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57–844 2010

OVERSIGHT OF THE CLERK, SERGEANT AT ARMS, 

CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, AND INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE 

ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

Held in Washington, DC, Wednesday, April 28, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration 

( 

Available on the Internet: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/administration/index.html 


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COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

ZOE LOFGREN, California, 

Vice-Chairwoman 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California, 

Ranking Minority Member 

KEVIN MCCARTHY, California 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

JAMIE FLEET, Staff Director 

VICTOR ARNOLD-BIK, Minority Staff Director 


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OVERSIGHT OF THE CLERK, SERGEANT AT 

ARMS, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, 

AND INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE HOUSE 

OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2010 

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

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:17 a.m., in Room 

1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Robert A. Brady 

[chairman of the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Brady, Lofgren, Capuano, Davis of California, Lungren, and Harper. 

Staff Present: Tom Hicks, Senior Election Counsel; Matt Pinkus, 

Professional Staff/Parliamentarian; Kyle Anderson, Press Director; 

Joe Wallace, Legislative Clerk; Greg Abbott, Professional Staff; 

Darrell O’Connor, Professional Staff; Shervan Sebastian, Staff Assistant; Victor Arnold-Bik, Minority Staff Director; Karin Moore, 

Minority Legislative Counsel; Salley Collins, Minority Press Secretary; Katie Ryan, Minority Professional Staff; and Mary Sue 

Englund, Minority Professional Staff. 

The CHAIRMAN. We now will convene the House Administration 

Committee oversight hearing with the officers of the House and the 

acting inspector general. They will have the opportunity give us an 

overview of current activities and plans for new initiatives. 

Each of them reports to and meets with members of the committee on a regular basis in their weekly staff meetings to keep us 

apprised of ongoing events which may require direct oversight involvement by this committee. 

The House has developed a strong professional staff for its internal management. And the institution, as it operates today, has the 

flexibility to respond to new challenges and to incorporate new 

technologies while retaining its historical identity and traditions. 

I would like to ask our ranking member, Mr. Lungren, if he has 

any statement before I introduce our panel. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I think this is an important and appropriate hearing, and I 

thank you for holding it. We do have a responsibility to have these 

hearings to find out from the officers of the House about their operations and to raise questions that may have been raised by other 

Members with us and that we have raised, as well. 

One of the things that I think is important for us to do is to 

make public those things that we have done, all of us, in attemptVerDate Mar 15 2010 22:57 Sep 08, 2010 Jkt 057844 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A844P2.XXX A844P2

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ing to be good fiscal stewards. And I think it is important for us 

to say on the record those things that we have done in our various 

capacities and the various officers of the House in terms of ensuring that we have been trying to operate budgets in as prudent a 

way as possible. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our constituents to do that. 

I have been concerned about some of the comments I have received from some other Members about some of the services that 

they have received. One of the things that I have been concerned 

about is the level of staff training that is going on, the way financial counselors have been assigned. And one of the things that concerns me is how we moved some of our training away from here 

in the Capitol complex to the—I call the Ford Building the outreaches of the Capitol complex, making it considerably difficult for 

us to attract staff people over there because of the difficulty that 

they have in coordinating that with the work that they have. 

We all know that our staff oftentimes need to respond to particular requests, immediate requests that they receive from Members of Congress. And it is very helpful to have them as close as 

possible in those circumstances. And I have been informed that, in 

May alone, staffers interested in attending 11 of the 36 courses offered will have to go over to the Ford Building and have it there, 

when, in the past, we have had those particular courses offered 

right here. 

And among those classes that are sent over there is one that I 

think is extremely important to Members of Congress, and that is 

instructing our staff on how to manage the MRA. There is nothing 

that can get a Member in more trouble than mismanaging the 

MRA. And there are some very specific nuances that, frankly, are 

not caught anywhere else except here in the House of Representatives. The new employee orientation, staff assistant 101 and intern 

101, those are essential programs. 

One of the things I would bring up—and I wonder if there is any 

attention to this with respect to the interns—is, I have at least 

heard anecdotally that we have had an increase in the number of— 

well, I don’t know if I would call it an increase. There have been 

a number of instances in which staff-led tours have become only 

staff-led tours to the film that is available over at the CVC. And 

then some people have come out with groups as large as 50 and 

found out whoever the staff person was that brought them over 

there is no longer there, and then we have our folks that I affectionately call the ‘‘red coats’’ trying to pick up the slack. 

And I just wonder in the program that we have, in terms of intern orientation, whether or not we are—or whatever it is, staff orientation—whether or not we are making it clear that when we in 

this committee decided that we wanted to ensure that staff-led 

tours continued, we meant staff-led tours, not staff leading them 

over to the film and then leaving them and then causing difficulty 

not only with the red coats having to then try and pick it up, but, 

as I understand, then, the flow that we have created for those tours 

is interrupted. 

And this has just come to my attention. So I think it is one thing 

that we need to do. 


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I would like to specifically commend the efforts of the Office of 

the Inspector General. I think that that office has been very diligent in assisting us in attempting to eradicate what we call waste, 

fraud, and abuse. Their audit, advisory, and investigative services 

have helped to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the House. 

The Clerk of the House, that office is charged with carrying out 

a lot of things that are important to Members. And I look forward 

to hearing your testimony. 

Mr. Livingood, thank you for being here. I understand you had 

to do some travel to make sure you got back here in time. We appreciate that. 

And, Mr. Beard, we appreciate your attendance here, as well. 

And I look forward to hearing from all of our officers at this hearing. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Anybody else want to make a statement? 

I noticed our dear friend, our technical director, Sterling Spriggs, 

is here. I understand that we were going to be sent a note, but I 

would rather put you on the record. I am on Armed Services with 

about 72 Members, and there are 72 monitors. We authorized that. 

Can we authorize maybe, like, nine more monitors here? 

I feel embarrassed that I am the only one that can see what is 

going on. And I learned a long time ago that knowledge can be a 

horrible thing. I would like all my colleagues to know what is going 

on on the House floor. So it can’t be that much more expensive to 

get about eight more monitors for us. 

Mr. SPRIGGS. Consider it done. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Thank you so much. 

I would like now to introduce to everyone our panel here. 

The Clerk of the House, Lorraine Miller, who was elected to that 

position in 2007. Madam Clerk, I know that this week marks a significant milestone in your efforts to increase access and transparency to our House proceedings by introducing HouseLive, an 

interactive tool providing live stream of the House floor. I look forward to hearing your testimony on this and other initiatives to better increase service to Members, staff, and the general public. 

Wilson—I didn’t ever know that—Bill Livingood is a neighbor of 

mine, grew up right near where I grew up in Philadelphia, and 

then left on to much better things, unlike me. But anyway, Wilson 

Livingood, Bill Livingood has served as the Sergeant at Arms for 

the House since 1995. 

Let me take the time to say that your office did a great job in 

maintaining security for the House and its Members by providing 

access to visitors seeking to lobby and communicate during recent 

events which generated strong public interest in our legislative activities. And I am eager to hear about continued security improvements. 

We will then hear the testimony from Chief Administrative Officer Dan Beard, who has served in that post since 2007. As the 

House moves forward to provide greater transparency to the public, 

the Office of the CAO has taken a significant recent step by providing the statement of disbursements, SOD, online. And I look forVerDate Mar 15 2010 22:57 Sep 08, 2010 Jkt 057844 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A844P2.XXX A844P2

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ward to hearing about this and other methods to provide greater 

efficiency within the House. 

