cybersecurity posture of the House and its Officers? Are there plans to undertake such a review? 

In 2014 the OIG conducted a review of alii louse IT Policies (IIISPOLs) and Publications 

(HISPU!3s) against government and industry cybcrsccurity best practices to identify potential 

gaps or areas where policy could be enhanced. 

Since that review, new computing capabilities and House-wide tools (such as Otlice 365) 

have been introduced. In addition, there have been numerous policy updates and several ne\\ 

IT policies. A review of these policies, by the OIG. is something that should be done 

periodically. I expect we will again be performing this type of review in the future. 

Question 8: Arc there better or more d1icient ways to assess the cybersccurity posture of the 

whole House and its Ofticcrs than doing a single House-wide review'> 

Making sure the proper House-wide IT policies are in place. communicated, and enforced is 

critical to maintaining a strong cybersecurity posture at the I louse. These policies outline the 

roles and responsibilities each individual and organization has with respect to IT equipment 

systems and networks. As these policies are universal and applicable House-wide. they need 

to be continuously evaluated to ensure they arc comprehensive and clear. 

Today. assessing cybersecurity practices is done hy system, by process, or by organization. 

The OIG conducts numerous audits annually that look at various aspects of how 

cybersecurity program elements are implemented. Because each organization is responsible 

for implementing certain aspects of the program, the tools, people, and processes involved 

often differ from organization to organization. Assessing each organization and their 

respective processes is very time consuming and rct1ects the environment at a point-in-time. 

Greater centralization of IT functions and responsibilities would streamline how IT is 

managed at the House. Processes would be much more universal in nature and managed in a 

consistent fashion. Operations and accountahility would also be much less silocd and make 

assessing cybersecurity much easier. 

Question 9: What is your plan to attract and retain a diverse workforce'? 

The O!G established a formal Diversity Plan in 2010 with the foundational philosophy of 

supporting workforce diversity. Our oflice embraces the philosophy that success requires a 
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culture that encourages understanding and utilization of the talents and capabilities of 

employees from all backgrounds and all organizational levels. Our plan is currt:ntly being 

updated as part of our regular review process for policy and procedures done for each ne\\ 

Congress. Updates to the policy incorporate recent changes in the !louse, to include aspects 

ofCHA Res. 116-4. 

Recruiting and retaining stall is challenging. My oft1cc employs both accounting and IT 

professionals. These skill sets are very much in demand across both the public and privatt: 

sectors. We compete with federaL state, and local government entities as well as the many 

professional services organizations that operate in the DC an::a. 

The employees of the Office oflnspector General come from a wide variety of backgrounds 

and organizations. We have staff that have joined us from the military. private sector. and 

other federal agencies. We only hire experienced professionals and identify candidates via 

public job announcements as well as targeted postings within the IG community and with 

professional associations. 

When selecting staff. we look at the overall make-up of our organization and strive to have a 

workforce that looks like the world we live in. Having people with diverse backgrounds and 

experiences brings different persp<:ctives to the work we do. lt helps us look at problems 

from different angles and helps us appreciate different points-of: vie\\. Succinctly, having a 

diverse workforce makes us better at our jobs. 

Finding a diverse pool of candidates is a challenge that the accounting and IT professions 

lace everywhere. Professional associations and other organizations are working hard to 

attract a broader section of the population into these professions. We all need to continue to 

lind ways to attract and then retain these qualified professionals. 

Questions for the Record from House Administration Minority: 

Question I: From your perspective as the !louse Inspector General what do you see as the 

biggest risks or challenges associated with House operations? 

Cyber security is clearly the biggest risk at the House. The decentralized management of IT 

at the !louse makes protection of networks. computers. hand-held devices. and applications 

extremely challenging. Offices have a great deal of autonomy and responsibility when it 

comes to making IT decisions and managing their IT operations. More and more networked 

devices arc added every day and each of these devices provides another potential avenue that 

can be exploited. 

Making sure systems are patched and updated is just part of the challenge. The House 

cybcrsecurity professionals work hard to protect the institution. but they can't do it alone. 

User behavior and adherence to !louse IT policies and best practices is critical. Users need 

to understand how critical they arc to the overall cyber security defense of the House. 
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Protecting user credentials. avoiding phishing attempts. using approved applications. 

protecting data. and not inadvertently downloading mal ware are extremely important. 

Question 2: The inventory and more hroadly asset management within the House has been a 

significant challenge for a number of years. This weakness has been noted numerous times on the 

House's annual financial audit. How can this be improved? 

House asset management policies should be re-examined. The current policy has not been 

updated in many years. does not focus on risk. and is based upon the purchase price of the 

item. Items that meet a cost threshold (currently $500) are then tracked until they are 

disposed. In many cases. items have no monetary value. yet the House continues to track 

them. 

The House should look at the risk associated with each asset type being purchased and 

detem1ine if it should be continually tracked. A risk-based approach would likely focus on 

tracking those assets storing data or those easily sold and converted to cash. Accordingly. 

assets of little value or without !louse data would not be tracked. Processes can then be put 

in place to track the acquisition. transfer. and disposal of all items that have been deemed 

important versus trying to track a vast number of items that arc not. 

Question 3: The annuallinancial audit conducted by outside independent auditors is a function 

your office oversees. It is my understanding that you have changed auditing firms. why'? 

Every few years the 010 sends out a Request for Proposal (RFP) to public accounting lirms 

to solicit bids on the House Financial Statement Audit. Historically the House has had 

difficulty in getting qualified firms to bid on the contract. There are several reasons for this. 

Larger fim1s tend to viev. the job as too small when compared to other governmental audit 

opportunities. Many larger fim1s may also employ lobbyists and, for that reason. do not bid 

on the work. Smaller firms tend to lack the expertise and experience needed to conduct the 

audit. As such. the pool of potential firms that submit proposals and meet the qualitications 

necessary is very limited. 

For the 2018 Financial Statement audit we selected a new firm that has the expertise to do the 

v.ork and whose proposal was considen:d the best value tor the government. The contract 

was issued lor the FY2018 audit \vith four option years. At the end of that period (or if 

options arc not exercised). the 010 will again send out an RFP lor the next contract. 

Question 4: How docs your office reach its determination in selecting a financial auditor'? 

The 010 issues a Request for Proposal ( RFP) that outlines the criteria for selecting the linn 

that will perform the Financial Statement Audit. The criteria consist of: 

• The Independence of the Contractor 
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• Commitment to Meet Established Timeframes 

• Qualifications and Experience of Contractor 

• Technical Merits of Contractor's Approach 

• Qualifications of Personnel 

• Firm Policies and Procedures 

• Price and Period of Performance 

An Evaluation Committee is established to review all proposals. They also perform 

reference checks and select the most qualified firm which oflhs the best value to the House. 

This selection is then presented to the Committee on House Administration for approval. 

Question 5: !n your opinion. how often should we be recompeting the financial audit contract'' 

The latest contract for the Financial Statement audit was for one year with four option years. 

Base term contracts with option years are normal for these types of contracts. I think this is 

appropriate as it gives the House flexibility while also giving the vendor an incentive to 

perform and fully meet the terms of the contract. 

If you have questions. please feel free to contact my oflice at (202) 226-1250.