Ep. 5: Understanding Your Office Budget (“MRA”)

Written By POPVOX Foundation

MRA is an acronym that all House Members and staff learn quickly. It stands for the “Members’ Representational Allowance,” which is a Representative’s allotted budget to support their office operations during each calendar year. In this episode, Aubrey Wilson and Taylor J. Swift interview current and former Chiefs of Staff and Congressional experts about strategies to make the most out of the MRA. They also share tips for how to get smart on the rules regulating its use so that you avoid any issues.

Yuri Beckelman, a seasoned Congressional staffer with nearly two decades of experience on Capitol Hill, currently serves as Chief of Staff for Representative Maxwell Frost [D, FL]. A San Francisco native, Yuri began his career as a Staff Assistant to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D, CA]. His extensive experience includes roles as Staff Director for the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress and Deputy Chief of Staff to Representative Mark Takano [D, CA], where he advocated for enhancing Congress' science and technology capabilities. Yuri's career also includes time as a Senior Advisor to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, demonstrating his broad expertise in legislative affairs and commitment to improving Congressional operations.

Jen Daulby is CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation and is an accomplished government affairs and communications strategist with extensive experience in both the public and private sectors. Her career spans roles as Chief of Staff to Rep. Rodney Davis [R, IL], Minority Staff Director for the House Administration Committee, and counsel to various Congressional committees. Jen's expertise covers a wide range of policy areas, including election law, House operations, agriculture, and technology. With a law degree from Southern Illinois University and a background in both government and Fortune 500 companies, Jen brings a unique blend of legal acumen and political savvy to her work. Her contributions to public service were recently recognized with the Stennis Center's Cresswell Award for the 117th Congress.

Dr. Casey Burgat, director of the Legislative Affairs program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, is a respected expert on Congressional operations and reform. With a Ph.D. in government and politics from the University of Maryland, Casey has held key positions at the R Street Institute and the Congressional Research Service, where he focused on issues of Congressional capacity and Executive branch operations. A frequent contributor to major media outlets and coauthor of Congress Explained: Representation and Lawmaking in the First Branch, Casey combines academic rigor with practical insights into the workings of Congress. He also hosts the "Mastering the Room" podcast, further disseminating his expertise on legislative affairs.

Keenan Austin Reed, a seasoned Capitol Hill professional, is CEO of the Alpine Group and Executive Director of the Public Policy Holding Company Board of Directors. Her decade of Congressional experience includes roles as Chief of Staff and top Policy Advisor, where she worked on issues ranging from climate change to rural broadband for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In 2018, Keenan cofounded the Black Women's Congressional Alliance, a bipartisan organization supporting over 300 Black women staffers across both chambers of Congress. A graduate of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University with both a bachelor's degree and an MBA, Keenan has also managed political campaigns and served in senior roles for state and local government officials.

Key Tips

Read the manual

Or, more specifically, read the Member Handbook published by the Committee on House Administration. This resource is the go-to guidance document on the ins and outs of the MRA and should be considered required reading by both the Member, staffers, and anyone who assists with office finances and management. If you have any questions about the guidance it outlines, call the Committee on House Administration’s staff.

Autonomy is the name of the game

The MRA comes with a lot of rules, but also a lot of flexibility, and that is by design. Every district is different and Members are allotted a great deal of autonomy in using their MRA budget to best support their office in meeting the needs of their constituents. For some, this may mean a large mail (or franking) budget, for others it may mean paying the rent for five district offices or hiring to fill every staff slot.

Out in the open

All MRA spending is transparently disclosed via the House’s Statements of Disbursement, which are publicly available online. These records are often reviewed by government watchdogs, reporters, and members of the public, so it is important to be familiar with how the information is collected and presented. The Statements of Disbursements are also an incredible resource to help your team glean insights into how fellow Members are using their resources, staffing pay trends, and more.

Notable Quotes

“You can work with your people along the way, but if you have questions about what’s an allowable expense, the first thing I would say is you should control/F the Member Handbook. There’s a lot of information in there that will clarify it, so you don’t always have to go back to the person you’re asking a question of. But if it’s not totally clear in the Handbook, you should call the House Administration [Committee]...My big recommendation is to ask – ask and learn. And as you keep doing that, you’ll get a handle of it.”
— Yuri Beckelman, Chief of Staff for Rep. Maxwell Frost [D, FL]
“What I absolutely love about Congress is it truly is 535 small businesses, and especially when I have done work in state legislatures, you just really can’t compare the autonomy a Member of Congress has… And so if you spend down all of your money and you have terrible staff and you have a terrible financial manager, you will write a check at the end of the year, because Congress will not cover your inability to manage your office. So it is really like a small business in that respect. And I love that part of it.”
— Jen Daulby, CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation, former Staff Director of the Committee on House Administration
“There are your bosses and Members who get sideways and forget that the constituent is your boss and the Statements of Disbursement, which is the public accounting and record for how every member of Congress spends their funds. That’s your accountability. That’s the check and balance. And really, that has always been my view of how the institution should work. Its Members should have great latitude because different districts demand different, different ways the office will work, but everyone will get to see how you chose to spend that money.”
— Jen Daulby, CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation, former Staff Director of the Committee on House Administration
“One of the things I loved [was] when I found extra money. And that only comes from smart budgeting. The first thing I’ll say for people that are thinking about managing [is] they might find someone who is experienced with doing it. Do not try to do this on your own. These people are called Finance Administrators. They typically manage more than one office, and they have expertise with knowing how budget flows”
— Keenan Austin Reed, Principal and incoming CEO at the Alpine Group and former Chief of Staff

Highlighted and Additional Resources

Further Listening

As highlighted in the episode, MRA regulations allow a great amount of autonomy for Members to staff and organize their office to match the unique needs of their district. For more ideas of how to creatively utilize the MRA, check out Gavel In episode 10 on “How to Approach the House as a Modern Institution.”

About the Hosts

Aubrey Wilson is POPVOX Foundation’s Director of Government Innovation. Aubrey served as former Deputy Staff Director for the Committee on House Administration (CHA) in the 118th Congress. In this role, she coordinated efforts to make the House work more effectively, including overseeing the inaugural session of CHA’s bipartisan Subcommittee on Modernization. Prior, Aubrey served as Director of Oversight and Modernization for CHA during the 117th Congress. She is a former House legislative assistant and member of the R Street Institute Governance Policy and federal affairs team.

Taylor J. Swift is POPVOX Foundation’s Director of Government Capacity. Prior to joining POPVOX Foundation, Taylor was a senior policy advisor at Demand Progress, focusing on Congressional transparency, efficiency, capacity, and modernization. Taylor also worked at the House of Representatives Democratic Caucus where he focused on congressional modernization, budget, appropriations, education, labor, environmental, and tax policy. Taylor graduated with his master’s degree from The University of Akron, working as a teaching assistant for the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

About the Podcast

“Gavel In” is a nonpartisan explainer podcast series designed especially to mentor new Members Elect of the incoming 119th Congress, their staff, and families to help them successfully set up their new office, team, and Washington home base with ease and navigate the professional and personal challenges of life as a Representative. Gavel In guides Members-Elect about House Floor operations, office structure and hiring, budgeting, technology, security, ethics, and also the intricacies of parliamentary procedure, rules, and how a bill becomes a law.

Created by former Congressional staff from both sides of the aisle by the nonpartisan POPVOX Foundation, “Gavel In” features expert advice from former Members of Congress and their spouses and is a great complement to the House’s official New Member Orientation to ensure Members Elect get all the support they need to succeed as they embark on their new careers in Congress.