Last but not least, Terry Grafenstine is our acting inspector general for the House. We appreciate the seamless continuity that you 

have provided since Inspector General Cornell’s retirement in 2009. 

Your office overview and evaluation provides greater efficiency and 

management of our House operations. And I look forward to your 

testimony. 

And now I would like to ask the Honorable Lorraine C. Miller 

if you would please pull that microphone, push that button, and 

you are on. 

STATEMENTS OF THE HON. LORRAINE C. MILLER, CLERK, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; THE HON. WILSON 

LIVINGOOD, SERGEANT AT ARMS, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; THE HON. DANIEL P. BEARD, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; 

THERESA GRAFENSTINE, ACTING INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. LORRAINE C. MILLER 

Ms. MILLER. Thank you, Chairman Brady and Ranking Member 

Lungren and the members of the committee. Good morning. It is 

absolutely my pleasure to be with you this morning to give you a 

snapshot of the operations of the Office of the Clerk. 

Let me begin by—as you know, our organization supports the 

legislative activities of the House. And so I wanted to give you kind 

of a brief overview of how you guys have been operating. It is kind 

of illustrative of what we are doing. 

In the first session of the 111th Congress, you held 2,190 hearings. In the second session, as of Friday, April 16, the House held 

648 hearings. 

Roll call votes: In the first session of the 111th, we held 991 roll 

call votes. In the second session of the 111th, as of last evening, 

we held 226 votes. 

For bills and resolutions introduced in the House: We have introduced 6,805 bills and resolutions. We have passed, in the 111th, 

1,235 bills. We have enacted into law, public laws—in the 111th, 

160 bills have been enacted into law. 

So you can see from that we have been pretty active as a legislative body. 

For funding year 2011, our budget request to the Appropriations 

Committee is $29,299,000. On the personnel side of that, we are requesting $23,284,000, which includes two new FTEs for software 

development, which will bring our total FTEs for the Office of the 

Clerk to 263. On the non-personnel side, our request is for 

$6,015,000. That will take care of our operational—our licenses 

that we have to pay for, all of the equipment that we use. 

I want to kind of highlight some of the accomplishments that we 

feel that we have done over the last 3 years. 

We have hired a new deputy clerk for our page program, Maria 

Lopez, who is here in the audience. 

Maria, raise your hand. 

Maria has the oversight of our page program. 


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As the chairman mentioned, on Monday of this week we went 

live with our HouseLive, as I like to call it, which is a beta Web 

streaming service that will offer online realtime video of the House 

of Representatives sessions. 

Last year, you will remember we installed new LED technology 

on the summary board in the Chamber. We expect to complete that 

project upon adjournment of the House this year. And we will continue to work with the committee on the timing and the installation of that new LED technology on the main display boards. 

The Office of the Clerk launched a new oral history Web site in 

December of last year. Our Web site includes interviews with our 

former clerk, Don Anderson; the first African American page; Irving Swanson, who was the reading clerk who took the roll call 

votes to declare war on Japan, Germany, and Italy in 1941. We will 

upgrade those and more oral histories will be displayed on our Web 

site. 

We also coordinated the hosting of the World e-Parliament Conference in November of last year. Approximately 25 secretary generals of parliaments around the world convened here at the House 

of Representatives to learn more about technology and the innovations occurring. Many of the members on this committee participated in that. 

I also wanted to bring to the committee’s attention some of our 

operational activities that you might find of interest. 

Lobbying disclosure: As a result of the Honest Leadership and 

Open Government Act, the Office of the Clerk implemented a new 

lobbying disclosure system that now has approximately 5,000 lobbying registrant entries, representing some 20,000 clients currently 

registered with the Office of the Clerk. Furthermore, there are approximately 15,000 individual lobbyists now registered in the 

Clerk’s new lobbying contribution system. 

The new law requires that each lobbying registrant, as well as 

each individual lobbyist, file a quarterly report with the Office of 

the Clerk disclosing certain contributions. In the second half of 

2009, we received over 50,000 electronically filed forms. 

We have been very vigilant about the records of the House. In 

2009, our archival staff processed 3,150,400 official records of the 

House of Representatives. In addition, the first large-scale transfer 

of electronic records was completed last year when a committee 

transferred all of its records—all of its records—of the 110th Congress, which was about 19.7 gigabytes, electronically. 

Our legislative computer services: We will purchase additional 

hardware and software to meet the increased demands on the 

Clerk’s server form. More people than ever rely on the Clerk’s Web 

site for legislative information and updates. Our Web site currently 

averages about 300,000 to 500,000 hits per week, depending on the 

legislative schedule. And with this increased traffic and expanded 

information, new services that will be available on the Clerk’s site, 

we must ensure that our hardware and software are sufficient to 

meet these needs. 

We are working on trying to upgrade the House Library. We are 

working with the Architect of the Capitol to find a suitable space. 

We have records in three different locations—here, in the Cannon, 

in the Madison Building—and we are trying to combine that. And 


hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING
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we are trying to do something that is digital. Not that we need 

large stacks, but we need an area where we can—one-stop shopping for anything you want to know about the House of Representatives. 

We are engaging in one new project with the Document Room, 

and that includes the shelving of it. During the fiscal year 2011, 

the first phase of the project is planned to purchase and install a 

high-density mobile shelving system in the House Documents 

Room. This will increase our storage for our House Documents 

Room and hopefully for the Library. We anticipate that this will remove all of the antiquated and cumbersome metal boxes that we 

have been using in the Documents Room for—it seems like centuries, but years. 

At this point, we are—we have a lot of projects that we have ongoing. And I think, at this point, I would like to stop there and welcome any questions that the committee may have. Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Miller follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Wilson Livingood. You know you are going to hear that all the 

time from me. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. WILSON LIVINGOOD 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. I have to stop and see who that is. 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lungren, and members of this 

committee. It is an honor to speak to you this morning. 

And, before I begin, I would like to express my sincere gratitude 

to each member of this committee for their support for our office 

and to the Capitol Police. You enable us to provide a safer and 

more secure environment for Members, their staff, visiting diplomats, world leaders, and the many thousands of visitors who 

come here each year. And no one entity can do that alone, and I 

appreciate that support. It makes a difference for all of us. 

As an overview, the Sergeant at Arms consists of the following 

divisions: administrative and immediate office; police services and 

special events; Chamber security; information services; House garages and parking security; the new House Security Office; and the 

newly created Office of Emergency Management. 

We administer the distribution of the Members’ pins, spouse 

pins, Member congressional plates, the staff identification badges. 

Then we oversee security on the House floor and galleries, and administrate all ticketed events taking place in the House Chamber. 

Additionally, we oversee security in the House garages and administer the distribution of parking permits at the beginning of each 

new Congress. 

Working in conjunction with the United States Capitol Police, my 

office coordinates logistics for all major events involving Members 

of Congress. As the chief law enforcement officer of the House of 

Representatives, I am tasked to review and implement all issues 

relating to the safety and security of Members of Congress and all 

the visitors, staff that come to the Capitol complex, including the 

Capitol complex itself. Most of our efforts are focused in this direction. 

This morning, I would like to provide you with a summary of 

some of the efforts that the Office of the Sergeant at Arms is currently working on. 

In the administrative and immediate office, our staff has begun 

work for the preparation for the 112th Congress, to include designing and producing the Member and spouse identification pins for 

distribution in January of 2011. 

