Congressmen Test Rules When Giving Extra Pay to Aides

In an apparent violation of House rules, three prominent San Fernando Valley-area congressmen have given extra pay to staff members in the closing months of the past three years, House records show.

Reps. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) gave increases to his staff in the closing months of each year. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles) dramatically boosted the pay of his three top aides in late 1988 and other employees in 1987 and 1986. Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura) did the same for his staff in the closing months of 1987 and 1986.

Total spending for extra pay ranged from $4,500 to $12,000 a year in each office. Individual staff members generally received from several hundred dollars to several thousand.

House regulations specify that year-end salary increases “should be made only on a permanent basis, and only when the services of the individual(s) warrant.” The rules also state that “services shall be performed during the pay period for which compensation is authorized.”

Rules Not Enforced

But the regulations, which were adopted by the House Administration Committee, are generally not enforced and violations are widespread, according to officials familiar with House operations. And no one has registered a complaint about the temporary salary increases paid by Berman, Waxman and Lagomarsino.

“It’s never been brought to our attention,” said Lagomarsino, a 15-year House veteran. “It’s always been done and, as far as I know, it’s done by a lot of other people. If they advised us it was wrong, we certainly wouldn’t do it.”

Advice of some sort could be forthcoming as a result of disclosures that Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the combative House Republican whip, had given additional pay to four aides after they returned from leaves to work on his campaign.

Gingrich, who filed the ethics complaint that led to the resignation of House Speaker Jim Wright, a Texas Democrat, is now the subject of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee. Among the matters being examined by the committee is the extra pay given to staff members.

Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.) has introduced a resolution that would amend House rules to permit merit bonuses to congressional staffers. He said he had dispensed such rewards for nine years, “unknowing that the House rules suggested that was improper.” The measure is pending.

The most serious question raised by the bonus flap is the possibility that Gingrich or other lawmakers had used federal funds to reward staff members for campaign work, which would violate federal law as well as House rules. That does not appear to be the case with the Valley-area lawmakers.

“Some raise pay at the end of the year to get rid of money that would otherwise go back to the Treasury,” said Stanley Brand, a former House counsel who advises members of Congress on ethics issues.

“Technically, that may be a violation of the rule. But I don’t think that’s anything that any prosecutor or the House Ethics Committee would care about if that’s all that’s at issue. The only concern is if there is a scheme to use public money for campaign work.”

Waxman and Lagomarsino gave additional pay to home district aides who returned to their congressional payrolls after taking leaves without pay to do election work.

Berman gave more money to his top district staffer, who had been placed on half-salary when he divided his time between congressional and campaign work.

Waxman gave his district coordinator, Keiko Shimabukuro, a total of $3,384 over the last two months of 1988.

Lagomarsino district aide Edward T. Bedwell, who was paid $30,000 a year, received $500 in December, 1986, after working four months on his boss’s campaign.

Berman administrative assistant Marc C. Litchman was paid an additional $567 in December, 1988, after he had divided his time between congressional and campaign work for Berman and Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky’s abortive mayoral bid. Litchman’s congressional pay had been substantially reduced while he worked on the campaigns.

Bedwell and Litchman were paid from campaign funds for their election-related work, records show. Shimabukuro said she was paid for her campaign work by BAD Campaigns, a Democratic consulting firm run by Michael Berman and Carl D’Agostino, with whom she worked. Waxman is closely aligned with the Westside firm; Michael Berman is Howard’s brother.

The three Valley-area representatives also granted comparable extra pay to other staffers who were not involved in their reelection campaigns. In addition, each gave additional pay to staff members in 1987, a non-election year, records show.

The congressmen or their spokesmen said these records show that the higher year-end salaries had nothing to do with electioneering.

“In no case is a bonus paid as compensation for doing political work,” Berman said.

Flexible Budgets

House members are given broad latitude to determine how they use their $431,760 annual allocation for the salaries of up to 18 staff members. They also have the discretion to shift $40,000 from their office expense accounts to their personnel budgets. They are prohibited, however, from spending more than 10% of their total annual payroll budget in any month.

Three Valley-area lawmakers--Reps. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Tarzana), Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and Carlos Moorhead (R-Glendale)--spread their salary payments equally throughout the year.

“You hire people for a number of dollars, you know what you’ve got in your budget, and they know what they’re going to be earning on an annual basis,” Gallegly said. “They can plan their lives better.”

Budget uncertainty was the reason cited by Berman, Waxman and Lagomarsino for their practice of setting aside funds that they have used to provide higher pay in the final three months of the year, according to the lawmakers or their aides.

Lagomarsino said budget fluctuations come from unexpected resignations and variations in salary costs when aides are replaced. Any leftover money, he said, is used for supplemental pay to show his appreciation for what he characterized as a generally underpaid staff. There was no such surplus in 1988, he said.

Waxman’s administrative assistant, Philip M. Schiliro, and Berman attributed the unpredictability to the Gramm-Rudman budget-cutting act. Under that law, an automatic, across-the-board cut takes effect if Congress fails to meet deficit-reduction targets. The cut includes the congressional budget.

To avoid layoffs or salary reductions, Waxman and Berman set aside funds that can be used to offset Gramm-Rudman cuts. If cuts are not necessary--and they have not been since 1986--then the money is dispensed to staffers.

“If we have money left over, Henry tries to pay people what they deserve,” Schiliro said. “You want to reward them for being with you and doing good work.”

The three aides who received substantial additional pay in 1988 have worked for Waxman from six to 20 years. Shimabukuro went to work for Waxman when he was first elected to office as a member of the state Assembly in 1968. The other recipients were Schiliro and Howard Elinson, Waxman’s other administrative assistant.

Schiliro said the year-end payments should not be construed as bonuses. Rather, he said, they are Waxman’s way of paying staffers what he believed they deserved during those months when enough money was available to do so.

Berman called the additional pay “a back-loading of compensation.” Lagomarsino called the payments--generally $300 to $500 per staffer--a way of showing appreciation.

Gallegly, who also sets aside about 10% of his annual payroll allocation for unanticipated costs or budget cuts, said he has returned unspent funds to the Treasury or used them to buy office equipment.

If an allegation is made that a member violated the House regulations on staff pay raises, the House Ethics Committee must decide whether to investigate, said Robert S. McGuire, chief of the House Finance Office.

“The only issue we would be concerned with is: Was the compensation that was paid by official funds earned?” he said.

The director of a congressional watchdog group, meanwhile, said Berman, Waxman and Lagomarsino appeared not to have done anything improper.

“The fact that this was a generalized bonus for all the staff would indicate it was not a disguised campaign subsidy,” said Michael Waldman, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch. Still, he said he was troubled by staffers doing campaign work for another reason.

“The phenomenon of staff members taking leaves of absences with subsequent bonuses simply indicates how the perks of incumbency help create a permanent Congress,” Waldman said.

“When you combine that with free mail, newsletters, the House television studio and the whole array of support that a member of Congress receives, you see we’ve created 435 taxpayer-supported reelection machines.”