About POPVOX Foundation

With a mission to inform and empower people and make government work better for everyone, POPVOX Foundation is focused on ensuring that democratic institutions are equipped to address the “pacing problem” — the gap between emerging technologies and governance. Co-founded in 2021 and led by proud former Congressional staffers from both sides of the aisle, the team at POPVOX Foundation brings empathy, a deep respect for the Legislative branch, and diverse expertise to its efforts to modernize Congress and other governing institutions.

Transcript

Ep. 5: Understanding Your Office Budget “MRA”

Introduction

Aubrey Wilson: Welcome to episode five of Gavel In, a podcast series focused on demystifying how the House of Representatives works.

Taylor J. Swift: We’re your hosts, Aubrey Wilson and Taylor J. Swift, two recovering House staffers from both sides of the aisle who share a love for the institution and are dedicated in supporting its ongoing evolution through our work at POPVOX Foundation. We're a nonpartisan nonprofit that works to inform and empower people and make government work better for everyone.

Aubrey Wilson: We spent the last couple of months gathering the perspectives of prominent Members of Congress, think tank experts, staffers, and Congressional veterans who share their vast Capitol Hill knowledge with us and pull back the curtain on what life is really like in Congress.

Taylor J. Swift: We also want to be transparent. This podcast is not official House guidance.

Aubrey Wilson: But that being said, for this episode of Gavel In, we're focused on the ins and outs of the Members’ Representational Allowance, also known as the MRA. You're going to get a deep dive into the operational fund that pays for all of your office operations.

Taylor J. Swift: That's right, Aubrey, the MRA, like you just said, stands for the Member Representational Allowance. It's going to be a key phrase for everyone on this podcast to know. It's essentially the budget that every Congressional office uses to pay for its staff, its constituent engagement tools, and more. Think of it as the pot of money that covers everything, including computers, printers, airfare, staff salaries, all of it.

Aubrey Wilson: The MRA is determined by Congress each year through the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. But here's the kicker: All of the spending is transparent. You can see it all online for every single Member through what's called the Statements of Disbursement.

Taylor J. Swift: During this episode, our guests will help explain the ins and outs of the MRA. So what can be used? What can't be used, how it's changed over the years and even some helpful tips for when you're first setting up your office.

Aubrey Wilson: It's a lot, but don't worry. If you're looking for more helpful resources, we've got you covered. You just have to head to our episode notes on this episode, after listening to it, of course. And on our website, we link to everything you'll need to know that we mention.

Taylor J. Swift: And with that, let's gavel in.

Discussion

Taylor J. Swift: All right, Aubrey. So before we jump in with our guests, what do you remember about the MRA working on the Hill?

Aubrey Wilson: Oh, Taylor, that's such a good question. I think what I remember the most about the MRA was the fact that it's really flexible and customizable. I think more than I was expecting. I think, you know, when you're coming into Congress, you're expecting there to obviously be a lot of rules and regulations around Congressional spending, as there should be.

But I think that the House really hits kind of the perfect balance with the Members’ Representational Allowance of having there be those guardrails in place that are kind of, you know, put in place by the Committee on House Administration and help to form by the Ethics Committee. But within those guardrails, there's so much flexibility for Members to really build the teams they need to. Create the office structure and have the tools to support their staff the way that they want to, and then also, like, build their district teams out how they want to. And I think our guests today are really going to get into where that flexibility lies. And I think that has been a really special part of the MRA is that aspect of it, the fact that although there are those rules, if you get to know those rules, really, really well, then you can actually find so much flexibility within them to really create the best office to support your constituents back home.

And so the Members are really extra impactful, on the Hill. So I think that that's like the first thing that comes to mind. I will say though, that the second thing that came to mind when you asked that question was the fact that, like, the MRA is complicated. I think that, you know, the rules are obviously very clear and the Member handbook is super clear.

But it doesn't mean that people don't have questions. And with working on the Committee on House Administration, I just remember that the phone would ring all day, every day to talk to the advice and guidance staffer asking MRA questions. It would be Chiefs of Staff, District Directors, you know, all the way down to Staff Assistants who are curious about unique purchases and just wanting to double check what they can spend the MRA on.

And I think that that's like a really important thing to flag for people is that you can read the handbook, you can know the rules, but when you're actually practicing spending this money and you want to be careful with how you spend it, that you can ask those questions and just know that people are asking those questions all the time.

And so House Administration is an incredible resource to take advantage of. So definitely don't feel like as you're learning the MRA, don't feel like you can't ask questions. Just know that everyone, like very experienced offices, all the way down to freshman offices. They're asking questions all the time to really make sure that unique purchases do fit within, that, you know, those rules.

But yeah, that's what that's what comes to mind for me. What about you, Taylor?

Taylor J. Swift: Yeah, I mean, that's a great endorsement to make sure that folks continue to, like, ask questions when they have them. I guess for me, both working in the House as a Congressional staffer, you know, having our Congressional staff salaries paid out of the MRA, but then also working on the other side outside as an external stakeholder for a nonprofit, my previous roles and now here at POPVOX Foundation kind of have taken, a larger examination about what the funding for the MRA has looked like more broadly over the past couple of not only years, but decades.

And so we actually published a study, a couple of weeks ago, about overall modernization and, and, a ton of efforts to strengthen the institution. And you and I actually looked at the recent reforms of the MRA. And some of our findings are interesting. So from like 2011 to 2021, House staffers, their MRA salaries, the salaries that came out of the MRA, were actually cut if you look at numbers adjusting for inflation. And that's not because the MRA was explicitly cut by lawmakers, but it was just because inflation over the past decade really, really went up.

I mean, DC is one of the most expensive places to live. And so it just made it really, really difficult for offices to hire competitive salaries, especially for those at entry level positions and actually those at the very top, so the Chiefs of Staff and the Office Managers.

There was actually a big push. And you probably remember this, as well during your time on the Hill, there was a big push in April of 2021, to propose a 20% increase in the MRA. And ended up being something that the Democratic majority pushed. So, for Fiscal Year ‘22, ended up being a 21% boost in the MRA.

It was the largest increase in the MRA that the Congress has ever seen. Yeah. And so you combine that MRA increase with work that you did at the Committee on House Administration, to review and revive the formula-based MRA. There has been a ton of reform to make sure that this office budget is way more conducive to those who work on the Hill a lot more flexibility, like you mentioned.

But then also, just the numbers are a little larger because it's not cheap living in the city. It's not cheap operating in-office. And so it's just great that Congress saw that need for its employees and its office budget and responded in such a great way.

Aubrey Wilson: Yeah, you're absolutely right, Taylor. And I think that new Members will feel that, too. I think that when you do come in, like you were saying, and you're setting up these, these offices, you have these eighteen staffers that you have to hire, you have to make sure they have competitive salaries both in DC and in their district offices.

You could be potentially signing multiple leases in the district offices. You have to be creative with your communications budget, which is getting more and more expensive every single year. And so, yeah, I think that you're right. I think that like the modernization aspect to the MRA, really showcases how the House is actually modernizing, is actually recognizing that these costs are going up and that for Members to be effective and really serve their constituents back home, they need to adjust to that change.

But anyway, this is actually an incredible segue way to our first guest. So we're actually kicking things off this episode with Yuri Beckelman, who you may remember from Gavels In’s episode two, which is actually on hiring staff. Yuri is a Hill veteran with nearly two decades of Hill experience and currently serves as the Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost’s Chief of Staff.

He also is the past staff director of the House Select Committee on Modernization of Congress. And so he's actually, of course, very familiar with the rules around the MRA and how to utilize it in modern ways. Let's jump into that conversation now.

Interview with Yuri Beckelman

Taylor J. Swift: So Yuri, there are a lot of acronyms that Members and staff come to know within the first few weeks of being on the Capitol Hill one of those being the MRA, which is the Member Representational Allowance. And, you know, you've been around a while, you're a Capitol Hill veteran, now you're Chief of Staff. Can you kind of give us a rundown on what the MRA is?

Give us some examples of how, it can be used, what it can't be spent on, what it can be spent on, and some tips that freshman Members and their Chief of Staff who are just coming in. And like we've been talking about are overwhelmed at points, can learn from the ins and outs.

Yuri Beckelman: So every office gets a set amount. That amount can be is used for staff and for rent in the district and for technology. You will get a small allotment for buying equipment. You'll need more money for that. For paying for your cell phones, for paying for security if you need it for, and there are a lot of rules around it.

I will say, first off, the overwhelming majority of your budget is going to go towards paying staff. There's not a lot of other overhead. There's rent, which is a big expense. You're going to spend a lot of money in your first year on equipment, but that's a one time capital cost. And there's actually it's really interesting because you don't hire all of your staff in the beginning of that first year.

So, a continual cost that comes in year two, will be staff, but so you have this, like, extra set of pot of money which you can use for your one time expensive technology in your first year. Right. Like there's ways of being smart and shifting. There are tons of rules around it. And I want to be like, I want you to be extra sensitive, because if I make a mistake with how I spend MRA and it's not an allowable cost, the Member has to pay out of pocket. But guess what? There is a handbook for all of this.

And if you are, and it explains all of it, and if there are some gray areas, there is a phone call for someone who will answer the question. And if you somehow did violate the rules? Inadvertently. You can always ask for an exception, right? It's best not to hope that it goes away, because it doesn't, because we go through audits and, you know, every expense is processed.

I'll give you an example. I bought a refrigerator, in the district office, and it was flagged as too expensive because I bought the one with the water dispenser in it, which cost $200 more. Right. To me, I thought that was stupid, but it was the rule. And I wrote a letter requesting for an exemption, and my explanation was that it would have been more expensive to buy the water dispenser separately from the refrigerator. And it was approved, and it was given an exception. Right. Like, I wish that I had done that in the beginning, but I didn't know at the time. And so you can work with your people along the way. But if you, if you have questions about what's an allowable expense, the first thing I would say is you should ‘control f’ the Member handbook.

There's a lot of information in there that will like, clarify. So you don't always have to go back to the person you're asking a question of. But if it does, if it's not totally clear in the handbook, you should call House Administration. And they will give you a straight up answer about whether you can or cannot. It's one of the less gray areas on Capitol Hill, right?

There's a lot of cultural things. Well the rule says this interpreted this way, that's not how spending money is. Spending money is pretty clear. And so I just and, I recommend you reading the handbook and, and asking. You can't spend money on, on, on parties, right. Like that's an issue. You can't spend money to buy lunches for people in your office.

There's a small exemption for that. And it's written out for if you're doing your annual retreats or trainings, you can buy lunches twice a year. Literally. It's spelled out twice a year. However, in the district, if you're doing an event that includes constituents, right. And in DC, if you're doing an event that includes non-staff as well, you can pay for meals.

There's rules about it explains it. But you can't just buy lunches all the time for your team. Right. And so there's a lot of explanations in there which are really interesting. There's and some of them are pretty intricate and you can find, and the people who work at House Admin and the people on your financial people want to help you achieve your goal.

They're not they're trying to stop you from spending the money that you have, as long as it's within the rules. And sometimes you can get there different ways and they'll help you do it that are not shady, that are just help you stay within the rules but achieve the same goal. So, my big recommendation is to, is to ask, ask learn, learn. And as you keep doing, you'll get a, you'll get a handle of it.

Aubrey Wilson: As a Chief of Staff who has been on the Hill and experienced kind of staffing a Member at all these different levels, from staff assistant all the way up. And then now finding yourself with the ability to spend an MRA to really support your staff and support your office with. Also with this background and modernization that you have Yuri, are there any kind of really creative ways of using the MRA to have your office feel more modern versus kind of that old, clunky, traditional Hill office stereotype that you'd be willing to share?

Yuri Beckelman: Yeah, I mean, so the district office is really where we focused and you have to use, you can't buy your own equipment. Sorry, in the DC office, you can't buy your own furniture, but you can buy your own equipment. And in the district office, you can buy your own furniture. You're going to get handed down a lot of junk. Like junk, junk? I don't know what to tell you like just the mounds of stuff that the previous owner had that they thought was junk but kept it around. Right. Like, I don't know, when I walked into our storage closet, it was so full of junk, I thought it was gonna collapse on me.

Right. Like it was. It was just kind of. But you can…I would highly recommend eliminating a lot of stuff, and then as you're making equipment purchases, the number one thing you can do to create a modern office is to have, to try to create uniformity across the equipment that you purchase. A weird thing I remember on the Modernization Committee is that everyone had different headphones. And so when everyone was taking a zoom, everyone had interference, right? Like it was just a really annoying, can you unplug or turn down your headphones? And there's a really simple fix to that. If everyone has the same set of headphones, there's no interference.

So I, instead of making people bring in their own headphones, I wanted a professional office. I bought everyone a pair of AirPods and everyone uses that pair of AirPods in the office. They all work together. Everyone has the same laptop, and so they're all interchangeable. I get the same repairs and all the same maintenance. We have the same monitors, we have the same everything was kind of purchased in bulk, not to save money because you don’t save money that way, but just to create sort of there's not different cords, there's not different, you know, technical capabilities. Really try to keep it as uniform as possible and you'll create less frustration as you go.

Additionally, as a freshman, you're probably not going to get, you know, modular furniture. But there is a great exception for you can buy standing desks in my office. We have motorized standing desks in there, which is and we just put them on top of the furniture that it came with. so try to eliminate the stuff that people bump into and, you know, and gets in trouble.

Oh, I also love and this is like one of the weird things that you can do in the House. You can't do many other places. The people here at the Architect of the Capitol, they will build stuff for you. Like, I like a lot of stuff for you, including like you have a set of drawers that like, no one uses, they will tear them out and build a desk for you, which they did in our office.

It might take a while, but if you put in the request, someone will do it for you and then all of us. And then three months later they come and they do this whole scoping. And then you have a desk in a place that used to be a bunch of drawers that no one could use right.

There's a lot of possibility if you just ask and are patient and are nice about it. We've had four things. I mean, we even had like, we had a, we had an enclosure built for the refrigerator in the Member’s office because it looked terrible. And I didn't want his office looking like a frat room. So we had a nice classic wooden enclosure built around it.

Right. You can do all sorts of really fun, cool stuff. Even if you can't go to Amazon and buy, you know, buy a desk, you can do all that fun stuff. Also, can I tell you one of the most space saving things that we've done in our back office? We made them push all of the desks up against the wall.

They would always leave a giant gap, and it would make the whole office feel small. There's just a gap in between the desk in the wall. Just be thoughtful about these things. We made them push it all up against, and now it feels open and airy. It's just the small things.

One of the things that everybody hates about working on Capitol Hill is that there's no privacy. And so they're constantly walking around the hallways or taking calls and Dunkin Donuts or our office actually went out and bought a zoom booth, something that you see in a technology office and a tech company. It looks like a phone booth.

It closes, it's soundproof. People can take phone calls and Zooms in there, and no one else is bothered by them. It's great. And that's not furniture that the CAO offers. They don't have them in stock for you, but they fall under the exemption for even needing a letter so you can just purchase it. talk to the CAO they’ll help you with it.

They actually got us a cheaper, that cheaper rate because they’ve worked with them before, and now we have one in the corner and everybody loves it. Everybody uses it.

Taylor J. Swift: These tips are so helpful, Yuri. This is fantastic information. You’ve mentioned several things that you can purchase or can be exempt for the MRA. You mentioned going through with a fine-tooth comb that Member handbook to to really be explicit on what you can and can't buy. But for those who are listening to this podcast that haven't had the chance to to read through it yet, can you walk us through some things that explicitly cannot be purchased with MRA funds? Just to be crystal clear for our listeners.

Yuri Beckelman: You can't just buy food for your team, right? Like that was one I kind of wanted, but also like snacks for your team. You can buy you can buy snacks for constituents that are coming by. There are limits on purchases that, without getting approval from the committee, they've recently gone up, which is nice. That's not the case for most technology, unless it's excessive.

But if you want to buy, you know, if you want to buy a microwave, it has to be within a limit. That's all. In there. Explicitly can't buy, you can't do personal travel. You can't pay for tours, right. Like we were doing, one of our retreats and we wanted to do a social activity.

And social activities cannot be paid for out of your MRA. That includes, like a tour of the monuments. You can't make an argument; it's explicitly banned in the office. You the most important kind of guidelines that you can think of. They're trying to avoid you spending money that will either enrich you as a Member or, or empower your campaign. So you cannot use funds for those things.

Discussion

Aubrey Wilson: Another element that Yuri brought up in his conversation with us that I want to kind of hone in on, was he really emphasized that one of his more modern uses of the MRA, was to upgrade the technology and standardize it across all of his, his staff in the DC office.

You know, I think as virtual work has come more into play on the Hill, as people are starting to have more virtual meetings, there's definitely been this push on the Hill to understand how you have you know, six or eight people in one room, potentially on different calls and different meetings with different headphones. I mean, all the interference and background noise that comes with that.

And I think Yuri’s comment about how he just decided with Representative Frost to get everyone on the same technology so that there weren't those tech challenges. It's one of those modern uses of the MRA that, you know, that new Members should consider. And on that note, actually, I did want to kind of flag for new Members: You're probably going to hear about it during New Member Orientation, if you haven't already.

But over the last couple Congresses, the House has really recognized the need for modern tech for new Members. And so there's actually a fund that's been put aside for all freshman offices that you can spend specifically to upgrade your technology, because when you come in as a freshman, you actually inherit the technology of your predecessor, who was in your seat prior.

And not only the technology, but actually all of the office supplies of your predecessor. And so when you come in on January 3rd, you're probably going to be given a list, an inventory of all of the materials, including like paper, pencil, Kleenex boxes, laptops, printers, anything you can think of, cell phones. That the previous office had that you now own because you're taking over that seat.

As you can imagine, especially with Members who served in Congress for a really long time who now have a freshman taking over that seat, some of that tech that they were using can be really old and really in need of upgrading. And so the House recognized that for a new freshman coming in who was inheriting that old technology, that there are kind of a leg behind everybody else because they were using this older, like, last generation tech.

And so to make sure everyone has a fair kind of starting point, the House, like I said, invested in these kind of kickoff accounts where you can spend some money on making sure your tech was upgraded. So when you and that kind of money is separate than your MRA. So when you get, settled in January in your new office, when you're doing your inventory, all of your new tech, when you're starting to understand what you might need and what you what you'd like to upgrade, make sure to ask about that technology upgrade account and make sure to spend that money separately than your MRA, versus spending your MRA money on modernizing your tech. Although your MRA money can be used on technology, that other tech upgrade pot of money, you're going to want to use that first.

Taylor J. Swift: Wow, that is such helpful advice. And again, just having your background experience from the Committee on House Administration to give these helpful tips, I think is going to go a long way for our listeners. So thanks so much for that, Aubrey. And again, because the MRA, while it has seen increases over the past couple of years, it's still far behind when we adjust for inflation overall, especially if we compare it to Congress or excuse me, to Executive branch salaries.

And so when you're looking at those small little details, the, the Modernization Tech Fund versus using all of your MRA fund, if you're pulling money out of that Tech fund, that is money that you're saving from your overall MRA fund that can be used for staff salaries, bonuses, or just additional resources that you can use for your office operations. So again, it all adds up. So that's just fantastic advice, Aubrey. Thanks.

Aubrey Wilson: Well, and Taylor too, I mean, nothing makes a Chief of Staff more creative than a tight budget. And I think that, I think Yuri also highlighted the fact that, you know, when you're going in trying to upgrade your office and, whether you're like, want a new cabinetry, a cabinet set, or you want to have desks in a different way, like instead of immediately thinking you have to spend your MRA for that, there's a lot of institutional resources out there instead that maybe you can ask to see what they'll be able to cover or do as an office upgrade instead of having to turn to that MRA budget.

And so, you know, Yuri mentioned the Architect of the Capitol is sometimes able to do office customizations. The CAO, the Chief Administrative Office, they are just packed with resources and individuals who have been in Chief of Staff shoes who have creative solutions that they have, you know, personally, practice is tried and true that they may be able to help you with.

And so, as as Chiefs are helping Members get their feet on the ground and, and staff up their offices and build that office to really kind of fit the vision of the Member, you know, once again, before you dig into that MRA pot for some of these more unique resources, maybe, you know, ask some institutional offices about how they might be able to help.

And I know the CAO Coaches is an amazing resource for Chiefs for that. Or your CAO Customer Advocate is another person who I really recommend that Chiefs lean on.

Interview with Jen Daulby

Taylor J. Swift: Like our last guest, Yuri, our next guest, Jen Daulby — the new CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation — was also a Chief of Staff and is intimately familiar with the MRA. She also has a great perspective on the implementation side, since she was Staff Director of the Committee on House Administration, which helps set the rule on MRA usage.

Jen Daulby: So I'm the new CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation. It's an exciting opportunity. All my friends said, this is perfect. Because you have been mentoring staff because you love it for years and trying to make the institution better and. Right. It's, at some point in life. What a privilege to find a place that matches your skill.

So I couldn't be more excited to be at CMF. For years, we have published what is called Setting Course, our book about new Members and setting up an office. And we are updating that book, and it's going to be amazing. It's going to be streamlined, it's going to have pertinent and updated information. And I hope it's a really good guide for folks that maybe need to learn a little bit more about a topic.

Aubrey Wilson: So Jen, you served as a Staff Director on the Committee on House Administration following being a Chief of Staff for a really long time for a Member.

And in both of those roles, you saw a different side of the MRA. From the Committee on House Administration side, you saw kind of the roles that you oversaw the rules that govern the MRA. From the obviously working in a Member's office, you had to abide by those rules and figure out how to manage that budget. Generally, for freshmen offices that are just beginning, to become familiar with navigating those ins and outs what’s kind of your top advice for kind of first understanding how the MRA works and adjusting to kind of that, overarching structure of, staffing and running an office.

Jen Daulby: What I absolutely love about Congress is it truly is 535 small businesses, and especially when I have done work in state legislatures, you just really can't compare the autonomy a Member of Congress has. And so when people make those transitions and a lot of Members have come from their state legislatures, it is really important to know that there is very little supervision, which is a good thing.

Right. And so if you spend down all of your money and you have terrible staff and you have a terrible financial manager, you will write a check at the end of the year, because Congress will not cover your inability to manage your office. So it is really like a small business in that respect. And I, I love that part of it.

We do have rules for how you spend your money, broadly. If you want to open seven district offices and have one staffer in DC, you can do that. I would not recommend it. But that is just kind of, just setting the stage, I guess, or level setting of how this place works. And so you have a tremendous amount of flexibility to serve your constituents.

And they are your boss. And Members who get sideways and forget that. Is the constituent is your boss and the statements of disbursement, which is the public accounting and record for how every Member of Congress spends their funds. That's your accountability. That's the check and balance. And really, that has always been my view of how the institution should work.

Its Members should have great latitude because different districts demand different, different ways the office will work, but everyone will get to see how you chose to spend that money. And it's also difficult when you're doing campaign events and official events and, I’m not a Star Wars person, but I always think of the lightsabers like they can't touch, they can't cross, and so always keep the two strains of your official and your campaign.

And if there's any concern, if it's an official, something that should be paid for by official funds or campaign fund, I would default to campaign funds. Or make sure you get clarity. And sometimes things are a little gray, right. Because if we're overly prescriptive, then we're overregulating Members and in that instance I would say then use your judgment.

Is this something, is this an expense you can defend to your constituents and the taxpayers of this country? And if it's not, you probably shouldn't be doing it no matter what rule is in place. But I think the biggest, the guidelines are be very careful who touches your money. And almost all Members have someone with expertise of the institution.

Unfortunately, we do not adopt technology like we should, and it is a little more cumbersome and burdensome of how you get reimbursed and how you submit invoices. And that whole process is its own ecosystem. So make sure you have someone who knows it well. And if you don't trust who is touching your money, you probably need to find someone else.

But as a Member and as a Chief, always keep looking over what your projections are and how you're spending money and, and know that it is a unique situation and that nowhere else have I worked. Did everybody know how much everybody got paid. And that will hold you accountable as a Member and as Chief of Staff and as a Staff Director.

But it complicates things. So, just in sum, be careful with the campaign versus official. Know that everyone can see how much each other is getting paid and the Statements of Disbursements will disclose how you are spending your money in your office.

Aubrey Wilson: And just to follow up on something you said, too, you know, you made the comment that if you don't know what the guidance is to ask. And I know one of the amazing roles of the Committee on House Administration plays is that you can literally pick up the phone. Anyone in your staff can pick up the phone and talk to advice and guidance over on the committee, by party, specifically, and get advice on how to spend the MRA and where that line is on specific purchases that aren't more clearly defined in the handbook.

If it's a unique kind of situation. And so, highly recommend that Members and staff take advantage of that, particularly as they're starting to get to know the ins and outs of the Members’ Representational Allowance.

Jen Daulby: And that's such a good point, too, because I think people forget because they talk about handbook, and you should have a handbook within your own office, but there's a handbook that you know, is guidance on Member spending as well. It's really good to just glance through and at least know what topics are covered in there. If you ever have to go back and look something up.

Aubrey Wilson: Yeah 100%. So the talking about kind of the statement, Statement of Disbursements, when you pull up that document, and it actually lists how much the MRA allotment is for every single sitting Member of Congress. And right now it sits a little under $2 million on average per Member per year, which I think to the average American obviously sounds like quite a hefty budget.

But in reality, can you actually walk through kind of all of the different aspects of running an office that the MRA funds for a Member of Congress?

Jen Daulby: Absolutely. So the rent in DC is covered that, that, that is included in the job, so to speak. But how you set up your district office is completely up to you, and there's some ways to go in with state officials or go into government buildings that are really encourage folks to do, but sometimes you need to go, where most of your constituents are, and sometimes, especially for Members in urban and suburban areas, those are high rents.

And, that has to be covered. All staff salary has to be covered. If you're in a rural area and you decide to cover mileage, that can add up really quickly as well. Your communication expenses are big items. I think there's a lot of room for savings within those items. You can have a consultant, an outside expert do your mail and your digital and different all those different streams of communication.

Or you can do a lot in-house too. And we chose to do a lot in-house. When I was Chief, we broke a lot of printers and printers were cheaper to break sometimes than hiring outside folks. And we had a lot of outside experts that were really good in digital and would help us communicate effectively with our district, but sometimes we would just go old school and we would print a lot of postcards and a lot of letters and a lot of proactive communication to people, too.

But, watch those costs too, because they can get high and, and really invest in your legislative staff and staff in general. Because how do you manage your calendar really dictates your success. And the quality of your staff is what prepares you for legislating and hearings and markup. And when we think about what we fund the first branch at, considering the oversight that must occur of the second branch, it's a hell of a deal.

And I think about Members that are on Armed Services Committee and, man, to have to oversee Department of Defense. There's a lot of room for oversight there. And investing in staff is really, really important because we're providing, a valuable service to Members, whether it's in the district, and if you're a district that, has a lot of soldiers and sailors and military personnel, you're going to have a lot of…requests, because rural America fights our wars.

And a tremendous amount of casework with Veterans Affairs, which is a agency that is working really hard but deficient in a lot of ways. And so having a lot of district staff and investing in them is really important, because that is a constituent service that no one else can provide but you.

Aubrey Wilson: So, you know, you made the comment that obviously investing in staff is is something that the MRA helps a lot, especially with, not only recruitment but with retention as well. I know the MRA, even on the just the years I was on the Hill increased, you know, substantially. And I think that that's been something that the modernization movement in Congress has helped a lot with.

I think that there's been that recognition that the first branch needs to be a little bit more of a heavyweight, not only with its workforce, but with a lot of other aspects. So just having it be a modern Congressional kind of office space, I know, technology is another thing that comes out of the MRA as well as is having modern tech for Congressional offices.

And so it's wonderful for you to highlight the fact that staff salaries have been something that have been boosted because of the MRA, being increased over the last couple Congresses.

From your time on House Administration, do you remember any misconceptions about the MRA that were constantly or, every now and then trip Members up that you'd want to kind of debunk?

Jen Daulby: Oh dear Lord, people would, I love the press release at the end of the year. And if you're listening to this, please, please don't do this. That would say we gave back $100,000 to the Treasury. Well, one, what is the number? About a billion a day we're on the debt. So whatever your MRA and whatever savings that you have, been able to accrue is a drop in the bucket.

And that goes back to the House and all those accounts and that, that said, there used to be a really well-kept secret. And I think that's less of a well-kept secret because we've tried to counsel Members. And so I tell folks, if your Member of Congress is writing a press release where they're saying how they saved a ton of money from their budget that came at your expense.

It came at your expense, in the district, because you maybe didn't get the oversight that your district deserved. You maybe didn't get the casework, all that. So I really discourage Members from doing this and encourage them from really providing the constituent service that's needed and demanded of Members and, really invest in staff in their offices and open another office.

I'm shocked sometimes when I will look up how many district offices and, man, there's some rockstar Members that are doing four or five and have rural areas, and there's other ones. I'm like, oh my gosh, how do you only have one office. You gotta help some more people. And so, really try to get away from that one press release that makes people feel like you're saving money and the other 364 days a year, use your resources as much as you can to help people in your district and make this place work a little better.

Aubrey Wilson: For brand new Chiefs of Staff that are just starting to figure out this process and kind of the rules of the road. Do you have any, like, last advice for navigating the MRA and being most effective with it?

Jen Daulby: You do not have to be an expert on a spreadsheet to understand your budget. Right. It's…I remember my dad used to always say, just don't spend money you don't have. And always go back and visit where your trends are and bad management will kill you in your budget, right? And so, make difficult at times, but smart decisions when it comes to personnel.

Pay your folks what they deserve and what their value is. Have a schedule where you revisit pay increases every year. If folks are doing exceptional things, plus them up or give them a bonus. But I have seen officers sometimes. Well, they'll get in a pickle, especially when it comes to comms staff and scheduling, because they're really in demand right now and we're overpaying for them.

And it's like, oh my gosh, we're never Bobby was the most amazing Press Secretary and we're never going to find anyone else. And so I'm going to give him an extra 50,000 so he doesn't leave. You have just wrecked your budget because Susie and Debbie and Christy and whoever else on your staff, they're going to see that Bobby made another 50K, and then they're going to come in screaming, and you're going to have a mutiny on your hand real quick.

And so if Bobby, the press secretary, has found something else, wish them well. And hopefully you will have cross-trained the staff a little bit and implement really good processes for you. How you hire staff. But do not let one staff become so valuable that they will jam you with your budget if they leave or demand more money because it is like a house of cards and it will all fall apart and then you get in really more trouble. So that's another thing I tell folks to watch out for.

Aubrey Wilson: Yep, that's an incredible piece of advice from a definitely a well seasoned Chief who's seen it all.

Jen Daulby: Sometimes because I made the mistakes.

Aubrey Wilson: This is the most valuable ones though, because then you can help others not make it. Because I definitely was something even I saw on the Hill happen. Because you definitely, you know, I think that their staff, they're particularly incredibly amazing, wonderful people who are so good at their jobs. And it is scary, especially in a crazy Congressional schedule and cycle, to lose that person and, like you said, it can get offices into a pickle.

Jen Daulby: And managing staff is so interesting too because it's different personalities. And if you, I always say when I usually had a problem, it was because I didn't get in front of an issue right now, I had a staffer that was bugging me about salary all the time. And I said, I think you accepted a salary that you probably weren't happy with.

And one, don't do that again, because you can't bug me every other week about what your salary is. We're on a sche. And then it forced me to set a schedule. And then I looked and I was like, the staffer that has never asked for a raise. That's the one that deserved it the most. At one point when I was managing a team.

So it taught me is I can't be affected by everyone else and their personality. And when they choose to come and ask for a raise or what have you. And sometimes it's helpful for people to point out things, and you always want to have open communication and one on one meetings with staff, but try to get out in front of those conversations.

And if you see a pattern with issues with money, it might be because you need to go establish and processes that could save you in the end.

Aubrey Wilson: Actually, when I kind of do a follow up question on that regarding setting staff salaries at the beginning, if you are a Chief who has never worked on the Hill before, or a Member who's never obviously ran a Congressional office before, there's eighteen staff that come with every Congressional seat to fill and figuring out what appropriate salary should be is pretty overwhelming.

Do you have any recommendations or advice for how new Chiefs can kind of get perspective as to where to set salaries and what's considered reasonable during negotiations?

Jen Daulby: What's great in 2024, and it will be the case in 2025, is there's so much more data out there than there used to be. We always were able to look up and see what, staff are getting paid, but there's many more organizations that are aggregating that data and the House is doing a better job of that, too.

And so looking and seeing what the average salary is for a Scheduler and then overlaying that person's individual resume, they have one year experience. They have two or three years experience you have to think of from a Member and a Chief of Staff or a Staff Director perspective, the person with three years experience in the Scheduler is going to need less managing.

And so you can, cost of doing business. Sometimes it's better to, you know, pay what that person is valued at and then you won't have to manage them a lot, because you can only get a press secretary with one year experience. And so you're going to have to spend a lot more time. So kind of be strategic at the different levels of expertise.

And look at your delegation seeing what your neighbors are paying. Look at other folks on the committee and seeing what those LAs are getting. And I also, I think because we have raised the MRAs and we've raised the staff salary cap, I think people in the private sector are really, really valuable. And I remember one time I pulled in LA from the private sector and I paid him what I felt was his value.

And he was great because he brought so many best practices from the private sector that sometimes is missing on Capitol Hill. And it was a great person to kind of right the ship and add to the dynamic, because sometimes the Hill works very differently than other organizations, and trying to have a diversity of thought and experience is really important. But those are all factors for how you determine pay, too.

Aubrey Wilson: Yeah. And you highlighted, you know, obviously take advantage of the resources that are starting to be out there to kind of support the Hill community. And I know internal to the Hill, I think it was just this last Congress, the House actually launched the HR Hub, which I know has brought a lot of pay transparency, to a lot of different positions on the Hill.

I really recommend that people follow up and look that up. It's run by the Chief Administrative Office. It's called the HR Hub, and it's available on the House network, I believe, as a website platform.

Discussion

Taylor J. Swift: Wow. Okay, so let me jump in here before we go to our next guest, Aubrey, so that we can reflect on some of the incredible advice that we heard from Yuri and Jen.

Aubrey Wilson: Oh, absolutely. Taylor, where do you want to start?

Taylor J. Swift: So, I know this is going to sound like a broken record. We've been saying it a lot, but just please read the handbook like it's just going to save you so, so much time. On the back end, on the front end. Because if you understand the rules, regulations, policies, the do's and don'ts, what you can and can't buy with your MRA funds, that's just going to save you so much time, so many headaches, so much back and forth with your Office Managers, your team, clear up a ton of confusion.

And it'll obviously just further empower you as a Member and a manager to just know what's right and what's wrong. I think it's really, really important. Yuri made this point. If you or your Office Manager makes a mistake about how you're spending your MRA funds, and that money isn't an allowable cost, the Member has to pay that fund out of pocket.

So please, please, please, just make sure that you know what you're spending your money on and whether or not it's an allowable cost.

Aubrey Wilson: No, I think that's such good advice, Taylor. And I think, you know, the other thing to highlight was that Jen, you know, made the comment in her comments with us about how, you know, yeah, the Member obviously has to know the handbook, but also, like all the different staffers that are handling finances for your office should also be super familiar with the handbook.

And one of the really common hires on the Hill is a Financial Advisor or somebody to manage finances. And these are usually shared employees across a couple of offices. And these individuals are experts at budgeting at knowing the processes for submitting receipts, for submitting all that paperwork. And so this is something that you, as the Member, should not be micromanaging.

This is definitely something that can be outsourced to a staffer on your team to make sure that it's managed well. And, and there's individuals on the Hill who have been doing this for decades, who are extremely good at working with the Committee on House Administration and really making sure that your books are set, and that they're really transparent to you in case anything comes under question.

Taylor J. Swift: It's a great point. So with that, let's go to our next conversation with our next guest, Dr. Casey Burgat.

Interview with Dr. Casey Burgat

Aubrey Wilson: And our next guest is also no stranger to modernization or to the Gavel In podcast for that matter. Dr. Casey Burgat worked at the Congressional Research Service before becoming a Director of Legislative Affairs Programing and Assistant Professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. He recently authored a book called Congress Explained and was, of course, guest on episode four of our podcast, focused on House Rules.

Taylor J. Swift: Casey brings us up to speed on the somewhat recent history of the MRA and how it's changed. We also discussed with some granularity, what exactly the Statements of Disbursements are. Let's go to the conversation that I had with him now.

So you worked at the Congressional Research Service. You now have, recently published a book, called Congress Explained that kind of shows the legislative and Congressional operations, within both chambers. And I know you've written about the changes over the course of decades on the Members' Representational Allowance. So for our audience that may not be familiar with the history of the MRA and what can be spent or what things can be spent on and what can’t and how that's changed.

Could you maybe talk through some of those nominal up and downs and maybe kind of where the 118th Congress stands on, on some of those things?