In addition, we are developing a more robust outreach program 

for gathering Member emergency contact information. We collect 

this vital information at the beginning of each new Congress so we 

can reach out and advise Members in an emergency situation. And 

we deeply appreciate each Member’s timely response to our request. 

Our appointments desk: In cooperation and coordination with the 

Senate appointments desk and the Capitol Police, we have implemented a new official business visitor badge for the Capitol. Standardization of these badges with the Senate and the Capitol Police 

provides the Capitol Police with a much more visible way to verify 


hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING
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and enforce official business visitor policies with one type of badge 

instead of two or three different types. 

Chamber security: We are currently preparing for the upcoming 

joint meeting with the President of Mexico on May 20th. In addition, we continue to review emergency evacuation plans and procedures from the House floor and galleries, and we will shortly be 

having an evacuation drill. 

Since the opening of the Capitol Visitor Center, the CVC, we 

have been able to accommodate an increasing number of visitors 

going to the House Gallery. The CVC has accommodated over 3 

million visitors since its opening in December of 2008. In the same 

span of time, we have accommodated nearly 500,000 visitors into 

the House Gallery. The opening of the CVC has allowed our Gallery visitors to be staged in a comfortable, climate-controlled, and 

secure environment. The process of staging the House Gallery line, 

instead of outside, where it is now—it is in the CVC—has allowed 

us to maintain a higher level of security in and around the House 

Chamber. 

Our House garages and parking security: The office is currently 

coordinating with the Architect of the Capitol in their upcoming 

renovation of the East Underground Garage. Additionally, we are 

in the process of reviewing and evaluating the design of the 112th 

Congress parking permit. As always, we look to enhance the security features on these decals and will work closely with the committee in the upcoming months. 

Our House Security Office: The Office of House Security is currently implementing a classified document management system to 

securely manage, track, and store all classified materials maintained by this office. 

Additionally, we have commenced an introductory operational security—that is called OPSEC, operational security—briefing for all 

House staff, which is designed to educate staff on protecting sensitive material and sensitive information. This introductory briefing 

is our initial approach to bolster OPSEC awareness throughout the 

House of Representatives. 

The Office of Information Services: We are continuing with the 

installation and configuration of a new ID badge production system. This will be a more secure system and will enable ID Services 

staff to more effectively process and issue identification badges to 

House staff and contractors. 

Information Technology has also begun the initial work on a 

complete redesign of the House Sergeant at Arms Web site. 

Changes will include incorporating a content management system 

to better manage the data on the site, integrating the former 

OEPPO Web site into the Sergeant at Arms Web site, and providing additional online forms for common requests made by the 

House for Sergeant at Arms services. 

Our police services and special events: Over the past several 

months, the number of reported threats against Members has increased, but overall for the past year we are running just about 

where we did last year. I continue to monitor this on a daily basis 

and consult and coordinate with the United States Capitol Police 

on all of these issues to ensure the safety and security of all Members. 


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Preparations are being made for the 29th Annual National Peace 

Officers Memorial Service, to be held on the west front of the Capitol at noon on May 15th. This solemn service honors the 116 law 

enforcement officers who died in the line of duty in 2009. 

We are preparing to receive, as I said earlier, the President of 

Mexico in a joint meeting of Congress on May 20th at 11:00 a.m. 

Initial meetings have been held for the annual Memorial Day 

and July 4th concerts, which are held on the west front of the Capitol. Both of these events are large-scale and well-attended. 

Our Office of Emergency Management: On February 1st, 2010, at 

the direction of this committee, the former Office of Emergency 

Planning, Preparedness, and Operations was reorganized within 

the Sergeant at Arms Office and renamed the Office of Emergency 

Management. This transition is expected to help clarify roles and 

responsibilities for emergency management. Specifically, this transition clarified the Sergeant at Arms’ responsibilities regarding coordination of life safety and continuity of government programs 

within the House after coordination with the other officers. 

I have been charged to make sure that procedures are in place 

and personnel trained for emergencies that may require Members, 

staff, and visitors to evacuate, shelter, relocate, or take other action 

based on scenarios ranging from accidents to natural disasters to 

criminal or terrorist events. I have assigned OEM the duty to ensure that effective plans are in place, coordinated, and appropriate 

information is provided and communicated to Members, staff, officers, visitors, leadership, to all. 

Similarly, I have been requested to coordinate House planning to 

ensure that the essential government functions, given any contingency, are coordinated with the other House officers, as well as my 

office. In addition, I ensure that the House Sergeant at Arms Office 

functions are able to continue in an emergency. I have directed 

OEM to actively implement strategies to coordinate the House continuity program, including the effective integration of leadership, 

committees, Members, House officers, and all other House offices 

continuity planning and preparedness efforts. I have directed OEM 

to ensure the House program is coordinated with the rest of the 

legislative branch and the executive branch continuity community. 

OEM has been fully engaged in implementing the House Sergeant at Arms’ continuity program responsibilities; is beginning to 

re-implement a comprehensive, coordinated House continuity program; and is engaged with the Senate and other legislative 

branches, executive and judicial branch elements, House organizations, and even local jurisdictional authorities through a variety of 

life safety and planning processes. 

In closing, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lungren, and members of the 

committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before this 

committee. Let me assure you of my longstanding commitment to 

provide the highest-quality support services for the House of Representatives in the safest and most secure environment possible. 

It has always been my goal and that of the House Sergeant at 

Arms to remain vigilant and security-conscious at all times. I will 

continue to keep the committee informed of all my activities. 

I will be happy to answer any questions you may have at a later 

time here. 


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[The statement of Mr. Livingood follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I thank the gentleman. 

The Honorable Daniel Beard. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. DANIEL BEARD 

Mr. BEARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to submit my testimony for the record and make 

some observations about the past year for the Office of the Chief 

Administrative Officer. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

Mr. BEARD. I am very proud of the work performed by the 675 

individuals who work in the office. They work for everyone and, in 

a sense, are kind of service agnostic. They work long hours, provide 

incredible service, and they are very proud of the role that they 

play in the legislative process. 

Over the last year—the Clerk mentioned a snapshot of her activities. Well, I would like to highlight four areas where I think that 

we have had some challenges and some successes in our activities. 

The first is in the area of employee benefits. We, as an institution, are better off if we have an employee base who has been here 

for a long time and there isn’t a high turnover rate. We can’t compete with the private sector in the area of salary, but we certainly 

can provide a good benefit package to our employees. 

So I have been very pleased to work with the committee to raise 

the student loan repayment level over the past year and to work 

to establish a tuition and professional fees reimbursement program, as well as the Child Care Affordability Program. 

I would also like to point out that we have initiated this year the 

Wounded Warrior Program, which provides a program to provide 

assistance to Members. We have placed 31 wounded warriors, veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, in Member offices. One 

works in my office. And we have 15 working in Republican offices 

and 15 in Democratic offices, so I would call that a very bipartisan 

program. 

The second area that we have invested considerable time and energy in is in greening the Capitol. The Speaker gave us a challenge 

to reduce our energy consumption by 50 percent over 10 years and 

to try to eliminate our carbon footprint. We have worked to do that 

by purchasing wind energy for all of the electricity. All the electricity comes from wind energy projects. We have switched from 

coal to natural gas in our power plant. We have consolidated servers. We have renovated data centers. And we have, as Mr. Lungren 

mentioned, moved to compostable food service waste, as well as 

banning Styrofoam and plastic in our food service operation. 

But I think equally important, over the last year, we have invested a considerable amount of time and energy and effort to the 

My Green Office program, where we have reached out to 272 offices 

here in Washington and 177 district offices to encourage them to 

adopt 15 actions which ultimately will help save energy and save 

operating costs. 

