Posted by Keturah Hetrick on March 6, 2017
Led by Republicans, representatives ended 2016 by handing staffers their highest fourth-quarter bonuses since 2010.
House members overall gave an average fourth-quarter bonus of 19.7 percent over previous quarters, or an estimated $43,000 in bonuses per personal office. Republicans averaged 21.2 percent, ahead of Democrats' 17.7 percent.
Six of the ten most generous bosses have since left the House, either due to retirement, electoral defeat or political appointment to another office. Those who ran for other offices gave 23.9 percent, while retiring members and those who lost their reelection bids gave an average of 27.7 percent.
Meanwhile, Trump's political appointees (former Reps. Ryan Zinke, Tom Price, Mick Mulvaney and Mike Pompeo) bumped up their staffers' quarterly salaries by more than 36 percent.
Members don't explicitly report bonuses in their quarterly expense reports. To estimate bonuses, LegiStorm compares average quarterly salaries to estimate each office's end-of-year bonuses. Any money left over from a member's annual spending allowance is returned to the Treasury at the end of the year.
Some people and organizations who "caught our eye" last week:
