The secretary was created because, as I said, the secretary that was in my Office was charged to the electrical department as a voucher examiner. So the House Administration authorized a secretary.

And this Assistant Chief of————

Mr. LANGEN. May I ask there, to try to follow this; the secretary that was in your office now goes back to somewhere. What happens to the position that was so assigned?

Mr. JENNINGS. She asked to be assigned to the Finance Office and was assigned to that office to fill a vacancy that existed as a voucher examiner in the accounting department.

Mr. LANGEN. Does it amount to one position abolished and one added somehow?

Mr. JENNINGS. It amounts to one added, in this particular case, as a secretary.

The Assistant Chief in Office Equipment Service, as I said, was the man who was assigned as administrative assistant in my Office, and I combined his position and the legal adviser position into the present administrative assistant job. While it does not show that the legal adviser has been eliminated, he has been transferred to this pool and will retire when that is abolished at the end of this year.

Frankly, the man only lacked the rest of this year for his retirement and this is just one of those things I worked out in order that he might stay aboard.

FURNITURE REPAIR AND REFINISHING

Most of these others, the carpenters, upholsterers, finisher and finisher's helper, down to the carpet section, we found, in the advent of trying to bring some of this equipment and furniture up to date, the reason it has fallen so far behind and the reason it was stacked up in the halls other than because of the renovation that was taking place in the Cannon Building, is the fact there just were not enough people aboard to take care of it. You could not get anything done. They did not have enough people and in some cases some of the people were not able bodied.

Mr. LANGEN. Let me ask about that and probably I do not understand it, but I think it would be good for the record.

It would seem, having furnished the Rayburn Building, some $3 million worth of furniture and equipment, and now authorizing furniture for the Cannon Building, another $2 million-so this is $5 million of new furniture.

Mr. JENNINGS. Right.

Mr. LANGEN. This would seem like it ought to reduce the repair load of old furniture-but certainly the $5 million worth of new furniture is not in need of repair immediately. If it is, it could not have been too good to start with. I just am kind of puzzled that there should be a greater load, at least with the investment of $5 million in new furniture. It ought to at least stay at the level it was.

Mr. JENNINGS. I think I can explain it and I can see your rationale In the first place, we have now three buildings where we just had

two.

In the second place, we have the east front of the Capitol.

In the third place, you have about twice as many secretaries and clerks in the various offices.

In addition to that, you are bringing in at least one intern and I understand the second one has been requested. As we go into all of these it requires more people just to maintain them.

You would be surprised, I was very frankly, on the amount of refinishing and calls we have for the Rayburn Building. It is not uncommon for some reason, and how I do not know, that a leg will get broken off one of the desks. But we find it broken off, and they ask us to repair it and it takes a pretty good skilled man to restore it to usable condition.

You would be surprised at the number of requests we have in the Rayburn Building for additional types of equipment, committees would like a bookcase built of a certain type over in the corner. They would like a bookcase built over in a particular window, a partition goes in and they would like some shelves added. I am talking about the new Rayburn Building now.

In addition to this, we are trying to find enough desks we might repair and refinish to furnish the first phase of the Cannon Building because no furniture has been authorized as of this minute for the Cannon Building. The Building Commission has met and authorized the purchase of new furniture, and you folks have the

Mr. ANDREWs. Excuse me.

When did the Building Commission meet and authorize the purchase of new furniture for the Cannon Building?

Mr. JENNINGS. This week.

Mr. ANDREWS. Would you put a copy of their resolution in the record at this point, because if you remember, in our supplemental we provided money for the new furniture.

Mr. JENNINGS. Yes.

(The information follows:)

Action of the Commission April 25, 1967: It was unanimously agreed that the present Cannon Building sofas and easy chairs are to be refinished and upBolstered, and used in the Members private office. Additionally, it was agreed to substitute a less ornate model desk and case goods in the Receptionist's and Administrative Assistant's office. It was also agreed to substitute a less expensive rotary chair for the Member (judges type chair), receptionist, and administrative assistant. The remainder of the furniture is to be new and of the Rayburn Building type. The Clerk of the House was authorized to proceed with the rchase of all new furniture required, at an estimated cost of $1,886,000, subJect to the appropriation by Congress of the necessary funds therefor. (Recorded by Mildred Hall, secretary to the Architect.)

