December to January that had to be handled. There were the short checks for the special and select committees; the tremendous activity of supplying information to the new Members and getting them started with their appointments; so that it sort of cleared the decks for another workload that was right on us, and I would say it is perhaps a good thing.

Mr. ROBERTS. And the W-2 forms.

Mr. MEGILL. Yes; with approximately 4,400 pay cards to begin the year and with approximately 6,035 W-2 forms.

Mr. STEED. How many people do you now have on your disbursing staff?

Mr. MEGILL. Under this budget item?

Mr. STEED. Yes.

Mr. MEGILL. We have 7 under the statutory roll and 14 under the lump sum-a total of 21.

Mr. HORAN. What do you mean by short checks?

Mr. MEGILL. A check in payment for less than a full month of services. The special and select committees are only in existence until the end of a Congress. They cannot be continued until the new Congress convenes and therefore clerks receive 3 days' pay in the old Congress until the new Congress comes in and breathes new life in them and usually provides that the pay be made retroactive to the 3d. And outgoing Members' clerks get a 2-day check. Sixty-seven Members did not return to the 88th Congress.

Mr. HORAN. None of these people are under civil service?

Mr. MEGILL. No.

Mr. HORAN. They serve

Mr. MEGILL. At the pleasure of the Member.

Mr. HORAN. At the pleasure of the Member or the committee? Mr. MEGILL. Yes. They are appointed to assist the Member in his Representative capacity or the committee in the conduct of its business, or the officers in the conduct of the business of the House. Mr. STEED. You actually have 21 people working there?

Mr. MEGILL. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEED. And you are asking for an increase of how many? Mr. MEGILL. An increase of $20,000. That includes the three people we are asking permission to continue because if this $20,000 is not granted the Clerk will be unable to continue these three people that he put on. He was able to sustain them because the original appointment was at a very low pay. In fact, it was at $2,100 base, for the purpose of seeing whether they were qualified and to see whether the individual would be satisfied in the work. The choice that was made in appointing these people has proven to be an excellent one. We could not have obtained three persons with talents that could have helped us more. It was fortunate that we secured them at a very trying time. I am perfectly willing to say to the committee that I think the October payroll would not have gotten out if we had not appointed these people.

Mr. STEED. AS I understand it, without the $20,000, you would be back to $107,905.

Mr. MEGILL. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEED. What salary were they appointed at?

Mr. MEGILL. $2,100 base. They are now at $3,000 base, which is the bare minimum for the qualifications and service they are rendering. Mr. STEED. Since you appeared last year the disbursing office has moved into new quarters.

I think it would be well to have a little comment in the record about some of the problems you encountered there and how you coped with them.

Mr. MEGILL. As a matter of fact, the move into the new space in the Cannon Building, which came during this very distressing period, as a result of very careful planning, was made without any interruption to the service. The office was moved from the very cramped and poorly lighted space to an excellent accommodation where the employees have proper light from the outside. They are spread out so they are not in each other's hair. You have fewer personnel problems. It is closer to the greater number of employees and Members being accommodated, located in suite 263 of the Cannon Office Building instead of the Capitol.

I would say, aside from the fact they miss being at the Capitol, it is an excellent move and the space is fine and the move was done without incident.

Mr. STEED. I wanted you to say something about the planning you went through to make the move without interruption.

Mr. MEGILL. In anticipation of the move, I obtained a floor plan from the Architect, in fact, several copies of it, and personally drew on the plan the floor space, and the location of every item to be moved. Each employee was assigned an identifying number. That number was affixed to each typewriter, each calculator, each chair, each desk belonging to the individual and the accumulated boxes of papers were numbered.

Two of those plans were prepared. One was sent over to the new space, one was retained in the old location. As a result, when a desk, chair, file case, or any item of equipment was moved, it was set down in a particular space. It was not put down in the corridor. Each item that pertained to the individual went to that area and space.