A third area where we have had significant challenges in the last 

year is in the area of IT security. Most people don’t realize that the 

House handles approximately 1.1 million e-mails a day. And we 

have hundreds of thousands of attempts on a monthly basis to get 


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into our systems. And it is a challenge to work to defend and keep 

that system vibrant and reliable. 

I want to especially thank the Speaker and the Republican leader. The chair and Mr. Lungren have been very supportive of efforts 

over the past year. We have upgraded hardware and software, 

encrypted information, and better protected sensitive House information. We are scanning equipment before and after Members go 

overseas and improved security training for House employees. 

These changes benefit every Member because our system is only as 

secure as our weakest link. 

Finally, the fourth area I wanted to highlight is the improved accessibility for Members and staff to new technology. I can’t think 

of a more difficult and challenging activity than keeping up with 

the ever-changing technology, electronic technology, IT technology 

that is coming out. It is simply—it is like a race where we are running on an treadmill, trying to stay ahead of the technological developments. It is a constant challenge for us. 

Seven years ago, we didn’t have any of these BlackBerrys, and 

yet today we have 9,000. We not only have to make them secure, 

but we have to be able to assist Members and support them. Last 

year, iPhones weren’t used in a business setting, and yet over the 

past year we have explored with a number of different businesses 

ways to make iPhones secure. And we will be able to help Members 

use iPhones, enable Members to use iPhones, going forward. 

We have also improved the access of technology and the accessibility of technology to Members and to district offices. I think it is 

important to remember that we serve district offices from Pango 

Pango and Guam all the way to, you know, Anchorage and Honolulu and Bangor, Maine, and Florida and everywhere else. So we 

have 900 district offices, and we have worked hard to link those 

into our IT systems so that they have the capability to be able to 

participate in an effective way. 

I think today that we are better wired, better equipped, better 

protected, and better served in the technology area. But it is a race, 

and it is one that will be ongoing and will be very difficult for us 

to keep up with over the next few years. 

So those are some of the highlights of the past year. I would be 

more than happy to answer questions as we go forward. Thank 

you. 

[The statement of Mr. Beard follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Ms. Theresa Grafenstine. 

STATEMENT OF THERESA GRAFENSTINE 

Ms. GRAFENSTINE. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Brady, 

Ranking Member Lungren, and members of the committee. I am 

both pleased and honored to appear before you today in my capacity as the acting House inspector general. 

I submitted my written comments for the record, so I will only 

take a few minutes to highlight some of the key points on the topic 

of governance and the administrative and service functions of the 

House and how the House Office of the Inspector General, or OIG, 

is an organization dedicated to this purpose. 

The OIG’s mission is to provide value-added recommendations 

for improving the performance, accountability, and integrity of 

House administrative operations. We do this by performing independent audit, advisory, and investigative services in a nonpartisan manner. In carrying out this mission, the House OIG has 

established a track record of providing quality products to assist 

the Committee on House Administration in its oversight and governance responsibilities. 

Oversight serves a number of overlapping objectives and purposes. It helps improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations, and it helps provide a means to evaluate performance. It 

helps prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. It helps ensure that entities 

are operating in compliance with organizational policies and best 

business practices. And it can be a catalyst for positive change. 

As such, the OIG has an important role in the general oversight 

of the administrative activities of the House. Over the past 16 

years, the OIG has added value by working closely with the Committee on House Administration and the House officers to improve 

the operations of the House. In addition to providing traditional 

audit services, the OIG provides proactive analysis and guidance 

through its management advisory services. These advisory services 

have included work in the areas of emerging technology, systems 

development, business process improvement, and risk management. 

Over the years, the Committee on House Administration has also 

asked the OIG to perform various investigative inquiries to respond 

to concerns of issues to the House. Recognizing this broader mission, your committee helped facilitate changing rules to the House 

at the beginning of the 111th Congress. Changes to House Rule 2 

now formally recognize the OIG’s advisory and investigative services and grant the OIG appropriate authority to carry out its mission. It also allows the OIG to better implement guidance and 

standards published in the GAO’s government auditing standards. 

Additionally, dividing the OIG into two branches, audits and 

advisories, provides the House with unique advantages. Audits and 

investigations help to ensure that administrative operations that 

are already in place operate in compliance with established rules 

and regulations. This supports the overall governance objective by 

ensuring that processes are working as intended. Advisories, on the 

other hand, look at processes that are ongoing; as decisions are 

being made. This helps to ensure that things like security, internal 


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controls, and risks are considered upfront; before systems are put 

into place or as administrative policies are being considered. 

Whether audit, advisory, or investigation, we view it as our mandate to perform our reviews in such a way that they truly add 

value to our customers in the House. We focus on finding the cause 

of problems and working with the House officers to develop solutions that make sense. We do not perform our work in isolation. Instead, most of our work is collaborative, where we leverage the expertise of the House staff we are auditing to help ensure the recommended actions will achieve the desired results. 

We also consider it noteworthy that many of our reviews were 

initiated at the request of our customers. You will rarely see such 

requests in other OIGs. And, in my opinion, the fact that our 

auditees come to us and ask for our assistance or to participate in 

their projects is the greatest measure of the value we are adding 

to the House. 

So far, during the 111th Congress, the OIG has issued 27 audit 

and advisory reports. The OIG’s objective, value-added reviews 

have helped managers to significantly improve House financial 

management, House administrative processes, House workplace 

safety and security, and the security of House IT infrastructure 

and data. 

In addition, through the use of our Lean Six Sigma advisory 

services, the OIG has provided formal training to over 100 legislative branch employees. This training helps to create a sense of continuous improvement. It creates an environment where House employees are aware of process and inefficiencies, and it arms them 

with the ability to fix them on their own. 

Currently, the OIG has 20 ongoing audits and advisories in various stages of completion. In addition, the OIG has made significant progress in streamlining its own processes and procedures to 

make its operations even more productive and efficient as it strives 

to be an example of high standards and cost-effectiveness. I believe 

that the OIG’s efforts in all of these areas help contribute to the 

governance of House administrative processes. 

Chairman Brady, Ranking Member Lungren, and members of the 

committee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. Please be assured that we will continue to focus on 

issues of strategic importance to the House and its ability to efficiently and effectively conduct its operations safely and securely. 

At this time, I would be happy to answer any questions you may 

have. 

[The statement of Ms. Grafenstine follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Without objection, following the hearing, the record will remain 

open for 10 days so that Members may submit additional questions 

in writing to the witnesses appearing before us today, and hopefully we will receive your responses. 

I have just a few questions real quickly. 

To the Honorable Lorraine Miller, how much does it cost—and I 

don’t expect you to be able to answer this, but what does it cost 

to keep the House open per hour? 

Well, I am around, you are around. You can tell me later. I was 

just curious what it costs with all the—I know that the building 

is always secured somewhat, but there must be many more people 

on staff—the elevator operators, the Sergeant at Arms, yourself, 

the clerks, you know, everything that has to happen. I am sure 

that the offices are—there are more detailed offices when we are 

in session, when that light is lit, when Lady Liberty is lit. 

I mean—— 

Ms. MILLER. Mr. Brady, to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t 

have a good idea. We could try to find out. I know that there have 

been inquiries about the amount, but I can’t give you a good answer at this time. But I can find out. 

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate that. It was just a curious thing. I 

would like to know what it costs us to work here, you know, how 

much it costs per hour, just so I can—I would just like to know. 

Thank you. 

Wilson. You know I am not going to let that go. We had some 

major activity over the last month or so, you know. Were there any 

incidents—and I want to commend you on how you handled it. You 

know, I do believe that everyone should have an opportunity to say 

nice things or say anything about us. We do work for them. 

But, any incidents that, you know, we need to help you be able 

to take care of? I know that there was a lot of activity out there. 

And I do commend you again for the way you handled it. Any comments on that? I mean, is there anything we can do to be able to 

help you? 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. Well, it was—— 

The CHAIRMAN. A challenge. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD [continuing]. Quite a time, because I think that 

Congress—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Excuse me. I was a Sergeant at Arms for 11 

years, so I know how hard it is for you to deal with those issues 

when they are dealing with the egos of such as us, you know. 

Sorry. Go ahead. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. But I think, during that period, Congress was 

faced with—all of you and the whole House and the Senate—just 

an outpouring, I think, of public opinion as the public exercised 

their right to make their opinions known to Congress. The crowds 

that came up here were large and, at times, vocal. Nothing new; 

we have had that many times in the past. 

I think the long lines, a little unusual, materialized at every door 

to the House office buildings—long lines, I mean long—because 

people came from where they were participating in their outpour, 

one way or the other, and went to the House buildings. And we had 

to bring in—or the police manned extra magnetometers to try to 


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get them into the building. And they were successful. Extra officers 

were posted throughout the building to answer questions and provide directions. 

I think we were somewhat surprised at the size of the crowd in 

comparison to the permits that we had received by the Capitol Police. I think there was more crowd size than estimated. And then, 

additionally, other crowds spontaneously appeared and converged 

on the Capitol grounds without permits. 

The Gallery access was open, and we brought in extra police 

there so that we had more space in the Gallery. We opened most 

every sector of the Gallery. And I believe the Capitol Police did an 

excellent job, and I am proud of their performance, as always, and 

their commitment to ensuring a safe environment. 

There were lessons learned. And I think we had three or four lessons learned during that period, if I may. And we always have lessons learned after every exercise or every situation, but that is 

good. That means that we care, and that means we want to change. 

And no two exercises or events are the same, trust me; they are 

all different. 

I think that we need to be—my office and special events people— 

a little more forward-thinking in dealing with leaders of various interest groups and work with them to gauge crowd-size intentions 

and more firmly establish ground rules of behavior. Based on information gathered from these leaders, Capitol Police manpower 

needs to be more flexible and mobile in dealing with changing 

crowd dynamics. 

And I think one of the important things—and this is what we 

have been working on, the last group that we had here, the last 

large group—is the outreach to the House community should be 

more proactive. 

Mr. LIVINGOOD. We continue to work towards improving this outreach, and you will see a change in that. I firmly believe you can’t 

overcommunicate. People accuse you of overcommunicating. To me, 

in certain ways, there is no such thing. The more they know, the 

better off everybody is. It is just a different philosophy, I feel. 

Ms. MILLER. May I address that? 

The CHAIRMAN. Certainly. 

Ms. MILLER. I attended the Secretaries-General of Parliaments 

conference a few weeks ago, and this came up as a huge issue. This 

is not just a phenomenon that we are experiencing, but also in Parliaments around the world. I think if you notice in the Post today, 

they talk about a disturbance within the Parliament in Kiev. 

So Bill is absolutely right. We have to pay attention to this, and 

we have to plan ahead of the curve, because people are being very 

active and very vocal in their opinions to their legislatures. 

Mr. BEARD. If I could jump in, too, just some numbers that I 

found interesting. Normally we receive on a daily basis approximately 200,000 phone calls. During the one week in March, we received 500,000 phone calls a day. 

The CHAIRMAN. Did anybody call anybody else but me? 

Mr. BEARD. They got me, too. 

The CHAIRMAN. I feel like I got all of them. 

Mr. BEARD. During one 6-day period during the debates on 

health care, we had 217 million hits on house.gov, which is way beVerDate Mar 15 2010 22:57 Sep 08, 2010 Jkt 057844 PO 00000 Frm 00156 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A844P2.XXX A844P2

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yond anything we have ever received before. So it is not only a 

physical presence, but it also is an electronic presence, if you will. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Mr. Beard, while you are speaking, through various programs 

with yourself in cooperation with the Architect of the Capitol, what 

are the cost savings that you are incurring for the House? 

Mr. BEARD. Well, I just want to add sort of generally, when I was 

here a couple of years ago, we talked about the Green the Capitol 

program and getting the Architect and our office on the same page. 

I think we have done that, and we have done that very well. Both 

the Acting Architect and myself have worked hard at that, and it 

is demonstrated by our issuing a joint report a week ago explaining 

the state of affairs with respect to greening the Capitol. 

We now undertake weekly meetings with the Architect’s Office to 

make sure we are working in concert with one another and not duplicating efforts, and I think we have made accomplishments in 

that regard. 

I think it would be very difficult to calculate benefits and costs 

associated with the greening effort, but I will say in the IT area 

particularly we saved a considerable amount of money and reduced 

our energy needs as a result of new technology, consolidation and 

other activities. 

So, I think that net-net, it has been, I think, a very positive 

thing. The leadership that we have shown nationally and internationally, I was just with the Coca Cola Company, who is going 

to be installing new vending machines in the House of Representatives which are the latest in technology, and they have reduced 

their carbon emissions by 99 percent in those machines and reduced their energy consumption by 15 percent over the energy-efficient machines they already have installed here in the House. 

So this is something that is happening both at the corporate level 

and also the government levels as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I appreciate all of you. 

Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate 

this. I wondered before you became chairman and I became ranking member what these positions were like, and I have finally figured them out. We are the javelin catchers of the House of Representatives, because every complaint that a Member has comes to 

us first. So I will pass some of them along. 

One of the things I would just like to put on the record is something that the Capitol Police Chief has told me on several occasions 

when he was describing the march on Washington that took place 

in September by the Tea Party group. He said it was the first 

march he had ever seen in which the grounds of the Capitol were 

cleaner after the demonstration than before. 

He was out there on the Capitol steps and asked one of the members of the Tea Party, who was evidently a marshal cleaning up or 

policing the trash area, he said, why are you doing it? And he said, 

sir, we did not come to our Capitol to trash it. 

I thought that was a great comment. The fact that we have a lot 

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cized it, but sometimes the press doesn’t fully understand, I think, 

what we are seeing here. 

A couple of things. Mr. Beard, it is kind of difficult being a Member of Congress these days in some ways in terms of dealing with 

some of the problems that are out there with the economy. When 

I was going over your, I guess it is semiannual report, you included 

in there a copy of an article that appeared in the Washingtonian 

Magazine which talks about something which is great, which is 

working in the Capitol is one of the best places to work. But in 

there they said this: ‘‘Of course, solid pay and generous benefits are 

also draws amid the current barrage of bailouts, bankruptcies and 

layoffs.’’ 

Frankly, that kind of a statement is not very helpful to Members 

of Congress when dealing with their constituency, that we are 

bragging about the fact that we pay big time here amid the barrage 

of bailouts, bankruptcies and layoffs. I would just hope that whoever you’ve got putting that stuff out would pay attention to that. 

The other thing is you mentioned that we had so many calls coming in. I was here in the Reagan years when our system crashed 

at that time, when Ronald Reagan would say, let them know how 

you feel, and they did. 

