Idaho congressional staffs: a look at the numbers (UPDATED, 4:35 p.m.)
Here's a follow to my Thursday blog post about attempts to increase congressional staff budgets.
I've compiled some data about staff sizes and payrolls for the Idaho congressional delegation. Here are the thumbnails:
Sen. Mike Crapo: Has 35 full-time equivalent employees on staff. The office has averaged 35 FTEs since he joined the Senate in 1999.
According to LegiStorm.com, a nonpartisan and very useful watchdog site, Crapo’s staff payroll for the 2007-08 budget year totaled $2,570,696.
Payroll costs have increased, partly as a function of experience; some of Crapo’s staffers date back to his days in the House.
Sen. Jim Risch: Has 31 FTEs, but office is not yet fully staffed. By comparison, Risch’s office says retired Sen. Larry Craig employed 38 FTEs in his final year in office.
Risch’s May payroll totaled $140,539.45, which would translate to $1,686,473.40 over a full year.
Craig’s payroll for the 2007-08 budget year totaled $2,564,712, according to LegiStorm.com.
Rep. Mike Simpson: Has 16.4 FTEs on staff, down from 17 FTEs in 2000. Payroll for 2008 totaled $1.07 million; the 2000 payroll was under $700,000. The increases are a function of staff tenure and hiring more experienced staff to work with Simpson on House Appropriations Committee work.
Rep. Walt Minnick: Has 15 FTEs. Minnick has filled staff positions slowly, mostly as a cost-saving measure, spokesman John Foster said. The May payroll was $63,763.
Former Rep. Bill Sali, defeated by Minnick in November, had a $948,837 staff payroll in 2007-08, according to LegiStorm.com.
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Risch pays less
What I see here is that Risch pays his staff significantly less than anyone in the delegation. It makes me wonder if he has very young, inexperienced staff or if he just chooses to pay below average wages.
Risch points out that he has fewer staff than Craig. Of course, he does. Like Simpson, Craig also had extremely experienced staff that did committee work. Risch doesn't have any committee ranking yet and doesn't that that extra staff.
The question isn't how many staff you have, it's whether you have the appropriate staff to meet the needs of your constituents around the state and get things done in DC.
When it comes to Risch's low pay you might have noticed that
Kevin noted that Crapo's "Payroll costs have increased, partly as a function of experience; some of Crapo’s staffers date back to his days in the House." so as far as your question goes I think it would be the former. Risch is well known for spending what ever it takes to get his way.
A more germain question would be to ask if there is a pay scale and staffing limits in place to keep the playing field even.
Potential
The good story here would be who are the staffers, what they do, and corresponding salaries.
Then we can see how our delegation governs their own office once they get elected.
Udapimp has a point
Risch might pay everyone similar salaries and Crapo might pay huge salaries to a few and low salaries to the rest. Point is...these numbers without context really don't mean much. As long as each member of congress can justify his spending, I'm not sure I need to be informed of his every staff choice. I vote for someone to get the job done. They will each have differenct ways of doing that.