LegiStorm

Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.) paid out more than $200,000 in bonuses in his final two days in office, raising his total bonus numbers to nearly half a million dollars.

That final splurge on his departing staff meant that the Blue Dog Democrat was - by a six-figure margin - the most generous bonus giver of any member of Congress. These payments came after Marshall's loss in an election in which he claimed to be a fiscal conservative. 

In one television campaign ad, Jim Marshall noted that he "leads the Balanced Budget Caucus and spends less on his office than any other Georgia member of Congress."

Marshall, who also paid out about $230,000 in bonuses in the fourth quarter of 2010 - second-most among all representatives - paid 16 full-time staffers about $14,000 each for the period of Jan. 1-2, 2011, the maximum allowable monthly salary for congressional staff. Because he hit this maximum, Marshall didn't play favorites, as the bonuses were the same for the relatively low-paid legislative correspondents as for his chief of staff.

As his ad suggested, the lawmaker had more available payroll money for bonuses, as his average quarterly payroll over the first three quarters of 2010 was among the lowest in Congress. His quarterly payroll averaged $184,795, ranking him 421st out of 434 House members who were in office the entire year.

This information about Marshall's extraordinary generosity only came to light after the House released its first quarter salary data. Previously, LegiStorm had released a list of bonuses paid by members in 2010 based on fourth quarter data. But this fourth quarter data excluded the final two days of the 2010 legislative calendar, which ends Jan. 2.

Although Marshall paid his staff more than any of the other 93 departing members in his final days as a member of Congress, he was far from the only member who paid out bonuses in the last two days of his term. In all, 24 of the 93 departing members paid more than $50,000 in salaries for the first two days of 2011, while 33 paid out less than $12,000 each.

Although bonuses are not specifically broken out in the salary data, they can be inferred by spikes in salaries as the legislative year winds down. Members often pay out bonuses at the end of the year, as they determine just how much of their yearly budget is still available. In many cases, these bonuses are reported in the fourth quarter numbers, although as shown above some members wait until the first quarter numbers are released, making it even more difficult to determine bonuses paid by each member.

The amount available for bonuses differs for each lawmaker, depending on how much that member has spent of their Members' Representational Allowance during the year. The allowance is also slightly different for each lawmaker, based in part on the number of constituents, the cost of living in the district, and the distance between the members' home district and Washington, D.C. In addition to salaries and office expenses, the allowance pays for members to travel to and from their district. Marshall's allowance for 2010 was $1,494,211. After all the bonuses, Marshall still had about $80,000 left over, which will be returned to the Treasury.

UPDATE (June 9, 2011, 5:45 p.m.)

The table above has been corrected since originally posted. The original post listed Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick's payroll as $178,427.83, Rep. George Radanovich's payroll as $113,809.76 and Rep. Betsy Markey's payroll as $148,558.97. Those numbers were the total amounts they reported in the first quarter salary release, but included some salaries paid in December 2010.

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