Nearly 1 in 10 House members paid at least six-figure bonuses to their staffs last year after a hard-fought election. Most who paid such bonus packages were defeated in the election or retired - with most of those departing being Democrats, of course, given the election tilt toward the GOP.
But three of the top four bonus payers last year who remained in office were Republicans, including Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee. He paid roughly $133,000 in bonuses to his personal staff, which does not include his committee staffers.
These are the findings of a new analysis of House salary data performed by LegiStorm. The data about bonuses paid by individuals can be found at a new online resource we have created at http://www.legistorm.com/salaries/house_bonuses_by_member.html
With this free resource, site users can see how all members compare with one another in terms of how open they were with the bonus checkbook provided by taxpayers. And we have performed the analysis for not just 2010, but for all years from 2001 forward.
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published its own analysis, using LegiStorm's data, showing that Democrats paid record year-end bonuses, just as the Republicans had done when they faced an exodus from the House in 2006. Some of our numbers differ slightly from the Journal's because we have spent some more time to pro-rate our bonus-calculation methodology to account for staffing level changes which might result in minor differences in pay fluctuations.
Some background: The House does not publish staff bonus data per se. Instead, bonuses must be inferred based on the increased salary payouts made in the fourth quarter of the year, when bonuses are traditionally given for House member and committee staff. To ensure that the inflow and outflow of staff played as small a role as possible in the numbers, LegiStorm pro-rated the salaries of staffers based on how long they served during the year and calculated the increased salary on a prorated basis.
For staffers working in the offices of members of the House, the average salary increased about 20% in the fourth quarter over the first three quarters. But dozens of member offices had increases many times that level, including five offices - four departing Democrats and one departing Republican - that paid salaries in the fourth quarter that were at least double the salaries paid in each of the first three quarters.
The most generous bonus-payer was Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.), who paid 120% more per staffer in the fourth quarter than she did in the first three quarters. These total bonuses cost taxpayers roughly $200,000. Others in the top five include Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.), Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.) and Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.).
Of those who remain in office, the most generous bonus payers, according to our methodology, were Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), Rep. Doris Okada (D-Calif.), Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.).
Dozens of members paid no discernible bonuses. Of the 20 most frugal members, at least according to how much they decreased average pay, 14 were Democrats and 6 were Republicans. That result may be explained by a combination of not paying major bonuses at the same time as the departure of top-level staff, driving down the average salary of remaining staffers.
