As indicated, for the fiscal year 1978, $120,000 was appropriated on a "one-year" basis in the regular annual act for Contingent Expenses. $90,000 was appropriated on a "No Year" basis for such purpose in the Second Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1978, in addition, $97,587 of "No Year" prior years funding was also available for obligation in fiscal year 1978, providing a total of $307,587. Of this total, $97,933 was expended as follows: Installation of screen, room 120, House Restaurant, Capitol.... $ 11,047 Tort claims Capitol Grounds........ Alterations to Subcommittee on Service, House Administration, G-3 level, Rayburn House Office Building. 1,000 Alterations to room 1301, Committee on Agriculture, Longworth House Office Building... 1,186 Alterations to room 2181, Committee on Education and ...... 7,881 Convert stairwell into office for Deputy Doorkeeper 4,569 Renovations and improvements to rooms HT-59 and 60, Capitol.... 9,880 the Capitol Building.. The foregoing items were approved by the Speaker of the Fiscal Year 1978 (continued) Construction of 6 dog kennels at 120 C Street (Senate Annex). Construction of shelter for parking attendants, $ 4,231 Senate Parking Lot No. 18. 3,178 Alterations to rooms S-146 and S-146A, Capitol Building. Construction of additional toilet facility for women 11,515 within the Press Gallery on the 3rd floor of Senate Wing of Capitol.. 6,847 Installation of cabinets in S-211, Majority Leader room, Capitol Building.... 7,941 Subtotal, Senate items 33,712 The foregoing items were approved by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriations Rental of storage space, #10 P Street S.W. Public Law 93-180. Total Expended Fiscal Year 1978. 17,295 $ 97,933 1979 out of "No Year" funds, $187,081. As of October 1, 1978, there remained available for obligation in fiscal year 4.4 FISCAL YEARS 1978 AND 1979 EXPENDITURES Mr. BENJAMIN. The request for fiscal year 1980 totals $210,000. You explain in your justification that $97,933 was spent from this fund in fiscal year 1978. What was spent from this fund in the first quarter of fiscal year 1979? Mr. WHITE. We have that, Mr. Chairman, as of January 31. Mr. BENJAMIN. I would appreciate it if you have it as of December 31. Mr. WHITE. We will have to supply that for the record. Mr. BENJAMIN. Please. [The information follows:] Contingent expenses obligated and expended during the 1st quarter of fiscal year 1979 Renovate corridor adjacent to rooms H303 and H421 Capitol buildings... $16,137.99 Installation radio booth, House radio TV gallery 2,579.64 Install railings, House Gallery.. Renovations and improvements, rooms HT59 and 60 Capitol buildings 43,076.49 Mr. WHITE. May I say, in connection with that, Mr. Chairman, because it arises under Contingent Expenses, that we have authority which is provided in Public Law 93-180, dated December 13, 1973, for the leasing of storage space. The funds for leasing space for the House were eliminated when the House Office Building Annex No. 2 was obtained, on the presumption that we could provide storage space there. The space that was leased was for dead storage. We have a need in terms of documents for the Doorkeeper of the House, to lease some additional space which we intend to pay for out of the Contingent Fund. We are not asking for any money for it, but merely want to keep you informed that we have just run out of storage space; and we need very much to reduce the amount of loading of documents on the fourth floor of this building in the Document Storage Area. It is simply technically overloaded and I wanted to keep you informed of that plan. APPROVAL OF EXPENDITURES Secondly, for the past 22 years, as sort of an informal arrangement, before we expended funds from the Contingent Expense Account, we have asked for approval in most cases from the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations for expenditures on the Senate side, and from the Speaker for those on the House side, as a means of control. We intend to continue that, but we intend to do it only for major expenditures. For small expenditures, it seems unnecessary to ask for approval, so that we would operate virtually in the same way that we do in our Miscellaneous Improvements Accounts, where we don't ask for approval. I wanted to apprise you of that as well. NO-YEAR FUNDS Mr. BENJAMIN. Tell us about your "No-Year Fund." Mr. WHITE. You mean what it consists of, or how it arises? Mr. BENJAMIN. Both, and the balance. Mr. WHITE. Because the funds that were previously appropriated as a no-year fund were separated from the regular Contingent Expense Account, which didn't used to be a no-year fund, that amount is separated out. Actually, what we had in the total balance as of October 1, is $397,081. At the present time the balance in the no-year fund as of this date is $291,840, and that is a result of the addition of the amount