As a matter of fact, I recall a time when I was waiting to go to 

the floor of the House, I was waiting for the elevators, and someone 

you folks may have heard of, Charlie Wilson, was standing next to 

me. Charlie Wilson said—and I will clean up his language a little 

bit—Charlie Wilson said, that President of yours, if he comes out 

against making love, I will have to vote for him. For Charlie Wilson, that would have been the greatest sacrifice in history. But the 

point was our telephone system collapsed, the mail did. 

When we had it this time in terms of all of our systems being 

overloaded, your press guy says to the press about the inability of 

constituents to get through on the phone, well, for everyone who 

doesn’t get through, they will just say to themselves, I will try 

again tomorrow. 

I will tell you, if a member of my staff said that to a constituent 

who said they couldn’t get through, I would be pretty upset. I am 

concerned that that reflects a lack of a sense of urgency about what 

we are about, and that kind of a comment either was totally off 

base, or it reflects an attitude that I find very difficult to accept, 

because then I have to go, or every other Member has to go, and 

distance themselves from the comment from your chief press person about how this place operates. 

Were you aware of that statement? 

Mr. BEARD. No. But I think that the important thing to remember about the phone system is the phone system didn’t melt or not 

work. It worked, but 20 to 30 percent of the time, people that were 

phoning were getting busy signals. But when they phoned back, 

whether that was 5 minutes later or an hour later or the next day, 

they did get through eventually. 

It is not only a limited capacity on the part of the physical infrastructure of the phone system, but it also is the inability in Member offices to have enough people to answer the phone. Like you, 

we had during that period hundreds of phone calls into our office 


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simply because they couldn’t get into Member offices or couldn’t get 

the phone answered. 

So I think it has caused us to do an after-action report of that 

period of time to see what it is we need, and we need to explore 

things like voiceover IP as a possible alternative when we have 

large volumes of calls into the House. 

Mr. LUNGREN. That would be helpful. It just doesn’t help when 

someone cavalierly says, well, if they don’t get through, they will 

call again tomorrow. I just want you to know that. If my staff 

member said that, I would be very upset. 

Again, I say I am a javelin catcher; I receive complaints of every 

type. Somebody complained the other day that we have a sign on 

the east steps of the Capitol going up saying ‘‘Members Only,’’ and 

it is corroded. So I have to deal with that as well as people talking 

about whether they are getting reimbursed for certain payments. 

But one of the groups that I pay attention to is the House Chiefs 

of Staff Association, and they sent a letter to you April 5th, which 

they copied to me and to the chairman, raising several concerns 

about the operation of the CAO’s Office and the relationship with 

Member office operations as reflected in their membership, that is 

the Chiefs of Staff Association. 

Let me just ask you, have you received complaints prior to this 

letter? 

Mr. BEARD. I am sorry, from whom? Anybody? 

Mr. LUNGREN. From the organization. 

Mr. BEARD. From which organization, the Chiefs of Staff? 

Mr. LUNGREN. That is the one I am talking about. 

Mr. BEARD. Yes, I got their letter, and they said that they—I 

think there was an offhand reference in there that they were having difficulty meeting with me. I phoned them repeatedly and told 

them I am ready to meet with them at any time. But, yes, they 

wrote me about a year ago, I think, and they wanted to talk about 

financial counseling and reimbursement. And I am more than willing to meet with them at any point. I think I am scheduled at this 

point to meet with them. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, let me ask you, are you engaging with them 

on their proposal on creating a working group with the CAO? 

Mr. BEARD. Since I haven’t met with them, I am not engaged 

with them, but I am more than happy to work with any working 

group. We work with a group of administrators, office administrators, and we work with the financial contacts in the individual committees who I will be meeting with, and also the Chiefs of Staff as 

well. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Okay. I guess I don’t understand. You have or 

have not met with the Chiefs of Staff Association is my question? 

Mr. BEARD. I have not met with them, but I have a meeting 

scheduled. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, I hope you would, because I appreciate your 

meeting with members of the committee, but Chiefs of Staff represent Members in their personal offices, and I would believe that 

they might have some effective and important observations about 

the inter workings between their offices and your office, and I 

would hope you would be open to that rather than being resistant 

to it. 


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Mr. BEARD. I am not at all resistant to it. I think it is important 

to point out we have 503 or 504 individual employing authorities 

in the House of Representatives. So, yes, I do have to listen to the 

Chiefs of Staff organization, but also we have committees, and then 

we also have all the officers. And in our financial counseling area, 

it is important for us to maintain a certain integrity and internal 

controls that are important to the IG as well as the auditors here. 

Oftentimes we are asked to do things that we simply cannot do 

or aren’t in the best interests—aren’t the best business solution to 

a particular item. This is a unique environment where our customers are very close to us, so we have to be careful with that. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Okay. It sounds like you are rendering a criticism 

on the Chiefs of Staff. 

Mr. BEARD. No. 

Mr. LUNGREN. And, frankly, if that is your view, that is your 

view. I would not only resist that, I would take umbrage at that. 

To suggest that somehow you can’t listen to the Chiefs of Staff because they are asking you to do something illegal or improper or 

in some way wrong, frankly, I just don’t accept that at all. 

According to the Chiefs of Staffs Association, they have asked 

you on numerous occasions to meet, and you failed to meet with 

them. Now you tell me you are going to, but then you turn around 

my question and suggest they are asking you to do something they 

are not supposed to do. There is no suggestion of that in my question at all. 

Frankly, the last time I looked, Members of Congress are elected. 

We make up this House of Representatives, and I thought the CAO 

was to work for the Members to make their job better, to serve 

their constituents. That is what I was elected to do. That is what 

I look to your office to do. 

Frankly, I don’t look to your office to tell me that you won’t even 

meet with me, and I am talking about that generally, because 

somehow you are afraid that I am going to ask you to do something 

you shouldn’t do. That is not the suggestion in this letter at all. 

There is nothing in this letter that suggests that. And to suggest 

that somehow the IG sitting next to you is the person making it 

difficult for you to respond affirmatively to a request by those of 

us—the Chiefs of Staff are the people that we have determined are 

our top people running our staffs. 

I am just sorry, but, frankly, I find your response not only odd, 

I find it insulting to Members and to their staffs. And I would hope 

you would be a little more willing to work with Members and not 

then question what it is they are asking you to do before you even 

meet with them, and to put that on the record here. 

I am finished, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 


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The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a couple of 

questions. 

Obviously we are all here and will look at the transcript, but I 

don’t think Mr. Beard was suggesting that the Chiefs of Staff had 

asked anything improper. I think he is just noting we are all elected, but if we ask for something that is not permitted within the 

rules, we can’t do that, and we all know that. So that is how misunderstandings, I think, get started. 

I want to talk about the House Child Care Center, if I could, Mr. 

Beard. We have, I think, a waiting list. I saw an article in one of 

the local Hill rags recently talking about the inability, actually the 

glass ceiling for women in staff positions. A big issue about that 

is child care. 

So I would like to know how many are currently enrolled, if you 

know that; how long is the waiting list; obviously there is a need 

for additional capacity. How would we increase the capacity; what 

would be the cost implications? Could we recover it through fees or 

even through grants? 

I know recently someone not on my staff who was expecting. 

They put their name on the list as soon as they found out they 

were expecting, and they still hadn’t made it into the center by the 

time they gave birth. So can you respond to that? 

Mr. BEARD. The capacity of the child care center in the Ford 

Building is 70 children. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Seven-zero? 

