ANNUAL REPORTS

Mr. COLLEY. Every year we receive from our offices an annual report summarizing the business of that office, the changes and recommendations as to what might be done during the coming year. Mrs. Pickett of our staff has prepared a notebook of all those reports indexed for the Subcommittee's files so that you might review it at your leisure if you would like to do so. I will take any questions that you might like to ask on any of the Clerk's offices. Mr. RUDD. I would like to ask one question. Do you have a lot of leisure time.

Mr. COLLEY. No, we don't.

Mr. RUDD. The statement was for us to review this at our leisure. I wondered if we had any leisure.

Mr. COLLEY. I am sorry. We have very little leisure time, too, Mr. Rudd.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Are there more questions?

LENGTH OF POSITION VACANCIES

On these positions that you have, you have indicated that 27 of them are vacant. Do you have any idea how long they have been vacant?

Mr. COLLEY. Not very long, Mr. Chairman. If we have vacancies, we are very eager to fill them, because we need those people. We might have a problem, for example, recruiting someone, such as in the House Recording Studio, where there might be a highly technical position. Positions such as salesclerk or positions that do not require a high level of education, expertise, or technical ability, we fill pretty rapidly, but we have to go into a considerable number of interviews in recruiting to fill a position of senior electronics technician, for example, in the House Recording Studio.

We carry some vacancies in the telephone exchange, which we have mentioned here to you before, simply because we don't feel that we have to fill them, and they are there, but we don't fill them, and that shows up at approximately half of the 20 vacancies we had as of December 31. The other positions don't stay vacant very long, because we need people at at work.

HOUSE RECORDING STUDIOS

Mr. BENJAMIN. According to the chart that you have given us, and I would like to have both the Office of Clerk vacant positions as of January 1, 1980, and that chart which explains the organizational structure of the Clerk's Office, incorporated in the record, it shows here 37 people in the Recording Studio. Can you just briefly trace the growth of that particular segment of your operation? Mr. COLLEY. The largest growth that has occurred in recent years was the 12 new positions that were added a year or so ago for the televised floor proceedings. This total number of individuals that we have of 37 includes all of the staff that handles the television functions on the House floor. Mr. Bill Hartnett, who is our electronics communications specialist and has the studio and television operation under his general supervision, is here if you would like to develop that further.

Mr. BENJAMIN. I wish he would.

Mr. COLLEY. Do you have any specific questions?

Mr. BENJAMIN. Explain the growth of this activity.

Mr. HARTNETT. Sir, the studio has been at a level of 20 to 22 people for many years, up until we received the mission in the fall of 78 to provide television coverage of the House. When that mission was given to us, we asked for I think 14 people and were given 12 personnel positions, and we went out and advertised, to fill these positions.

Mr. BENJAMIN. When was that?

Mr. HARTNETT. That was in late September of '78 we received the 12 positions from the House Administration Committee.

Mr. BENJAMIN. So from October through the end of January you have not filled 5 positions?

Mr. HARTNETT. Right, sir. It was a difficult job to get those 12 positions filled. We did get over 400 resumes, but to find qualified people who will come here for the money we were paying was not easy. So we got people from places like Oklahoma City, Tampa, Florida, and Seattle, Washington, who were making less money, but still had the experience. We put in the criteria of at least 5 years' minimum experience in industry.

One of the reasons we took this approach was to rather than set up a separate bureaucracy, if you will, for the television coverage, we used the existing management staff of the House Recording Studio, and just expanded that personnel structure in an effort to save money, and reduce the amount of people we need to do that job. And we have found just with this past year's experience that the people are working so many hours that we do need some relief, so we have requested several months ago and received 2 new engineering positions, and 1 camera position, 1 production assistant position from the House Administration Committee. We are still having trouble filling those 2 engineering positions.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Is the engineering position labeled something else?

Mr. HARTNETT. It is called Electronic Technician, sir.

Mr. BENJAMIN. And you have 2 of those at $25,016 and you cannot fill them?

Mr. HARTNETT. Sir, when an engineer

Mr. BENJAMIN. As a matter of fact, you have 3 such positions, right, Senior Electronics Technicians at $21,961?

Mr. HARTNETT. A camera operator left us about two months ago for a better job with more money. A job similar to what we have here in industry in this town starts at $26,500, with the same experience level, so we are asking people to come in for a little less than that, and we have I guess a mixture competitive of benefits. Mr. BENJAMIN. What do you do with these folks when the House is not in session?

EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE

Mr. HARTNETT. Sir, most of the time we spend on maintenance of our equipment. We are doing more live television than anybody in the world right now, and when the House is not in session, we are pulling those cameras, we are pulling work on those cameras, the