shown on page 4.4 of the justification to which is added the $90,000 which was appropriated in the supplemental in September 1978 and the $210,000 appropriated on September 30 in the regular bill; so that that is the total at the present time and it is now all no-year. Mr. BENJAMIN. Any questions, Bob? CAPITOL BUILDINGS Mr. BENJAMIN. Capitol Buildings. The request for Capitol Buildings totals $8,541,000 and 220 positions for 1980. Would you tell us about the new positions requested? NEW POSITIONS Mr. WHITE. Yes. We are asking for five new positions. Two of them are service officers. That would be a change from what has been the policy in the past. At five o'clock most of the people in our office in this building go home. Some of us are here later, usually until six or perhaps seven, but when the Congress is here late into the evening we keep people overtime for that purpose, in case some need arises for central office personnel to be here. In addition to that, in the summertime the building is open, as you know, until ten o'clock at night, and more and more activity is taking place in the evenings, with Representatives and Senators engaged in work here in the building, even when neither house is in session; and we think it would be desirable to have somebody on tap in this building other than the maintenance people who are now always available. We have somebody here 24 hours a day, but these would be people at the office itself, to respond to any needs that might arise. We really only need one on a continuing basis, but we require two in order to have somebody here every day. That is the purpose for that request. The two painters are justified on the basis of in-house wage board scale rather than the union scale that we have to pay now. Because of the amount of painting that we are doing, the total number of union manhours employed adds up to more than it will cost if we permanently employ two painters at our wage scale in house. We think that will be a monetary savings. CENTRALIZING OF SIGNMAKING The signmaker is asked for in conjunction with the request for the signmaking machine which is also in this same justification; the request is a result of a study that is now not quite completed but completed enough to reach this conclusion, and that study to which I refer is the graphics program for the entire Hill. In looking at the question of the varying kinds of signs that there are here in all of the various buildings, it seemed to us that some kind of coordination was needed. It was determined as we looked into this that there are over 7,000 signs per year produced on the Hill by eight different agency sign shops, which is a direct cause of the widely varying disorderly appearance of signs and an unjustifiable duplication of equipment and space use, we feel. This proposal is to bring responsibility for all the signs under this one individual, whether it is a sign for this building, or the Supreme Court, or the Senate, or the House, so that all signs will have the same letterface, and so that when you are on the Hill as a visitor, you know you are on the Hill. There is just a conglomeration resulting in a cluttered, unplanned appearance. If you look through this building at the signs, you will see 40 different kinds of lettering; somebody takes a stencil machine and pastes a sign on the wall which creates at least an undignified appearance, if it is not actually demeaning to the Hill. We think that to provide the machine-and this machine will enable us to accommodate the need-there is a continuous need for signs as people and uses change-will enable us to solve the problem in a cost-effective way. Signs like this one here, for example, are made in this building; there are others made in some other building-we would propose to do all of that with this individual and this machine. CURRENT SIGNMAKING STAFF Mr. BENJAMIN. What is going to happen to the people that are manning these other sign machines? Mr. WHITE. We hadn't made any proposals for that, because they don't all come under our jurisdiction. Mr. BENJAMIN. How many do? Mr. WHITE. I think we have two or three now that do. Mr. ELLIOTT CARROLL. I believe most of the personnel are assigned to other duties and they spend part of their time making signs, that is, of our personnel. The Clerk may have similar personnel. In fact, I believe he does. Mr. BENJAMIN. Would you be kind enough to do this for us? See if we can save if we will have one central location. Mr. WHITE. I'd be glad to. Mr. BENJAMIN. That would appeal to us, but to put on another $15,000 man and a $15,000 machine is not too appealing, although I agree with you in trying to get some degree of uniformity and making it at least symbolic of the Government Complex. GRAPHICS UNIFORMITY Mr. WHITE. One of the things that we will have done, for example, is that we will have a graphics manual so that if a new 35-533 - 79 62 (Pt. 2) |