REIMBURSEMENT POLICY FOR GAO STAFF ASSIGNED TO COMMITTEES

We were reimbursed for $42,218. That meant the total net cost to us was $841,776. In 1978, 19 GAO employees were assigned to the Senate committees, and 3 were assigned to the joint committees. In the first quarter of 1979 we had 30 GAO employees assigned to House committees, and 13 to the Senate committees. That gives you the numbers.

Mr. BENJAMIN. You indicate about $42,000 of the $883,994 was reimbursed.

Was that in the House or the Senate?

Mr. STAATS. That is from the House.

Mr. KELLER. That would be reimbursement from the House for travel expenses but not for salaries.

Mr. BENJAMIN. How has it been determined that the Senate will reimburse and the House will not?

Mr. STAATS. A matter of the rules of the House and the Senate. We would obviously like to have it all reimbursed.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Have you contacted the Rules Committee about a change in the rules?

Mr. STAATS. We discussed this at the time of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. It has come up very frequently, Mr. Chairman, in connection with the hearings before the Senate Appropriations Committee. It has not been unanimous by any means that that is the right practice in the Senate. We would obviously welcome full reimbursement from both the House and the Senate. Mr. BENJAMIN. If I recall, the major promoter of the Legislative Reorganization Act was Congressman Bolling, wasn't it?

Mr. STAATS. In 1970? He was one of the people involved. I was trying to think who some of the other principal leaders were in that effort, but he was certainly one of them.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Now he is chairman of the Rules Committee. Mr. STAATS. Yes.

Mr. BENJAMIN. I would encourage you to take this up with him again, basically not only from the accounting side but to make these staffs cognizant of what they are really causing to be spent. Mr. STAATS. It becomes a budgetary supplement for the committees.

Mr. BENJAMIN. I agree.

Mr. STAATS. We would be happy to reopen the question.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Let me on behalf of the subcommittee encourage you to do that, one, on your arrangements where you do work with the committee in providing your personnel, and utilize the committee's services as much as possible to spread that across the board as much as you can, and, secondly, to arrange with the Rules Committee for complete discussion of the charge back.

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO INCREASED WORKLOAD

Within the framework of your statement you have listed a number of laws which have added to your workload. Unfortunately you have only listed 7, but you are going to give us the remainder, with the time involved in the schedule.

Those were the Small Business amendments, 16 staff years; Civil Service Reform Act, 40 staff years; Federal pension plan reporting.

33 staff years; ethics in government, 20 staff years; Nuclear AntiProliferation Act, 18 staff years; education amendments, 7 staff years; national climate program, 4 staff years; agriculture foreign investment, 10 staff years; natural gas resources, 8 staff years; Omnibus Parks Act, 5 staff years; for a total of 161 staff years. In addition, the GAO has established a Special Task Force for the Prevention of Fraud and Abuse for which it is to be commended. This would require 57 staff years.

On the specific work described in the previous questions, you have testified to the requirement of 218 staff years. In your special request you also note a requirement of 34 staff years for the Federal Banking Agency Audit Act and 36 staff years to handle 10 individual committee reports. With these 70 staff years and the 218 already calculated, the total staff years of enumerated projects amounts to 288.

There is also mention of 19 staff years relating to unspecified legislation adopted since January 1978, and another 142 staff years for additional work of committees and members-not previously calculated in budget projection. Together, this amounts to 449 staff years.

In your supplemental request, you indicate that 398 staff years of effort have been added since January 1, 1978. In your statement on the fiscal year 1980 budget you allude to 350 staff years.

Please explain the difference between 449, 398, and 350 staff years. Also be kind enough to explain how it was determined that 28 percent of the 350 staff years could be absorbed and how the resulting 250 staff years was distributed, 82 staff years, for the supplemental and 168 for the fiscal year 1980 budget.

Mr. STAATS. Why don't we ask Mr. Pin and Mr. Brown to help me out on this one.

PARTIAL ABSORPTION OF WORKLOAD INCREASES

Let me answer the last part of this though, why we decided not to ask for the full amount and ways that we could absorb some of this workload increase.

We did this in part by deferring work, as I mentioned in my statement. Whether we were wise in deferring some of this audit work on the agencies is a good question, but part of it was a critical deferral of work. A part of it was the effort I mentioned to you earlier, which is trying to find ways to do our job cheaper, and this involves looking at every project.

We have a system now whereby any project that is going to run above a certain amount of money is subject to review by a group that challenges it within the divisions. We call it our Assignment Review Group. Part of their job is to see if they can't accomplish the job with less money. There have been a whole variety of things that we have done to try to reduce the cost of the way we do our work.

Now the reconciliation of the figures, I am afraid I can't answer off the top of my head. I may need some help.

Mr. PIN. Yes, sir, if I may.

Mr. Chairman, obviously, there are some judgments that were made in this situation, and our best judgment is that for 1979 we

would run around 400 staff years. We are guesstimating that a workload in the range of about 350 staff years would continue into 1980.

The number that we finally settled on, which is 250 staff years, was made as Mr. Staats now suggests. We went through a very disciplined way of examining our structure to find out where we could pare back and where we could do some consolidating. That is essentially in brief fashion how we reached the 250 number.

Mr. BENJAMIN. In reaching this number, you have deferred and you found, at least in review, some more effective ways of handling your responsibilities.

Mr. PIN. That is one facet, but there is another facet of it. Some of our responsibilities do terminate. They become of lesser priority. Mr. BENJAMIN. That is what I am asking for.

Mr. PIN. That, we can give you in more detail if you would like. Mr. BENJAMIN. Would you please? Would you reconcile these figures for us?

Mr. PIN. Sure.

Mr. BENJAMIN. So we can understand the specifics of what really is additional to your existing workload.

Mr. STAATS. You are looking for the pluses and the minuses. Mr. BENJAMIN. That is right.

Mr. STAATS. We can supply that.

[The information follows:]

FY 1979 WORKLOAD INCREASES

The 398 staff years referred to by the question is that which is required in FY 1979 to meet workload resulting from Congressional actions occuring since January 1978--the date when we requested FY 1979 resources. It includes workload requirements of those acts and Committee reports referred to by the question as follows: