Legislative Branch to communicate via electronic mail with each other, with the Executive Branch, and with other mail networks was also a task that deserved attention and resources.

My point is that HIS has had to deal with a large and unforeseen increase in its workload. Other examples are the work resulting from the changed status of the House restaurant and the request for Electronic Funds Transfer by the Sergeant at Arms.

EFFECT ON NEW MAINFRAME PURCHASE

Perhaps a more important point is that HIS has been able to stay within its 1992 funding ceiling. The reason came from an unexpected weakness in the data processing industry's market for mainframe computers. This allowed us to replace our existing mainframe system at HIS, creating a substantial savings for HIS, reducing our costs, and with those savings we were able to underwrite much of the work that has been described. Installed after competitive bidding, the replacement mainframe by IBM is a powerful computer with 83 million instructions per second, and it has additional memory capacity and offers us a fiber optic connective ability that was not there before.

To accomplish the new objectives, a build-up of staff would continue over the next 20 months, from February 1992 to September 1993. The divisions in HIS have identified 16 staff positions, of which 11 they say are needed during fiscal year 1992 and five during 1993. Communications Division of HIS is asking for four new employees to handle its networks and to assist the rewiring of House offices; Administrative Systems Division needs three to support the Postmaster's and the Doorkeeper's mailing operations, and the publication needs of the Office of Legislative Counsel; the Computer Center requests three people who would deal with mainframe mailing operations and electronic mail. Customer services. needs three people to support training and on the PC networks; Customer Applications Division asks for three people to continue to phase out the obsolete PDP 11 minicomputers and to deal with the changing role in the committee utilization of the DEC VAX system.

ALLOCATION OF FUNDS

Much of the impact of the increase in workload will be felt in 1993 as the new salaries are annualized and additional funds are needed to complete work in progress. Two object classes, one being Salaries and the other being the Purchase of Equipment, Software and Supplies, together account for $2.29 million, which is 80 percent of the increase.

The salaries I have summarized. I will expand briefly on what the budget contains so far as purchase is concerned.

PURCHASES

Approximately $900,000 is in the communications area. The main items include the beginning of the upgrade of our fiber network from Ethernet to what is called FDDI in order to increase network capacity-it will actually increase its capacity ten-fold, converting the wide area network from analog to digital for more

ard communication hubs as part of the rewiring of all Member offices to reduce service costs and inconvenience associate with system moves and upgrades.

In the mainframe area, $465,000 is allocated for improved interfaces for office systems that provide quicker, more convenient access to Member Information Network databases, for expanded disk storage for our paying customers, and for hardware and software to complete the interconnection of House EMAIL systems.

In addition, $300,000 are needed for new text management and database management software to continue the integration of office and mainframe systems.

In the office automation area, $485,000 are needed for hardware and $465,000 for software to support a variety of client systems and to complete development work. These amounts include the upgrading of HIS hardware and software to stay current with systems in Member offices, and they also provide for security and for CDROM facilities to support committee and Law Revision Counsel initiatives.

I would be happy to answer any questions. I am very glad to have beside me Hamish Murray, the Director of HIS, who can provide further details. Mr. Chairman and members, thank you very much.

Mr. FAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hamish, do you have a comment or statement you wish to make which would augment, place in the record, whatever you wish?

MR. MURRAY'S REMARKS

Mr. MURRAY. The only thing I would like to emphasize is, as the chairman remarked, we went into 1992 anticipating no increase in work load. As you can see from the recitation of what we were faced with, we haven't been as busy for a long time. I realize we are asking for a substantial increase, but the workload has increased substantially.

HIS' MAJOR CUSTOMERS

Mr. FAZIO. Who are your major customers that provide us with the reimbursements of almost $13 million?

Mr. MURRAY. The major customers are the Clerk, who will provide us with $6.6 million, General Accounting Office, $4 million, Congressional Budget Office, $1.4 million. There is a Prospective Payment Assessment Commission, which is doing long-range medical costs I think it is funded out of HHS-they provide $510,000, we get $100,000 from Eastern Europe, and the balance from other customers like the Doorkeeper, Law Revision Counsel.

Mr. FAZIO. On that Eastern European issue, we are doing some work, I understand, through a task force chaired by Martin Frost, that maps the emerging democracies in Eastern European parliaments. Could you tell us what HIS is doing in liaison with that group?

Mr. MURRAY. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have actually a list here, a couple of pages of the functions of the technical team. To be brief, I can give some of the highlights: To conduct preliminary onsite

ex-communist nation; to review information technology infrastructure in place and determine what they need; then assist their staff in developing automation plans, prepare a statement of work, identify possible in-country sources of the equipment.

I should tell you that the Library of Congress is our employer as it were. We submit all our recommendations and contracts to the Library, whose staff actually executes them.

Mr. ROSE. Mr. Chairman, could I offer a note on this?

Mr. FAZIO. Yes.

Mr. ROSE. In Easter of last year, I was heading a North Atlantic Assembly delegation to Prague, Czechoslovakia, and I met with some of the people with whom the Library of Congress, Martin Frost's staff, and HIS had been meeting. They were very excited about the possibility of having modern word processing equipment, laser printers, communications abilities, and they said that "what you people in America need to realize is that this is going to speed up the process of our rewriting our constitution," and so they were very happy to have this assistance in a very vital part of their new history.

Thank you.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, could I interject just a second?

Mr. FAZIO. Sure.

Mr. OBEY. I think this committee will remember the wrestling match which I had with the Senate Rules Committee when I was Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee with respect to computers.

Mr. FAZIO. I remember that well.

Mr. OBEY. We wanted to install a different system which would have been significantly cheaper than the system which was eventually approved, in fact required by the Senate. We felt that the cheaper system would give us much more flexibility; rather than relying on a clunky mainframe, we wanted to rely on a lot of smaller computers.

I think the committee will be interested to know that that issue has finally been resolved. The committee has now, finally, a newer flexible computer system, and the old one was delivered to the Polish government.

Mr. Rose. Will the gentleman yield?

I don't know that you want to know all the details of what happened because of that, but what was delivered to the Czechs with your help was a flexible PC-based system, not an old main-frame system, but brand-new equipment, mainly 386-based PCs. But all the stuff that got to Poland didn't work, I am told, Mr. Obey. Mr. OBEY. Well, I am sure that

Mr. FAZIO. That is as it came out of the Senate.

Mr. OBEY. In fact, I was told by the Poles that it was useful to them, but their needs were much more undeveloped.

MAINFRAME VERSUS PC'S

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, if I could follow up on that.

Charlie, I was going to raise partially the same question. There is a debate that centers around the main frame, huge mechanic sys

your explanation is that we have made decisions that move us in that direction rather than what would be the traditional mind's eye, well, view of the mainframe.

Mr. Rose. It turns out, if the gentleman will yield, we need both, but in entirely different kinds of ways. For the general administration of this place, for the work of maintaining records of payroll, of keeping on line available 24 hours a day the various data bases that we constantly refer to, you need a main frame. And I think-I don't believe you put it in my testimony, but, Hamish, didn't we save over a half a million dollars?

Mr. MURRAY. We did, sir.

Mr. Rose. By changing from one computer company to IBM. They gave us an offer we couldn't refuse.

Mr. MURRAY. IBM, we actually kept with IBM. They also supplied one before.

Mr. Rose. But they gave us a much better deal.

Mr. LEWIS. So that would answer maybe my second question, which was, how did we take advantage of this new time opportunity relative to main frames relative to cost? It was a matter of substituting funds within your existing appropriated budget, I am assuming. I don't think we discussed purchase of such a main frame last year in this committee.

Mr. MURRAY. No.

Mr. ROSE. No.

Mr. LEWIS. So it was done within your existing funding because of the shift of available dollars.

Mr. ROSE. We actually were able to get a newer model, faster main frame, for less money than was approved for the previous model. But we encourage Members and committees to use the PCs, the smaller computer, for word processing, or for number crunching, or for other activities. But because we have a fiberoptic network throughout the whole House of Representatives, we can very easily hook these PCs in Member and committee offices up to the main frame down at HIS, which contains the data bases that we all need. So that marriage has worked very well, and that is the way the industry is moving.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND HIS

Mr. FAZIO. That leads me to want to ask about this telecommunications network that we have talked about in this Committee for a number of years. This subcommittee initiated that activity.

Can you tell us how your activities support that network and how we integrate into it? I know the Architect of the Capitol is looking at the overall development of such a network for the Legislative Branch agencies. Do we see any progress from your perspective at this time?

Mr. MURRAY. The role of HIS in this area of communications and for which we are asking $900,000 in the budget, is basically to support data communications for committees and Member offices, and links with the House Officers and their support staff, too.

An issue that came up, a policy issue that came up several years

should it be in somebody else's budget? And initially it was thought that the committees and Members should pay for it themselves.

We had experience that reversed that decision, namely, when a certain committee ordered and bought the equipment, it regarded it as its own, whereas it actually had the capability of being, shared with several other committees. What resulted was really a waste of capacity of that equipment.

The other aspect of communications, particularly the networks, is they are ultra-sensitive to any bad blood, anything that is incompatible. And it, as a policy—

Mr. LEWIS. What do you mean by that?

Mr. FAZIO. I think you are talking in a more technical sense.

Mr. MURRAY. This is a technical matter. For instance, unbeknownst to us, a piece of equipment was recently introduced in a Member office that was not on the approved list. The vendor said to the Office of the Member, would you please test this, this is great, it will save you 50 percent, and all these good things. And that really threw us for a loop. It brought the system down, and it took a lot of effort to correct, a lot of investment in staff time.

So we feel it would be better if we purchase, at least we would know the equipment that we are putting in is kosher, and will work with the rest of the network. So that is the policy we have been following.

Mr. FAZIO. This was a violation of your policy, this person acquiring this equipment?

Mr. MURRAY. It shouldn't have occurred. Those things happen occasionally.

Mr. FAZIO. How does one get on your approved list?

Mr. ROSE. Mr. Chairman, the House Administration Committee maintains an approved list of equipment for Members' offices and committees, and the basic theory behind it is that the people both at House Administration, but mainly at HIS, can't be experts in everything.

Mr. FAZIO. Right.

Mr. Rose. And so we want to put on the approved list equipment that is reliable, that HIS has tested and told us is reliable.

Mr. FAZIO. And compatible?

Mr. Rose. And compatible. And that they are prepared to work with, not necessarily service it, but work with it to make sure that it interfaces properly. And then when a Member leaves, or runs for the Senate or something, and leaves this equipment behind, we don't want it to fall into the category of items that nobody wants. So if we have limited the choices to highly reliable, compatible equipment, we find that other people will come along and pick it up, which saves a great deal of money for the Clerk.

Mr. FAZIO. You don't have to send it to Poland?

Mr. ROSE. We don't have to send it to the GSA's surplus property or anywhere else.

One of the pleasant things that has occurred over this last year is a very good working relationship, and it is not just this past year-it has been before too, with the Clerk's Office of Telephone Services. But this year the Office of Telephone Services has been