2

SEC. 2. As used in this resolution

(1) the term "Member" means a Representative, a Resident Commissioner in the House, and a Delegate to the House: and

(2) the term "official records and papers" means books, records, papers, and official files which could be sent as

franked mail.

Attest:

Clerk.

CHAPLAIN RESOLUTION

Mr. BENJAMIN. In order that the subcommittee can properly dispose of that resolution which deals with the House Chaplain, would you please ascertain if there was a condition precedent in the hiring of this particular chaplain that should be one of law, or one that is peculiar only to him? We wouldn't want to make the House resolution permanent law if it is merely peculiar to the conditions that had to be exercised to pay for his services.

Mr. COLLEY. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman.

[The information follows:]

It was a condition of employment that the new Chaplain would receive the Executive Level IV salary. In making H. Res. 7 into permanent law, it is suggested that it apply only to the incumbent Chaplain.

CALENDARS, YEARBOOKS, PLANTS

Mr. COLLEY. This concludes the Clerk's presentation of the House budget and certain joint items, and I will defer to the Clerk for any final questions you might have.

Mr. BENJAMIN. I do have some final questions.

Section 309 of Public Law 95-391 provides that none of the funds contained in that act would be used to provide House Wall Calendars, U.S. Historical Society Calendars, Agriculture Yearbooks, plants from the Botanic Gardens and shipping trunks to House Members without reimbursement from Members' official expense allowance. Other than the funds provided for Members' official expenses, has any money been spent for these items in fiscal year 1979, and is any included in the fiscal year 1980 budget?

Mr. COLLEY. No funds for fiscal year 1979 have been expended for those items. The calendars that were distributed to the Members last fall were contracted for and purchased with fiscal 1978 funds. We have taken no action to consider buying any calendars this year.

The other items that the Clerk is concerned with, the storage trunks, no, we have not purchased any with current funds. We have made an arrangement if a Member wishes to buy a trunk, he can, in effect, purchase it through the Office of Supply Service. The yearbooks are not within our jurisdiction. They are the Department of Agriculture and the Government Printing Office, and the plants from the Botanic Garden are under the Architect of the Capitol. We work with the Architect of the Capitol so reimbursement could be made with a voucher payment.

Mr. BENJAMIN. For items under your appropriation there are no funds in the 1980 appropriation to include those items?

Mr. COLLEY. I cannot say that with complete accuracy. If the restriction is not restored, we have not budgeted any funds, but could receive a directive from the Committee on House Administration to buy the calendars. There is no budget, but if we get a direction from the contingency fund, we would have to make that purchase.

Mr. BENJAMIN. I understand.

HOUSE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Under which item in your justification is the House Information Systems funded? Provide a detailed justification for this office for fiscal year 1980. What have been your levels of reimbursements here? Please detail.

I will ask you to do that for the record unless you have it available with you.

Mr. COLLEY. I just wanted to say, Mr. Chairman, that the House Information Systems is funded by resolution from the Committee on House Administration. The funds are included in the special and select committees' item. A resolution has been introduced, H. Res. 128, on February 21, that the Committee on House Administration is authorized to incur such further expenses not to exceed $10,189,000 for the computer system, so to speak, and we would have to defer to the House Information Systems to provide details as to need and that sort of thing. We would be happy to provide anything you would like.

Mr. BENJAMIN. You indicate it is by resolution, but, however, it is in the House Administration appropriation.

Would you break that out for us?

Mr. COLLEY. Yes, sir.

[The information follows:]

SPECIAL AND SELECT COMMITTEES, SPECIFIC FUNDING RESOLUTIONS 1978 AND 1979

Mr. BENJAMIN. I am going to submit the following question for the record and ask you to respond in the record.

The Congressional Budget Office in their testimony attempted to justify an increase of $1 million for fiscal year 1980 because the House Information Systems had "developed a new rate schedule that they believe more accurately reflects the real cost of the services they are providing us." Explain the process by which the new rate was established, the information used to arrive at it, the time of its effective implementation and the additional reimbursements that will be generated because of it.

[The information follows:]

H.I.S. COST CALCULATION

House Information Systems (H.I.S.) management, at the direction of

the Committee on House Administration, developed a resource accounting system in order to improve management of its resources, as well as to provide users with more accurate and informative data on their use of H.I.S. services. This resource accounting system has provided H.I.S. management with needed information on resource utilization and has allowed H.I.S. to provide informational billings to all House committees since July 1978.

CBO has been reimbursing H.I.S. for computer services since CBO's inception. The charges have been and still are based upon the amount of H.I.S. personnel time devoted to CBO projects. This method was agreed to in 1975 by CBO, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and H.I.S. in the absence of a capability to account for actual computer usage. At the time, this was an equitable method since most of the work for CBO was developmental in nature and computer time was roughly proportional to personnel time utilized by H.I.S. to support their requirements.

Several changes during the last year have dictated a change in the method of determining charges to CBO. H.I.S. now has an accounting system that can more accurately account for computer usage as well as personnel resources. Also the nature of the work for CBO is now primarily operational in nature and requires less H.I.S. staff intervention; consequently the amounts that are currently billed to CBO no longer accurately reflect the actual cost of services provided to CBO.

The revised method of calculating costs of services provided to CBO will be effective October 1, 1979. In the interim, in order to give CBO adequate time to adjust to this new method, H.I.S. will provide informational

bills using the new method and the old method will remain in effect for actual reimbursements for H.I.S. support.

Accounting for usage of computer resources, especially when those resources may be utilized by over 100 users simultaneously using a variety of different services, is a complex task. It took months of investigation and evaluation of accounting systems used in both the public and private sectors and a determination of H.I.S. and House needs, before the system was implemented. H.I.S. purchased special computer programs for this purpose and modified existing computer programs to produce the desired data. The resulting data are in utilization terms and are converted to dollars (through a complex algorithm) not only for charging purposes, but to have a common unit of measure. In order to establish these conversion rates, an extensive analysis was made of how the computer resources are used by various application systems. Since the cost of accounting for computer usage can be prohibitive,

an analysis was done to select appropriate units of measure and to associate utilization of various hardware and software components to those units. For example, connect time is used as a measure of communications costs. From the cost of these components and the number of units that would be measured in a fully utilized system, a conversion rate for each unit of measure was established. In addition to the cost of computer resources, the rates include the cost of H.I.S. personnel who operate the computers and provide necessary support to maintain the equipment and general software that is used by all applications.

Committees of the House, as well as CBO, have been receiving information billings based on the H.I.S. cost accounting system since July 1, 1978. Since the Committee on House Administration has not yet made a decision on when and to what extent Committees and offices of the House will be required to reimburse H.I.S. for services, it is not possible to estimate the additional reimbursements that will be generated. Reimbursements from CBO are expected to be approximately $525,000 for calendar year 1979 assuming current levels of service and revised billing to be effective October 1, 1979. This compares to approximately $200,000 for 1978.