Mr. BEARD. Seven-zero. But it is important to recognize—and 

then we have to staff that operation. The demand—the largest demand that we have has been for the youngsters under 2 years old. 

We have currently 170 people on our waiting list, 170 families I 

should say, because in some cases they may have a request for 

more than one child to participate. 

Ms. LOFGREN. So about three times the number—assuming you 

have families with more than one child, three times the number of 

people on the waiting list as we have in the facility. 

Mr. BEARD. Yes. And in 2007, we did a very thorough study of 

the backlog, the waiting list. I think what is important to observe 

about the waiting list is you can’t buy yourself out of the waiting 

list. It costs in capital costs somewhere between $2.7 million and 

$5 million to build a new daycare center, and that doesn’t even 

count being able to staff the center. The ratios for kids under 2 is 

greater than others. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I would like to take a look at that study. But one 

of the things I have always done, I have served on a school board, 

I served in local government, and now I have served here in the 

House, and every place I have served, I have opened child care centers. In every place I have served, I have been told it is too expensive and these very high capital costs, and every place I served I 

found out you could do it for a lot less and end up with something 

that is quite nice. 

So I would like to take a look at that study and follow up with 

you. I know that staffers who have children or are expecting are 

putting their names on waiting lists at the Library, at the Senate, 

everywhere. People are desperate. It really has not only an adverse 


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impact, but it means that we can’t really fully usually take the 

benefit of female staffers as we could, and that hurts the House, 

and it hurts the country. 

I would like to talk a little bit, if I could, about the network, 

House network drives. My staff has told me that there have been 

more network drive disruptions these past few weeks than usual, 

and it has prevented staff from accessing constituent mail databases, sometimes for hours at a time. 

Do you know what the sources are of these disruptions, and what 

are you doing to resolve them? 

Mr. BEARD. We have two sources of disruption. One has been 

power supply, which is under the jurisdiction of the Architect of the 

Capitol. We have been working with the House Superintendent on 

that. But in our drives in the consolidated area, we have encountered a number of problems. We pulled in both the companies and 

our engineers have been working on it to identify the problem. We 

think we have identified the problem, and everything is up and 

running now, and we have recovered any data that may have been 

lost. We have recovered it, so it isn’t lost. But it is a constant challenge to make sure that we have a reliable system and that we 

don’t go down. It is just one of the things that we can’t do. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I would like to follow up with you if I could, too, 

especially from the district office, it is just hellacious to get into the 

system. It is just a waste of time for the staff. I find it myself 

where you can wait an hour to get into the system. So I have got 

my staff trying to do constituent services, but it is just really very 

frustrating. To me, I just can’t understand why it would be that 

way, and I think we need to fix it. 

If I can just do two more quick questions. First, and again to follow up, we do need to scan—Bill, I think this is your issue on scanning the BlackBerrys after the overseas trips for security purposes. 

Is that you, Dan? 

Mr. BEARD. Yes. 

Ms. LOFGREN. That is happening with government CODELs, but 

I don’t think it is happening with privately sponsored trips, and it 

needs to. That is ultimately all publicly available, it is reported, 

but it is reported once a year. 

I am wondering if we could do some kind of coordination; every 

single trip has to be approved by the Ethics Committee, that 

maybe we could do some collaboration just for the purpose of 

BlackBerry scanning upon return. I will make sure that the Ethics 

Committee follows through with you, if you are willing to do that. 

Finally, Ms. Miller, thanks for HouseLive.Gov. I am just wondering, will this be available to the public ultimately to view, and 

when will it be available for viewing in search of committee proceedings? 

Ms. MILLER. Yes, it is available for the public right now, and we 

have had about 450 folks that are already using the system. Now, 

committees, I am not quite sure. We are working with HIR and 

House Administration to see what we need to do to get that. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I think that would be very, very helpful, because, 

as we know, much of the work of the House does, in fact, go on in 

its committees. C–SPAN, when it was first brought in, played a 

tremendous service, but I think there is a little redundancy now. 


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You can Webcast anything, and they don’t cover all the hearings. 

Storage is cheap. There is no reason why the public should ever be 

precluded from watching a committee proceeding. We should take 

that upon ourselves. 

Ms. MILLER. But HouseLive is available. Committee staff have 

access to it. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I know. But of committee proceedings. 

Ms. MILLER. Committee proceedings. That is kind of not my bailiwick. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Let’s talk further about it if we could. 

I thank the chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Harper. 

Mr. HARPER. Mr. Beard, if I could ask you a couple of questions. 

It is my understanding that when the House entered into a contract with Restaurant Associates to provide for food services, one 

of the stipulations you requested after the contract was signed was 

to provide, I guess, greener utensils and containers. 

Mr. BEARD. Yes. 

Mr. HARPER. I know that was agreed to with the provisional condition that additional costs would be deducted from the commission 

that they were required to give back to the House under the contract. So a couple of questions relating to that. 

First of all, can you tell us approximately how much in commissions the House has lost as a result of these deductions? And as 

a follow-up to that, have there been any other deductions in vendor 

contributions to the House revolving fund that has resulted in a 

loss to the House? 

Mr. BEARD. I think the answer to the second question is no, but 

I don’t have the cost figure in front of me right now. The question 

was how can we initiate and bring in new compostable containers? 

That wasn’t part of the contract that was negotiated with Restaurant Associates prior to my arriving, and I felt if we were going 

to demonstrate leadership, it made sense for us to provide 

compostable materials, and that we had sufficient potential revenues and commissions to be able to afford that. 

Mr. HARPER. Will you provide us with those figures at your convenience, sir? 

Mr. BEARD. Sure. Yes. 

Mr. HARPER. Another thing that I was looking at was the statement of disbursements that had been placed on line, both the online and printed versions. They displayed to me a less complete disclosure of those public expenditures. 

For example, details concerning office equipment purchases had 

been scrubbed to make the SOD less transparent. I wondered, was 

there any directive on that or instructions given to change that in 

what appears to diminish the transparency of those reports? 

Mr. BEARD. No, there weren’t any instructions. I think when we 

decided to put it up on line and make it publicly available, we decided to use the codes that are used by OMB to make sure that 

there was some consistency and clarity with the executive branch. 

So we did change it. There were some changes in the descriptions 

of some of the equipment from what we used before, which was 

published in a three-volume set, but they are not inconsistent with 

what is used in the Federal Government. 


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Mr. HARPER. Why were those changes made in the descriptions? 

Mr. BEARD. Just to make sure they are accurate, to make sure 

that they—we can go into a great deal of detail on every entry if 

we want, but we have got 40,000 or 60,000 lines of code that we 

are trying to handle and put up on line, and we decided to just use 

the standardized codes to be able to identify the expenditures. It 

makes it easier for us. 

Mr. HARPER. So those changes that were made were done before 

we went on line with the reports; is that correct? 

Mr. BEARD. They were made at the time we went on line. As a 

result of going on line, we decided to change the codes we used in 

some of the areas. 

Mr. HARPER. But the codes were changed before the first one was 

posted on line? 

Mr. BEARD. Yes. 

Mr. HARPER. This may be a question for the IG office, if I could. 

I do understand that the House has made these concessions for the 

greening requirements, and that these payments are made to the 

contractor prior to the contractor submitting the required revenues 

into the House restaurant revolving fund. 

Because the payments from RA are made through off-the-book 

transactions, it sort of appears that this kind of skirts the typical 

requirements for review and approval of those revolving fund expenses by this committee and Appropriations. 

So, why were the transaction processes structured in this way? 