Mr. JENNINGS. I am pleased to know-this is another thing I did not know-you had provided it. I was in hopes you would, but that is like something else you divulged to me earlier that I did not know. Even that it is now authorized by the Building Commission, and if you grant it in the supplemental appropriation, I cannot buy that furniture in time to furnish the first phase of the Cannon Building. So we have got to get these people to run these desks through the finishing department and the cabinet department and furnish each office with the best we can until such time as the new furniture arrives.

In addition to this, I did not ask for all new furniture, I only asked for the furniture I felt we needed. In this connection I would be delighted to have you go over and see a model office we set up over in the Cannon Building to show you the furniture we are going to use that is presently in the Cannon Building, to marry that up with the

furniture of the Rayburn type. I did not ask for a single couch to be bought for the Cannon Building, nor the big Turkish type chairs. But included in this-and I can see we are going to have a pretty good expenditure for next year-is the re-covering of every one of those couches and every one of those big chairs.

Mr. LANGEN. Let me pursue that--and I am not finding fault with it. I look at the number of employees being added in order to refinish some old furniture. This was not a big amount, as I recall, in the total amount of the furniture for the Cannon Building, but if you once put these on the payroll and they are going to stay there from here on in, this could be a pretty expensive procedure.

I see little use either in completely refinishing some desks or chairs or equipment or whatever it is, if it is only going to be there for a few months. As far as I know, they are not going to expand the size of the House. There will still be 435 Members, so when this is done they will go out somewhere.

Mr. JENNINGS. Right.

Mr. LANGEN. And to add employees and do a good finishing job for each piece of furniture, that is only going to be used for a little while. I just want to make sure there is not that kind of waste involved. Mr. JENNINGS. There certainly will not be.

As a matter of fact, if you will recall, the Architect estimated that to put all new furniture in the Cannon Building would be $2.2 million and some thousands. And I only asked for $1,885,000. So there is a $400,000 difference.

Admittedly, Mr. Langen, all of this will not be saved because I am going to hire some personnel to refinish the chairs. I frankly feel I would have had to ask for at least half and maybe more of this personnel in order to keep pace because we were dropping behind in keeping what furniture we had repaired.

I can assure you gentlemen one thing: With the exception of rare extenuating circumstances, I am not going to keep anyone on the payroll that is not needed if it is left up to me.

Mr. YATES. Who else is it left up to?

Mr. JENNINGS. It is left up to the Patronage Committee and the individual Members. It has just been like pulling eyeteeth to make some of these changes. I said they have been most cooperative, but I moved a fellow the other day from one department to another department, and I got a letter from one of the Members telling me how valuable this man was. So I checked the Member's payroll, which is available to me, and I found his clerk hire was not filled. When I made this man available to him, he was not nearly as interested in him as he was before.

The only thing I am saying, in answer to your question, as far as I am personally concerned I am not going to keep any of them aboard, and I will make the recommendation and I will have it on file, but I do not have the final say in every single instance.

Mr. LANGEN. Let me say that is a very worthy objective and one which I think finds good reception as far as the House is concerned at this point. I do not think it is any secret that Congress in general is watched with a rather critical eye these days and we do see criticism of expenditures in one way or the other. The extent to which we can

indicate they are needed and necessary to provide service for the membership, which in turn amounts to service to the public, is good. It is for that reason I have asked a few of these questions.

LIBRARY FACILITIES

Mr. JENNINGS. And I suppose the reason I am being so brutally frank about this whole thing is because I am new. Even when we come up with these recommendations-let's take the library we just discussed. This is the way I feel about it at this time. I feel these libraries very definitely need to be consolidated.

Mr. LANGEN. I should agree with that.

Mr. JENNINGS. I am making the recommendation to you. I suppose next year I will be back asking for the same appropriations for the library I am asking this year.

