Complaints about Obama drive 11 percent surge in Tiahrt's office spending | The Wichita Eagle

In a year when he was saying government needed to tighten its belt to get through the recession, Rep. Todd Tiahrt increased spending on his taxpayer-funded congressional office by 11 percent, federal records show.

The 2009 increase included a 22 percent hike in personnel, which raised the payroll of Tiahrt's government office to slightly more than $1 million, according to the federal statement of disbursements.

A little more than half of the $196,000 of Tiahrt's increased staffing cost went to five people who also got salary and/or expense reimbursements for working on Tiahrt's Senate campaign, election disclosure forms show. Four of them recently were named members of Tiahrt's campaign leadership team.

Tiahrt spokesman Sam Sackett said the increased office expenses are largely a result of the election of Barack Obama as president, which inflamed constituents in the heavily Republican and conservative 4th District.

During the Bush administration, Tiahrt's office fielded about 50 to 60 calls a day. Now, it averages more than 200, Sackett said.

"We saw that spike with the election of President Obama," Sackett said. "We had to employ a number of people to answer phone calls."

He also said it's a common practice for congressional staffers to split time between official and campaign offices.

The increased government pay among the dual-role employees mostly went to a staffer hired back after nearly a year off and another who earned a master's degree, Sackett said.

He added that Tiahrt has "very loyal" staffers who stay a long time and several got raises based on seniority.

Tiahrt has frozen his office employees' pay for 2010, Sackett said.

Tiahrt vs. Moran

Tiahrt, R-Goddard, is locked in a fierce campaign battle with Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Sam Brownback, who is running for governor.

Moran raised his overall office spending 1.5 percent in 2009. He cut his payroll by 1.4 percent.

In 2008, Moran spent $1.31 million on his congressional office, while Tiahrt spent $1.26 million.

By the end of 2009, those positions had flipped, with Tiahrt spending the greater amount, $1.41 million to Moran's $1.33 million.

Sackett said that's justifiable because of "the number of times when the congressman (Tiahrt) does the heavy lifting on the House side" for the state's congressional delegation.

For example, he cited the recent battle over whether the Air Force would buy an Airbus tanker plane or a Boeing plane that would be partially built in Wichita.

Todd Novascone, Moran's chief of staff, said it wasn't just Tiahrt's work that tipped the years-long controversy in Wichita's favor.

"I think that was everybody's effort," he said. "I think it was a Kansas delegation effort."

Novascone said that Moran's office had also experienced higher call volumes, particularly during the controversy over health care. However, he said, they dealt with it by adding only one person, an intern who was promoted to a full-time job.

As for the state's other two representatives, the records show that Dennis Moore, D-Lenexa, spent $1.35 million on running his office; Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka, spent $1.21 million in her first year in Congress.

Bashing spending

Seeking to maximize their voting strength in a primary expected to skew conservative, neither Tiahrt nor Moran has missed many opportunities to lambaste federal spending and bureaucracy. Both have been harshly critical of the president's budget and economic stimulus plans.

Earlier this month, Tiahrt joined in proposing a constitutional amendment to cut government spending from about 25 percent of the national economy to 20 percent.

"We simply cannot trust the administration or the powers of Washington to voluntarily control spending," Tiahrt said in a statement.

Moran has co-sponsored a different amendment that would require a balanced federal budget.

"Congress spends too much money — money that we do not have," he said in a statement.

Allowance $1.4 million

Money for representatives to run their Washington and district offices comes from the Members' Representational Allowance.

The amount of the allowance is set individually, through a formula that takes into account the member's seniority and special duties, such as committee chairmanships.

The 2009 allowances for Kansas representatives: Moore, $1,481,172; Tiahrt, $1,465,533; Moran, $1,457,691; and Jenkins, $1,455,690.

Each member of Congress is responsible for handling his or her own office account. It's the only part of the federal budget over which individual representatives exercise direct control.

Representatives are not allowed to supplement their government office allowance with campaign or other privately raised funds, according to the Congressional Members' Handbook.

If they overspend their allowances, they are required to make up the difference with personal funds. If they fail to pay, the money can be deducted from their official salary of $174,000 a year.

Any money left over at the end of the year is returned to the federal treasury.

Tiahrt has returned more than $2.2 million in unspent office funds since his first term began in 1995, Sackett said.

Policy or politics?

Moran's office spending records also show that some people are paid by both the official office and the campaign. Three of the four Moran staffers who also worked for his Senate campaign were paid more by the congressional office in 2009.

Together, they made about $26,000 less because of a large cut in government pay for the fourth staffer.

Ken Ciboski, a professor of political science at Wichita State University who has been closely watching the Tiahrt-Moran race, said there's been a significant "blurring of the line" between official and campaign staffs.

"They can talk about responding to constituents and all that," he said. "But underneath it all is keeping your name out there and letting people know what you're doing."

He also said he finds it "somewhat hypocritical" of Tiahrt "to call for cutbacks while increasing your own budget."

Sackett said Tiahrt's spending increase is justified because he is an advocate for ordinary citizens, while other cash-strapped federal agencies are primarily involved in crafting rules and regulations that slow down the economy.

"There's nothing hypocritical about spending the budget he has to fight on behalf of the constituents he was elected to serve," Sackett said.

Bob Beatty, a professor of political science at Washburn University, said Moran's campaign could use Tiahrt's office spending to "sort of cast doubt on his conservative credentials.

"This is the sort of data we see in many campaigns that can be used against the candidate," he said.

He likened the potential to that of a January 2009 Eagle story quoting Moran as saying the newly elected President Obama might be easier to work with than Bush was.

Now, Beatty said, both sides have some ammunition if they do decide to go negative.

"For Tiahrt, it might be bringing up the Obama issue; for Moran, it might be ... Tiahrt's office expenditures," Beatty said.