And I would like for IG to comment as to whether such a system 

is appropriate, or whether it lacks transparency, or this lack of 

transparency leads to perhaps some type of accountability and potential issues? 

Ms. GRAFENSTINE. Mr. Harper, I am not familiar specifically with 

those transactions; however, we did do a study on that compostable 

program and were able to break down a lot of the costs associated 

with that. I would be happy to be able to provide you with that 

type of information after the hearing, but I don’t have the numbers 

available to be able to give you something that is accurate. 

Mr. HARPER. If you could take a look at that, I would certainly 

appreciate that. 

Ms. GRAFENSTINE. I certainly will. 

Mr. HARPER. That will be great. 

Mr. BEARD, one last question that I had regarding things that 

you might help us with. I know that recently you submitted revised 

procurement guidelines to the committee. In the proposed revisions 

you sought to increase the threshold for contracts needing committee approval by 100 percent, when inflation only justified a 40 

percent increase. 

I am wondering if you could maybe explain that discrepancy? 

Mr. BEARD. Well, I think for us it was just how many contract 

agreements, procurement actions do we send over to the committee. 

The large procurement actions, for $500,000 and above, it is very 

important to have committee input and for the committee to play 

a role in that process. 

The limit that we were operating under, which I think was $250,000, was a limit that was placed over a decade ago, and our 

feeling was through our procurement office that we ought to raise 


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that to a higher level. We had suggested that level because it 

was—if you look at all the contracts that we have, there was sort 

of a logical break in there. But in working with the committee 

staff, they decided that a lower limit was needed, and that is fine 

with us as well. 

So, there has to be some break in there at some point, and it is 

just a question of where you draw the line. 

Mr. HARPER. Do you feel that that has a positive or negative impact on accountability and transparency? 

Mr. BEARD. Well, every expenditure, every contract we have is a 

competitive contract, and it also is publicly divulged. So all of our 

procurement processes is a very transparent process. But, no, I 

don’t think that—it really is a question of how much work the committee staff wants to do and be involved in as we go forward with 

these contracts. 

Mr. HARPER. I know, Mr. Livingood and Ms. Miller, you are 

upset I don’t have any questions for you, but we do thank you for 

your service. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you 

all for being here and for your service. I want to probably direct 

most of the questions to Mr. Beard. 

I know you have been working hard on the energy efficiency 

issues. We have been involved in that with you as well. We appreciate your responsiveness on that and just your efficiency in general. But I had a few questions. 

I just want to start with the payroll system, because we have had 

a number of problems in the office. One of the explanations that 

I have heard is there is just a lot of turnover down there. 

I am wondering, what is the problem? Is that true? Is there just 

a lot of turnover in terms of employees? Why are people having so 

many difficulties in this area? 

Mr. BEARD. Well, I think there are a number of different reasons. 

One is that as a good business practice, and it is required, we do 

have to change the financial counselors on a regular basis. They 

have to rotate so that they aren’t handling just one account all the 

time. 

We have also had workload balances. The workload has spiked, 

and it spiked in January and February. We handled at least twice 

as many requests for reimbursements than we normally have handled because it was the end-of-the-year requests that came 

through. 

We haven’t had that great a turnover. What we have had is a 

change in the assignment of individuals, and I think some financial 

counselors are uncomfortable with that. But we had to rearrange 

the financial counselors to handle the workload balance and also to 

make sure that we don’t have single points of failure. We have to 

make sure if a financial counselor is out, we have somebody to 

cover that. We are also realigning our staff to be able to handle a 

transition to a new financial system on October 1st. 

I think that I would add to that that when this committee issued 

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ment, we have struggled with instituting those new standards, and 

there has been a learning process for those new standards. We now 

have the turnaround time on vouchers back down to the level 

where we should be. It is approximately 6 days. But there may be 

individual vouchers that are longer than that. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Well, I appreciate that. I want you to 

stay focused on it, if you can. 

Mr. BEARD. Yes, I will. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. I am just not sure of the level of tolerance and what we should expect. If you can help out with that, 

that is fine. But some of the glitches that we have seen just don’t 

seem appropriate at all. So I want to express that. 

On the technology side, again, I appreciate the move towards 

much more efficient technology. We are enjoying some more technology in the Armed Services Committee, and that is great. It has 

been very helpful. 

One of the concerns that I think we all sort of scratch our head 

and wonder, what about Wi-Fi really throughout the building? You 

say in your statement you are looking at about 3 years to have it 

campuswide. It seems like a long time, since Starbucks, McDonald’s, everybody else has been able to accommodate that. What 

should we expect? 

Mr. BEARD. I don’t think it is going to take that. It is 3 years 

to build out the 700 points in our Wi-Fi system that we want to 

have. We now have it available in the Longworth cafeteria and the 

Rayburn cafeteria, and we are just bringing those up on a regular 

basis. 

I think the big challenge for us is to have a Wi-Fi system that 

is safe and secure. We had to work with various other Federal 

agencies to make sure that we had a safe system, and that we 

weren’t jeopardizing the IT security of our overall system. 

Wireless is the direction that the industry is moving, and it is 

a direction that we are going to have to go as well, but it presents 

certain challenges for us. 

Ms. DAVIS of California. Three years, maybe not. But what is realistic? 

Mr. BEARD. I would have to get back with you with an estimate. 

But certainly it will be less than 2 years, I will tell you that. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Several other questions have been 

raised about the difficulty in accessing, whether it is e-mail or 

some of the accounts. The space that staffers have on e-mail seems 

limited compared to what they can expect in other arenas. Again, 

can we increase that space? Is that something that we are going 

to be seeing? 

Mr. BEARD. Yes, we can. I think you are talking about the space 

of the individual mailbox. The system we have been using in the 

past has had limited space, but we are moving towards—we now 

have increased capability, and we are going to begin rolling that 

out in the next month or two to increase the size of the individual 

mailboxes, so you don’t have to keep deleting, which is a challenge, 

on a regular basis. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. That would be helpful. 

Finally, if I may, Mr. Chairman, just briefly, I know that there 

has been an annual compensation study. You have reinstated that. 


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That is very helpful. But I really do need a commitment that you 

are going to commit to doing that study again next year, and also 

that there will be enough staff involvement and input where people 

desire to do that in terms of the kind of questions that are asked, 

because I think sometimes we miss the boat on the questions that 

we ask. 

Mr. BEARD. We will do it next year, and we will improve the timing. I want to have that report done so that it comes out in September or October so it is in time for the Members to make decisions with respect to year-end bonuses or the salary levels that 

they set for their employees, particularly new Members, because I 

think that study is important to new Members. They are able to 

see what salary levels they ought to be providing. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Thank you. 

And the other issue, of course, is the diversity of the staff, and 

particularly some of the higher-paid staff, which I think we all 

need to work on. So we want to look at that. 

Just finally is access. Getting up to the Rayburn room, we have 

visitors that come in or people we need to meet with, and I don’t 

know what it is right now, but they are just having a tough time 

getting access to get through the tunnel and up to the Rayburn 

room. So if you can just take a look at that and see if there is 

something going on. I am always amazed, because I wait, and that 

is the hitch. People are walking fast, but they just can’t get there. 

Thank you very much. Continuing to get input for all of us is 

helpful. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady. 

I thank our panel. As Mr. Lungren says, we do catch the javelin, 

and I do come to every one of you with some crazy requests. I appreciate that you always have a smile and handle them with courtesy and professionalism. We do appreciate that. I thank you. 

I thank our members for your participation. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


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