I used the plan to draw up a special arrangement with the telephones so each individual there can talk with the other, or I can talk with each one of them, or all of them at the same time if I wish, without moving from the desk. It saves them from moving away from their desk.

The move was made. When the material was in place the employees, except three, went over to the new location. Those three remained to answer the telephones in the Capitol and when the others were settled and we had the report they were ready to receive the calls, the phones were cut over, and without interruption we were in business in our new location.

The next day, which was the 10th of November 1962, we were fortunate in getting the General Services Administration Moving Branch to come up and transfer our heavy equipment, the bookkeeping, and checkwriting machines. That was done without breakage or loss. Each item was put down in place the file cases, the bookcases, and the desks so there was no interruption whatsoever, no loss, and no breakage.

Mr. STEED. I have been over there and have seen how you are situated in your new quarters, and I want to congratulate you for having worked out a very good moving problem and how you carried on your work at the same time.

Mr. MEGILL. Thank you.

AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING EQUIPMENT

Mr. STEED. Last year we had some discussion about the checkwriting phase of your operation and the possibility that it might be combined with some automatic data processing arrangement, perhaps in cooperation with other departments. I understand you have done some further study on that.

What comment can you make today on that field?

Mr. ROBERTS. Soon after we were before the committee, or before the end of the summer, we reached the conclusion that the data processing system was not feasible for this operation.

Mr. STEED. Can you give us some of the reasons why you came to the conclusion?

Mr. ROBERTS. Because there is no cutoff date in the first place. In the next place, our girls still had to prepare most of the data for the company. They made one attempt at preparing a payroll and we found too many mistakes in it.

Mr. STEED. It delayed rather than speeded up your operations? Mr. ROBERTS. I am afraid so.

Mr. MEGILL. I would say, Mr. Chairman, that this is an unusual operation. As I mentioned in a previous statement, it is a changing payroll. It is continuously changing during the month. You pay the individual right up to the day that he receives his check. You have no pay lag.

If you had a pay lag of 10 or 12 days and if that could be worked out by law, perhaps a computer would be able to function in our area with more assurance. Actually, the thing that defeats the computer right now are these tremendous changes that come in.

For instance, from December to January there were close to 2,400 people that went off the roll and only one-third of them came back. That is a terrific fluctuation and impact right at that particular time. In addition to that, there are changes occurring throughout each month. It defeats the computer.

Mr. STEED. Is not the truth of the matter the fact in most operations you have a personnel office through which personnel changes are made in a systematic way, and here you have 435 Members who act as their own personnel officers and they change their own people whenever the need arises? You have absolutely no control over that sort of thing?

Mr. MEGILL. The chairman is acutely correct, and he has put his finger on the very thing that makes this operation so unusual.

You cannot take a computer and walk it out to the front counter to meet the Member or the clerk or individual and take the 16 steps that are necessary to see that everything is in order before you can even post that salary on a card, the method we use right now. The individual, the human being, has to look at it. He has to see that all

the papers are there, the oath of office, and all the signatures and the rates are proper.

You have to take the basic rate and extend it with your 10 different formulas and then you have to handle his request for bond withholding and retirement and insurance and the health program. That is a personnel problem to be individually handled and no machine on earth is going to be able to do it. You have a tremendous amount of it. I can give you statistics on it.

You have also a great potential load above the number that are on the roll. There are 4,400 employees. I can state now, the Members have a potential of 880 more clerks they could put on now. They do not nearly come up to the authorized limit of appointments of clerk hire.

The same thing is true with regard to clerks of committees. You have a built-in potential of activity that is reflected in our office every day.

UNUSED MEMBERS' ALLOWANCES

Mr. STEED. I think this would be a good place for you to give us some figures on how many Members do not use all their allowance and how many could have more employees, but for reasons of their own. are using fewer employees than they could. We get a lot of criticism from the other side of the picture. I think the record should show something on the credit side.

Mr. MEGILL. I have some rather interesting statistics here. You mentioned the total number of Members not using their full allowance. Was that the question?