Dr. Casey Burgat: This was all the MRA existed or came to be about, after frustration following the Watergate babies era, the late 70s, early 80s, to allow for more flexibility and accountability for Members’ offices, Members themselves wanted more discretion. They didn't want to be told who to hire and for what.

Plus, as you see often in government, there was just layers and layers of funds, individual funds that had pretty big limitations or bureaucracy involved about how to spend their money for their offices. So Members worked and lobbied their own membership to create the MRA to provide more flexibility for them to do that. And that's been true since the mid 1990s.

I think the MRA was first authorized in 1996, and they've been using that system in basically the same way going forward. And there's been amendments with it, about whether to change or, maximize accountability. You must report expenses here. Oftentimes it's towards a more transparent, showcasing of how they spend their money. But there's been additions about, whether there was, money to pay for their interns or whether or not certain fellows counted against their cap on the number of staffers that they've been able to hire.

So there's been these more marginal changes. But the fundamental structure of the MRA since the mid 1990s has been basically the same.

Taylor J. Swift: I think that's going to be so helpful for our listeners, both, who are going to be joining the halls of Congress or just interested folks that are listening to kind of understand that history. So if, let's say, I am an interested constituent or, maybe even just a stakeholder, or a part of a civil society group, or even just going through, high school or academia, post-secondary education.

And I'm interested to know what my Member of Congress spends their money on. Could you kind of walk us through what a Statement of Disbursement is, how it works, how it gets released, and kind of what that transparency is for.

Dr. Casey Burgat: So the Statement of Disbursements, man, you're giving me PTSD from how much time I have spent in these things, which are not the most accessible documents, but the information is all there. And we've been making there's been an effort, both externally and internally to Congress to, to modernize this effort to make these documents, these PDFs, more workable so that we can do some systematic analyses or even if you're just an interested constituent, to say, “Hey, how much is my Member spending on X?”

And this is one of the best places to find this in terms of their Members’ Representational Allowance. And so the Statement of Disbursements are collected by the CAO, the Chief Administrative Officer of the House, and they publish what are called the Statements of Disbursements, which is just accounting speak of saying, what did you spend your money on?

And they have to give certain criteria. They show the dates, the amounts, what category it goes in, whether it's travel or compensational or, compensation, all, rent, all of that stuff. And it's just a document with every single Member listed, every single transaction listed. But in a PDF form. And if, you know, accounting or you spend any time looking at money, you probably want it in a very different format than that PDF.

But again, we're making efforts to try to get it, at least in some sort of CSV delineated format so we can and make this workable. But they're available to them. They go back — they’re produced quarterly within the House. They're produced every six months within the Senate. So you can look at both chambers to look at how they're spending their money at individual offices, including committees.

And they just tell you where the money goes, follow the money, the Statements of Disbursements are the one way as a, as a means, which was a change in the MRA, by the way, to say, let's make this, not only publicly available but downloadable, though we still have some work to do making it usable. Once you do download it.

Taylor J. Swift: So just so our listeners understand these are available on the House.gov website for anyone to find, right?

Dr. Casey Burgat: They're out there. You Google it: “Statement of Disbursements.” You'll probably be, outside of DC, if you're listening to this from outside DC, you'll probably be one of nineteen people in the world who looks at these things, but they do contain a ton of information. They can give you a lot of good looks about what Members care about, how they treat their staff in terms of payments, whether they travel, which you can get a lot of predictive power out of that.

Why is this Member traveling to Iowa and New Hampshire and Wisconsin two years before they ever announce they're running for president? So a lot of folks, investigative folks, turn, turn to these to say, “how are they using their taxpayer funds? And what predictive power can they give us about what they care about?”

Aubrey Wilson: Taylor, before we hear from our final guest, your and Casey’s discussion about the Statements of Disbursement is really important, and I want to take a second for you to follow up a bit for our audience on how to access those records.

Taylor J. Swift: Definitely. So, like Dr. Burgat said, the Statements of Disbursement definitely aren't the most exciting things in the world to talk about, but they do provide tons of information on legislative operations. And they're completely open to the public. You're actually available to see it on your House accounts, on House-net, or also if you're just a public, you know, interested public person.

They're available at disbursements.house.gov. And so there is a ton of researchers out there and staffers that use this information available to analyze pay trends over time to see how Members of Congress are using their MRA budgets. Now, the crazy thing is, up until recently, these Statements of Disbursement were actually only available as PDF documents. Oh my gosh, like the amount of time that I spent in the past taking the PDF information and hand typing it into Excel spreadsheets to then analyze trends.

Oh, it was a lot. But the great thing is Congress actually started to disclose them as CSV data files. So now you can actually analyze the data right from the information from disbursement at, excuse me, disbursements.house.gov. And this information is just not only really important for informing the public and being transparent, but it also gives Members the idea of what other Members, and their peers and senior peers have used their MRA for.

So we talked a bit in our in betweens about best practices and guidance and reaching out to the CAO and leaning on some of the questions you have to make sure your office budget is being used properly. You actually can also see the data behind this. This data is available for your office to look at and it's also something that researchers and people on the outside are continually looking in on. So it serves multiple purposes.

Aubrey Wilson: That's awesome Taylor. All right. So who's up next.

Interview with Keenan Austin Reed

Taylor J. Swift: Our next guest is actually another Capitol Hill veteran. Keenan Austin Reed is currently the Vice President at the Alpine Group. And she sets to become CEO in January of 2025. Before leaving the Hill, Keenan wore several hats. She was Chief of Staff to Congressman Don McEachin and also Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to Representative Frederica Wilson.

Aubrey Wilson: She really does have the most incredible experience of office management and operations, and I'm super excited about what she was able to talk to us about. Her perspective on this is so fresh.

Taylor J. Swift: So, Keenan, you spent several years as a Chief of Staff to a pretty prominent House Member. So, you know, with that comes, managing an office and really managing the Members’ Representational Allowance, the office's budget. Can you share an example of how careful budgeting under the MRA has allowed an office to kind of expand or improve some of its services?

Keenan Austin Reed: Oh, yeah. The MRA is just a fantastic to or or as you call it, the Members’ Representational Allowance as you have called it. Taylor, thank you for guiding me towards that. But from now, you know, now that you know it is, I'm going to call it the MRA so I don't trip over that long title, but, you know, it allows you to communicate.

That's one of the things I loved when I found extra money. And that only comes from smart budgeting. The first thing I'll say for people that are thinking about managing the MRA, find someone who is experienced with doing it. Do not try to do this on your own. These people are called Financial Administrators. They typically manage more than one office, and they have expertise with knowing how budget flows, managing your invoices.

You have several vendors between your DC office and offices in the state that you need to manage. And you do not have time to figure all of that out. You've got the minute you start your day in Congress, you're inheriting constituent mail and responsibilities. And the minute you're sworn in, you are voting. You are off to the races.

People are asking for even long before you were sworn in. People are asking for your vote to leadership races and you're writing letters to try to get on committees. Congress is fast to utilize talent to who understand this process, to help you get established and get settled. Now, when you are using your MRA smartly and you have built that great relationship with the Financial Administrator who I keep on speed dial, I use it to better communicate with constituents.

Congress is great and we love it and we work so hard. But what does it mean if we can't tell the people back home that we represent what we've done for them? And so finding additional money for ads, finding additional money for, franked mails that, frank mailers, that's been a fantastic tool that I've used.

