Recently released stat-istics show Wisconsin’s congressional lawmakers handed out thousands of dollars in taxpayer-funded bonuses to staffers at the end of last year.
Each year every legislator receives funds to pay for all office expenses as well as travel expenses. If a congressional office spends more money than their allocated, the individual congresspeople are required to pay the additional costs. Any money not spent is forfeited.
This year, many Wisconsin representatives chose to give their staff bonuses rather than return the extra funds.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, gave extra compensation to his staff based on performance and experience, according to spokesperson Conor Sweeney.
In 2008, the average year-end bonus was 3.2 percent of each staffer’s salary. Sweeney said Ryan did not spend the $70,000 in approved funds, a fact that shows salaries in Ryan’s office were “well below” the congressional average.
U.S. Rep. Tom Petri, R-Fond du Lac, paid out more than $100,000 for staffer bonuses at the end of 2008, spokesperson Neil Wright said.
According to Wright, the bonuses help make the salaries of staffers in Petri’s office more comparable to staffers in similar offices.
“[Petri] holds back some of the money from the salary account until he’s sure all the other bills will be paid. When we’re sure of that, he releases some money to bring everybody up to the equal numbers of everybody else,” Wright said.
Petri’s office gave out more bonuses than any other Wisconsin lawmaker, with his budget increasing by more than $104,000 during the last quarter of 2008 — a 42 percent increase from the previous quarter — according to LegiStorm, which tracks congressional payroll information.
Like Ryan, Petri also “returned substantial funds to the House at the end of the year,” Wright added.
Democratic Madison Rep. Tammy Baldwin, increased her payroll by nearly 20 percent, according to LegiStorm records, providing her staff with about $3,000 each in bonuses.
Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, usually gives his staff end of the year bonuses but decided against it due to the country’s economic condition, an official in his office said.