Mr. STEED. Yes.

Mr. MEGILL. There are presently 91 Members that are not using their full allowance. I can give you a breakdown on that if you would like.

Mr. STEED. I think it would be good for the record.

Mr. MEGILL. There are 108 districts where Members may appoint 10 clerks for a total basic allowance of $23,000 a year. Since this statement was prepared, two additional districts were added, one in Florida and one in Minnesota. Of that group of 500,000 population or more with the basic rate of $23,000, you only have 14 Members of the 108 that are using the entire amount. You have 51 using between $20,501 and $22,999.

Now, going down to the smaller districts, the regular districts, not above 500,000, you only have 77 that are using the entire basic allowance of $20,500.

You have 243 using between $15,000 and $20,499.

You have 46 using between $10,000 and $14,099.

You have four using less than $10,000 of the amount.

The number of Members using one clerk, at the authorized maximum base under this act, of $7,000, is 133.

The number of clerks being employed by individual Members, show there are 12 Members employing 10 clerks; 67 employing 9 clerks; 90 employing 8 clerks; 85 employing 7 clerks; 71 employing 6 clerks; 57 employing 5 clerks; 36 employing 4 clerks; 17 employing 3 clerks. Now, the number of clerks on the roll, as of February 28, 1963, was 3,090, and as of April 30, 1963, 3,182.

Mr. ROBERTS. The number of members not using their full allowance, 91, as of March 31, 1963.

Mr. MEGILL. Another interesting statistic deals with the completed fiscal year June 30, 1962.

If we extended the authorized potential use of the clerk hire allowance, 339 regular districts could have expended $16,325,294.19 and 99 districts, with a population of over 500,000 people, could have expended $5,344,270.48 or a total of $21,659.564.67.

If we used this authorized potential and the Members appointed the entire number authorized, we would have budgeted for that fiscal year 1962 $21,659,564, where, as a matter of fact, the Members only used $19,122,678, leaving a clear saving to the Treasury of $2,536,886.67 due to the Members' good judgment in making appointments.

Mr. STEED. Is that same general trend continuing in this fiscal year? Mr. MEGILL. It is. I will not be able to give you the comparative figure until the fiscal year is over.

You have an increase, of course, in the number of large districts. There is increase in the amount that a Member may spend as a result of the 7 percent being added, but the general difference, the saving, is about the same.

Mr. STEED. Mr. Horan, do you have any questions or comment at this point?

LUMP-SUM ALLOWANCES OF THE CLERK

Mr. HORAN. I notice here, and you have already commented, a lumpsum appropriation, page 7. You are requesting an increase from $89,895 to $91,865, is that right?

Mr. GIBSON. That is due to the 7-percent increase. We are not asking for more money. That is merely a salary increase, the difference between fiscal year 1963 and fiscal year 1964.

Mr. HORAN. You are asking for additional clerical assistants. That is up from $12,010 to $12,275.

Mr. GIBSON. The same answer. It is the 7-percent increase.
Mr. HORAN. Seven-percent increase?

Mr. GIBSON. In pay.

Mr. HORAN. You have already discussed the lump-sum appropriation on page 8 from $105,235 to $127,905.

Mr. GIBSON. That is the 7-percent increase, plus the extra $20,000 we are requesting for additional clerical help in the disbursing office under the lump sum.

Mr. HORAN. Are these funds what you call voucher funds?

Mr. GIBSON. No, sir. This is lump sum.

Mr. HORAN. Where are the voucher funds?

Mr. GIBSON. There are some vouchers paid out of there. Usually when the Clerk hires a person we carry him on voucher for a while to see how satisfactory their work is.

Mr. HORAN. Where does that money come from?

Mr. GIBSON. We pay them out of this fund.

Mr. HORAN. What fund?

Mr. GIBSON. The disbursing office lump sum, but we pay by voucher until we find out whether he can do the work. When they are temporary, they are voucher payments out of this sum.