Emails (excerpted), Drew Brandewie, communications director. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Sept. 9, 2014 through Oct. 14, 2014

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)

Sent: Monday, September 08, 2014 11:30 AM

To: Brandewie, Drew (Cornyn)

Subject: Inquiry for a fact check

Drew:

Good morning.

For a fact check, I write seeking fiscal and explanatory detail on Sen. Cornyn’s statement on “Inside Texas Politics” this weekend that every year, his Senate office sends back money. He was responding to a question about why it costs $3.7 million to run the office compared to the average Senate office cost of $2.5 million a year, the reporter said.

“We send money back every year,” Cornyn said.

I’d be happy to visit about this by phone if that’s easier.

Thanks.

g.

W. Gardner Selby

Reporter / News

Austin American-Statesman

PolitiFact Texas

5:51 p.m.

Sept. 9, 2014

...According to the Office of the Financial Clerk of the Senate, our office has returned on average $308,488.30 in unspent funds each year between FY2003 – FY2013.

Drew

2:05 p.m.

Sept. 18, 2014

...I am hoping you or someone else paid by the federal government can deliver a factual explanation of the senator’s statement about returning budget funds every year.

To this moment, I have only the single figure you provided without elaboration a week or so ago and my penciled notes from pawing through a dozen or so senatorial expenditure reports covering Cornyn’s tenure. I still would like to elicit precisely, year by year, how much Cornyn spent on his office from taxpayer dollars and how much he returned. The figure you emailed is factually unexplained and might not even be on point to what he said in the interview.

?

g.

W. Gardner Selby

Reporter / News

Austin American-Statesman

PolitiFact Texas

4:45 p.m.

Sept. 19, 2014

Below is data provided to us by the Office of the Financial Clerk of the Senate documenting the unspent funds our office has returned each year between FY2003 – FY2013. Pages 7-8 of this CRS report provide an explanation of how the allocation formulas are determined for Senate offices: http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%270E%2C*PL%5B%3D%23P%20%20%0A

Sen. Cornyn and his staff strive to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, going to great lengths to operate his office in a fiscally-responsible way while still ensuring the needs of the more than 26 million Texans he represents are fully met.

Thank you,

Drew

2:23 p.m.

Oct. 6, 2014

...glancing at these it looks like within each report they have several years’ worth of data – so in this report notice they have FY14, FY13, and FY12 balances, all as of March 2014 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CDOC-113sdoc22/pdf/GPO-CDOC-113sdoc22.pdf  p. B-718, FY12 matches what we have on our chart

2:24 p.m.

key is on the left side of each page it denotes “Funding Year: XXXX”

4:40 p.m.

On p. B-718 of this one http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CDOC-113sdoc22/pdf/GPO-CDOC-113sdoc22.pdf  FY12 matches what we provided, to the penny. And the earlier balance you mentioned of $446k matches to the figure we provided for FY03. Again I will work to try and get an explanation of these reports for you, but my hunch is that the final amounts can change for a certain time period after the end of the fiscal year so it would depend on which one you look at. I also do not know which ones you are specifically referencing either.    

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin) [mailto:wgselby@statesman.com]

Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 11:23 AM

To: Brandewie, Drew (Cornyn)

Subject: RE: Following up

Last call on this one. I still don’t see numbers matching up with what’s published and publicly accessible.

11:55 a.m.

Oct. 8, 2014

According to the Clerk’s office, the final amounts are subject to change for up to 2 years after the end of the fiscal year. Each report is essentially just a snapshot in time of the remaining balance as of that day, and that balance can go up or down for two years after the end of the fiscal year.

Each year there is a new authorization for an amount determined by the formula as described on p7-8 in this CRS report http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%270E%2C*PL%5B%3D%23P%20%20%0A

The previous year’s balances can be adjusted for previous year’s expenses (like the travel reimbursement example I mentioned and hence why the rolling balances) but each fiscal year you start with a fresh authorization and moving forward you pull from that. As I understand it there is no carry-over and we cannot use previous year’s funds for the new year’s expenses as their questions indicate. And the funds are returned to the Treasury after two years.

The author of this CRS report may be helpful:

Ida A. Brudnick

Specialist on the Congress

ibrudnick@crs.loc.gov, 7-6460

From: Brandewie, Drew (Cornyn)

Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 3:17 PM

To: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)

Subject: RE: Following up

As I understand it, the reports from the Secretary of the Senate are just snapshots in time of the balances at the moment they are published, and the final balances can change for up to two years following the end of the fiscal year. Meaning if you look at a report dated March 31st, 2014, the final balance the report shows for FY2013 may be different on the next report on September 30th, 2014, and that balance may be different again on the next one on March 31st, 2015.  