Mr. ANDREWS. Who has the authority to consolidate those libraries? Mr. JENNINGS. The House.

Mr. ANDREWS. What committee?

Mr. JENNINGS. This I do not know. As I said, I just hired a lawyer on my staff and he is trying to bring this up to date. I am not sure how the thing got started.

Mr. ANDREWS. If we would put any money in there, maybe we would have the authority too.

Mr. JENNINGS. I doubt if they would work for nothing for the library. I really would not recommend that because, Mr. Chairman, I am not saying I am right. I am just saying how it impressed me at the very beginning and telling you where the libraries are and how they operate.

I just feel if these libraries were put under the Library of Congress, this is their duty and responsibility and by the same token I feel the document rooms should be consolidated.

I have not made that statement heretofore and it may be that when I study this matter more thoroughly, this action will not be necessary. Maybe I will not make that same recommendation later. I just want to say if something does not happen in these particular cases, I will be right back next year asking you for an appropriation for the libraries. Mr. LANGEN. Let me add too, the extent to which you can offer resistance to any misuse of the patronage that may be involved in these positions, another compliment is due you, because I am sure any misuse of that might one day reflect back to the membership of this committee and others involved.

METHODS AND SYSTEMS ANALYST

I see a methods and system analyst.

Mr. JENNINGS. Yes, sir.

Mr. LANGEN. I would guess he is going to serve a good purpose. Mr. JENNINGS. I will tell you frankly what I have in mind. I found in the Disbursing Office an antiquated system and said to the House. Administration Committee I would like to have an appropriation of $150 or $150,000. If you give me $150 we can put eyeshades and garters and aprons and bonnets on all the workers over there and it will be right in keeping with the operation.

If you give me $150,000 to $200,000, we can buy some computeroriented equipment and we will not have to delay the members on W-2 forms, we will not have to come back to the committee and say we have no records.

So I went out and the committee agreed we should move into a computer-oriented system with the idea of going to data processing. You can let your imagination and your vision just run away with you on the things we should do. But we must begin.

I asked them to let me hire someone to put on my staff that could advise. When I went out to try to find someone, I found they all want more money than I make and most of the Members of Congress make. This is a highly sophisticated, complicated, scientific operation.

I then resolved the best thing to do was ask them to allow me to hire someone I thought was intelligent enough to pull all of these things together, to use the GAO, the GSA, and all the technical people of the various companies. He is now in the process of presenting recommendations to the Clerk.

Mr. LANGEN. That is why I say I think it would serve a pretty good purpose. I would hope one day the use of such a person might reflect itself in a reduction in the expenditure needed personnel wise or otherwise.

Mr. JENNINGS. I do not think when we get this new equipment it is going to take the job of any person. But I think it is going to prevent the hiring of a lot of people if we keep using this double entry bookkeeping-type system we have. We just have not taken advantage of the inventions that have been made since the turn of the century in the House of Representatives.

I am satisfied that if we can do some of these things we can render better service.

As I have said, I am the director of a bank. If we were still saving every old check in the bank, we would have had to build a warehouse long ago, but we are microfilming those old checks and we have them available. But there is not a microfilm in the department available, and as a result, every Member is asking for more and more space and more and more requisitions are coming across my desk for file cabinets, trunks, package boxes, and spaces to put them.

I am satisfied if we could put in a microfilm department we could microfilm not only a lot of the records the Clerk is required to keep, but we could make it available to the Members to microfilm some of their old records. We could make that service available and save a lot of space.

(Off the record.)

Mr. YATES. Have you investigated the possibility of having the Archives do some microfilming for you under contract?

I remember when I was on the Independent Offices Subcommittee, the Archives asked us for money to put a microfilm system in, and they have one. I wonder why they could not do it for us on a contract

basis.

Do we have enough work to have one of our own?

Mr. JENNINGS. I have only been Clerk 3 months and I frankly do not know all of these things. I think frankly we have enough work that we would want a microfilming department available on the Hill.