REDEFINING MEMBER BUDGETS
The choice was simple. Either kick the can down the road using antiquated formulae dating back to the 1970s, decades old cost data, and arbitrary numbers or do things the right way. Although I was encouraged to do the former, I chose the latter. Within weeks, and against all odds, I showcased on one of my personal brand promises: Delivering miracles on-demand.
In October 2022, CHA requested my help to lead the formulation of Member Representational Allowances (MRAs) for each of the 441 Member Offices of the incoming 118th Congress. The person tasked to conduct the analysis over the last two years failed to produce a single work product. With the deadline to determine the MRAs looming, CHA placed their trust in me given my reputation as a problem solver and someone who gets disparate teams to work together towards a common goal. The solution I delivered has dramatically modernized this important formulation.
01 BACKGROUND
Traditionally, there have been 5 components of the MRA. I systematically analyzed each and tasked teams of budget and technical staff to brief on historical methods and data. The actual disbursement data provided me with an understanding of past Member spend, however, I quickly found the formulation process to be antiquated and untraceable to any sound analysis. The last time MRA formulation was given any thought was in over a decade ago with wholesale increases/decreases to overall amounts applied over the years.
02 Clerk Hire
The ‘Clerk Hire’ component budgets for Member Office salaries. Last set in 2010 at $944K per Member Office, average disbursements reached $1.3M by 2022. With new salary increases implemented late in 2022, I realized 2023 disbursements would be over $1.4M. Sourcing payroll data for 100% of staff that worked at the House in 2022, I categorized 20 full-time and 4 part-time positions and a typical Member Office makeup. I accounted for staff with multiple roles/titles and shared staff that are paid by more than one Member or Committee Office.
I provided a 2022 House Salary Analysis report to CHA as a bonus feature of the MRA formulation process. I tied each position in a typical Member Office makeup to the GS-Schedule and produced a 2023 rate of $1.43M per Member Office. The House can now readily adjust the Clerk Hire based on real analysis and data every year and keep pace with the executive branch while providing Members with a tool to make hiring decisions with the salary analysis. Both keeping pace with executive branch salaries and having reliable House salary data deliver on key recommendations by the Select Committee on Modernization to help the House achieve its goals.
03 OFFICE EXPENSES
For Office Expenses, I tasked my data team to provide Statements of Disbursements data for as far back as possible. I quickly noticed Member Offices would be allocated twice the amount that they actual spent for Office Expenses in a given year. This trend was not just a one-off occurrence but was consistent over the last decade’s worth of data. My ability to effectively visualize this effect for CHA convinced them to base future budgets on actuals rather than decades-old formulas,
saving over $120M over the 118th Congress alone.
04 OFFICIAL MAIL
This component allocates funds for official mail to constituents. Once again, I reviewed actual spend by Member Offices over the last decade and a histogram for 2022 disbursements to understand the range among all 441 Member Offices. If the existing formula had been used, the component would allocate double the funds that would actually be disbursed by the average office. Instead, I worked with CHA to further discount the existing formula to reflect historical spending,
saving over $127M over the 118th Congress alone.
05 DISTRICT RENT
After realizing that the House used lease rates that were a decade old in 2022 since the gentleman at GSA that provided the data retired in 2013, I quickly worked to re-establish a partnership with GSA to provide the House with applicable rates for all US submarkets including first-of-a-kind rest-of-state and territory rates. I led a cross-organizational team to create this dataset and then worked with CHA to gain approval of my recommended approach to use a geospatial analysis tool to create bespoke rates for each Congressional district.
06 TRAVEL
The prior formula provided a cost-per-mile times the distance from Capitol Hill to the district times 64 trips for 8 radii with a base amount of $6200. The CPM was last calculated two decades ago, the 64 trips were allegedly set on a house floor debate in 1975, and the $6200 base amount had not changed in years. I mapped the formula in ArcGIS to show the Committee that this was no longer a good methodology. I proposed a new formula based on past Member spend, real-world data, and modern processes. Past data shows that Member spend fell into
3 categories- ground transportation, air travel, and lodging/meals/incidentals. Analyzing ground transportation resulted in a $20K base amount, more than twice the prior $6200. For air travel, I tied GSA’s City Pair Program dataset to FAA’s airport rankings dataset and created queries to calculate all permutations of direct and layover flights from DC to all 441 Congressional Districts. I uploaded the 321 destination airports into a mapping software, overlayed the 118th Districts, and created Python scripts to account for all airports that serve each district to create a weighted cost based on various criteria. I set the number of trips provided to each office based on past legislative calendars and calculated per diem rates in the mapping software using historical data and 2023 GSA rates for each district. The new formula emulates real spend across the 3 categories of disbursements and models real-life travel requirements for the House.
In 3 months, I SET bespoke budgets for all 441 members WITH AN AVERAGE $100K increase for A TOTAL OF $850m
Throughout the process, I regularly briefed the new CHA Chairman, Brian Steil, to keep him updated on my progress. His concern was to have a justifiable process and to be 5% over the 2023 budget allocation of $810M. Rather than work backwards from that number, I delivered my data-driven approach calculating 441 unique MRAs, resulting in a 4.99% delta for a total of $850M, and an average $100K increase for Member Offices well before the March 1 deadline so letters could be sent to each Member informing them of their 2023 budgets. For my work, I was awarded the 2023 CAO Excellence Award on 16 March 2023. In addition, Chairman Steil presented me with a signed copy of Committee Resolution 118-13 for myself and my team.