The other thing is, I enjoy and I'm probably gonna sound like a budget nerd here. Taylor says “stand by.” But I love to pay for some of the high-ticket items the year before if I have space in my budget. So you all are going to have subscriptions, that you may have in managing your communications or or subscription services to different news outlets or, list that you are buying.

If you can buy that on earlier budget that frees up space to make that additional hire or do more on a future budget, but you want to utilize those extra funds to the maximum, and it's just so much better. Everything that I could pay for in a previous year, I would, and that would allow me space in future years.

But you have to get with someone that knows how to do it, and the last thing I'll say is I use my MRA and I could find money to reward staff that I wanted to retain. There's always people work hard and, yes, people, you know that within the POPVOX Foundation. They didn't ask me to say this, but they've done a lot of work to make sure the staff are treated fairly and paid fairly and are wonderful advocates for staff.

So thank you for that. And staff are paid better than they ever have been in the history of the United States Congress, and that's a wonderful thing. But for people that you want to keep and they’re in demand, you know, they walk out to coffees and happy hours and other Chiefs and companies are looking at them and wanting to hire them.

If you like your people and you want them to stay with you, give them, performance bonus. Unexpected. It doesn't have to be huge. Anything more than what you or you know, what your salary was is wonderful. So we would do annual bonus around the holidays. And, we had no association with the holidays. It was completely about being the end of the year.

But then if you if there were performers that were wonderful and just out kicking their coverage, we would give additional raises to them. Should we have the remaining MRA.

Aubrey Wilson: I think that that ability to give those bonuses when, you know, kind of it's very justified on a random kind of basis highlights one of the best parts about the MRA, which is that it's really, you know, Member has like a Member kind of has an, an, a level of autonomy to run their budget in their office, how they want to.

And you hear really often that Congress is a bunch of small businesses and that every office kind of ran like a small business with that kind of also taken into account when it comes to utilizing the MRA to really personalize it, to kind of meet, your individual district and kind of serving your individual districts needs. Do you have any advice for, or stories about how you were able to kind of specialize MRA usage to really kind of meet the needs of the specific district of the Member that you worked for?

Keenan Austin Reed: Yes. And the way I started, it was really just having a conversation with the Member. You will find that the Members are oftentimes wonderful experts on their district. A lot of them come from the state legislatures, and they've thought about this. I also talked to my District Director and, and District Chief of Staff about cultivating some of these budgets.

And one office, I had a District Chief of Staff and the other one, I had a District Director. So sorry. Titles can be confusing on the Hill sometimes, but we would sit down and talk through what was very helpful to them. And one of my Members, they loved town halls as a communications tool. And so that was something we invested in.

And, you know, it's all about that district. When you talk about Aubrey, how do they receive information? Is your district wide or is it compact? Is it urban? Is it rural, do you need to do more digital, or do you have a more senior population where you need to do more in inboxes? Those are things that and now people are getting really cool and innovative about how they do, some of their MRA I've talked to offices about, I guess some Members have church fans where they have where they give them to, different houses of worship.

And on the back they have their constituent services, they have their office information. And this is something that can be paper on the MRA because it's information and get the, you know…you’re hot in church and need a fan that has the Member’s face got all this wonderful resource that people are getting really innovative. And I think that's something that maybe doesn't play in every district.

But if you have a lot of faith-led communities in your district, that might be something that works really smartly. So, so you can customize it, but it really is about honing in on that fine tune, developed knowledge that you have in your district office and not I want to caution this as a DC person. You don't want to make all these decisions from DC.

We can be very much in the bubble of what's happening here in our leadership offices and all of those wonderful things, but we need to, talk to our district teams about what they're seeing, what they're hearing, what they're experiencing because they are in touch with the people who we are serving and utilizing that and finding tools that can best support that work, will help it be more focused and specific to your district.

Taylor J. Swift: So you mentioned in a little earlier about, using it as a tool for flexibility for bonuses, for retention. So honestly, let's talk a little bit about the MRA and the hiring process. Yeah. For our listeners, especially those who are trying to staff up an office at the very beginning, can you kind of talk through some of the basics of how to use the MRA and how the MRA affects that hiring process, especially when it comes to salary negotiations for new employees?

Keenan Austin Reed: Yeah. I would first start off by, an awareness at least within your delegation of what people are paying for staff. You want to understand, you want to make sure that you're competitive in the market. So sometimes offering the salary that of someone that you're replacing or if you're if you're fresh, then you just want to make sure that you're offering a competitive salary.

The other thing I would say is make sure that you hold space in your negotiations and try to lock down that person that is really compelling to you. If you've got someone with the right experience. And it's the difference between, you know, 70,000 and 85, come on, give them that 85. Don't make a penny, you know, pennywise, pound-foolish decision on these things.

I've seen people lose great staff trying to hold to a number and then you hobble along without a person and that sort of thing. And so I just would say, make sure that you may have a number in mind, but if you've got today's staffer is so much more savvy and such better self advocates than I remember us being, I remember my friends and I being happy to be there.

But because of the more information that is available to staff nowadays and and more advocacy and more attention to pay equity, pay transparency, pay fairness, what you can find these salaries on Legistorm you can find salaries are just in general public record. You want to make sure staff are doing their homework. You do your homework to make sure that you're offering a competitive range.

And it doesn't mean you have to give away the farm. But I would do that. I would also try to do a bit of succession planning if you can think, think honestly about your staff. If you've got people that are looking at, they think they always are talking about, you know, “I would love to go to the Administration,” but probably looking at going to Administration. I tell you, okay, let's make sure we get that in the budget.

Look at your teams. If your Comms Director looks like they need a Digital Director or a Press Secretary budget for it. Budget the needs of your staff long before they try to bring them to you. And also anticipate your knowledge of talking to your staff should inform how you're planning for your budget. So you want to put in money or think through a strategic way or outlook for how you can best craft your budget to maintain your staff.

Aubrey Wilson: I can't even tell you what music that is to my ears and how much like I it's so fun talking to you about this topic in particular, to just see the change that's happened in the last ten years on the Hill, because it's drastic like it is. It is drastic.

Conclusion

Aubrey Wilson: That is a wrap for today's episode, but I'm so thankful that we got the perspective of so many different guests on how to use the MRA in creative ways, and a little bit of the history of it. It is such a small slice of the overall Leg branch appropriations budget, but it has such a huge implication on how every single Member is able to serve their constituents and their district specifically to their needs.

Taylor J. Swift: That's so right, Aubrey. And there have been recent changes and increases to the MRA, helping offices meet the moment for their constituents. It's really important for you all as listeners to know strong MRAs means strong Member operations. So we said it before and we'll say it again please, please, please, Sabrina Carpenter style, read that handbook.

It's going to help empower you to better understand how to run your office, but then also save you a ton of time and headache on the back end.

Aubrey Wilson: We want to extend an extra special thank you to our guests who joined us for this episode: Keenan Austin Reed, Yuri Beckelman, Jen Daulby, and Dr. Casey Burgat for taking the time out of their busy schedules to share their wisdom with us on the MRA.

Taylor J. Swift: Thanks for listening and be sure to join us next time on gavel In. For more insider knowledge and actionable tips for your journey through Congress. If you found today's episode helpful, please, please, please feel free to share it with your colleagues and be sure to go to our website, popvox.org/gavel, where the episode page has extra resources to make sure that you and your team are set up for success, both in DC and in the district.

And speaking of which, you can also go to popvox.org/futureproofing to learn how you can make a difference in your new role to ensure that Congress is also set up for success in the long run. Follow us @popvoxfdn on X and Instagram. And we're also POPVOX Foundation on LinkedIn. Thanks for your service, and we'll see you in Congress.

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