Again without knowing which reports you are specifically looking at I can’t address specific discrepancies, but as I pointed out the other day on p. B-718 of this one http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CDOC-113sdoc22/pdf/GPO-CDOC-113sdoc22.pdf  FY12 matches to what the Clerk’s office provided us to the penny.

Below are the final balances for our office as of September 19th – I hope this helps, and call me if you still have questions 202 224 0704

 From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin) [mailto:wgselby@statesman.com]

Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 6:48 PM

To: Brandewie, Drew (Cornyn)

Subject: RE: Following up

If Senate offices get a fresh appropriation of, say, $1 million each year but they end up spending $1.2 million in that year thanks to money budgeted but not spent in a recent previous year, they’re overspending their current-year budget – right? Even so, thanks to that fresh million dollars, the books might show a positive end-of-year balance two years later, yes?

Here are other questions from colleagues I couldn’t answer:

--Is Cornyn just spending the end-of-year balances a year or two later?

--Is money ever really fully sent back?

--Does the senator say each year, ok, zero out my books, ruling out any expenditures of money not spent that year?

--Does the senator always (or ever) start each new year with a rolled-over balance amount?

g.

1:44 p.m.

Oct. 9, 2014

Attached is a chart as well as copies of the exact pages from the individual reports reflecting our numbers provided to us by Chris Doby (he has handwritten at the top the date of the report each page comes from so you can verify there). Chris has marked each figure on the page with a check that matches the chart showing our authorization, adjustments, expenditures, and remaining balance.

Thanks,

Drew

(Editor’s note: Attachment viewable here.)

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin) [mailto:wgselby@statesman.com]

Sent: Friday, October 10, 2014 06:06 PM

To: Brandewie, Drew (Cornyn)

Subject: RE: Secretary report validation

What does the “adjustments” column mean? I fear this is another sign of needing an expert to talk through all of this.

g.

9:35 a.m.

Oct. 14, 2014

According to the Clerk’s office, “adjustments” column corresponds to the “supplementals” line in the report pages. These are typically authorized increases during the fiscal year, such as an increase in COLA (Cost of Living Allowance). Authorized increases such as COLA increases are across the board for every office, and are authorized by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

In FY11 and 13 they were decreases, ’11 due to a rescission (cut) in our funds and ’13 due to the sequester.

9:54 a.m.

According to Chris Doby, Financial Clerk of the Senate, this column is a part of each office’s budget and that’s why they are included in the chart and report pages they provided.

12:40 p.m.

...according to Chris Doby in the Clerk’s office the funds members are authorized each year can only be used on expenses incurred  in the same respective fiscal year, so a member cannot use funds from one year to pay for expenses from another. The funds are fixed, finite and do not roll over from year to year. if the member exceeds the authorization it becomes a personal expense to the member. The remaining funds are returned to the Treasury two years after the end of the fiscal year (as the report pages show the “0” under “remaining balance”)

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin) [mailto:wgselby@statesman.com]

Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2014 1:43 PM

To: Brandewie, Drew (Cornyn)

Subject: RE: Following up

Also, if the 2003 entry indicating no money was left over is correct, no need to address. If that’s incorrect, please point me to the corrected documentation or report.

1:17 p.m.

According to Chris Doby in the clerk’s office, the office funds remaining unspent ($446,919.15) for FY 2003 is accurate as listed in the chart they provided. Public Law 109-13, Sec. 6050 instructed the clerk’s office to handle the remaining funds differently for this year only. All members’ funds were handled the same way. The amounts identified in our chart under “remaining balance” correspond to “withdrawals” (exception 2003 which was “transferred” per Public Law 109-13) as indicated on the Secretary of the Senate reports.

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin) [mailto:wgselby@statesman.com]

Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2014 4:25 PM

To: Brandewie, Drew (Cornyn)

Subject: RE: Following up

Why the two-year lag?

3:45 p.m.

To account for office expenses that arise after the fiscal year has ended but pertain to the previous fiscal year’s activities. The main instance where this comes up are official travel reimbursements; a staff member could submit a reimbursement request in October (FY15) for work-related travel from September (FY14) – so the funds would be expended from the previous year’s (FY14) account. Another example would be if the office receives a bill for services rendered in FY14 after the fiscal year has ended – this would be paid out of FY14 funds.  

4:13 p.m.

And in reference to your FY2003 question, I just double-checked with Chris and whether they were “transferred” (in 2003) or “withdrawn” (the rest of the years) means that the office no longer had use of those funds as they were sent back to Treasury. And again, FY2003 was treated that way across the board for all members’ offices.