Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH), Chair of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's hearing on the fiscal year 2023 budget request for the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights:
I would like to welcome the Acting Executive Director of the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, Teresa James and General Counsel of the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, John Uelmen to present the fiscal year 2023 budget request.
The Office of Congressional Workplace Rights is responsible for administering the Congressional Accountability Act for the approximately 30,000 employees in the legislative branch. The mission of the office is to continue assisting the legislative branch community in creating and maintaining a workplace that is safe, accessible, and free from discrimination and other unlawful employment practices.
In the last year, your office has worked on education initiatives for the House workforce, including Members. In addition to implementing cybersecurity improvements, necessary IT systems, and network upgrades in line with government-wide security standards, you are also working towards full migration of a Risk-based Management Suite.
The upgrades you made in the last year were important factors into ensuring that staff courses on preventing discrimination and harassment, including sexual harassment in the workplace, could be more widely available and managed within the House network. I am encouraged that OCWR continues to work on modernization and look forward to hearing your comments on your request.
The OCWR fiscal year 2023 budget request of $7.5 million is flat with the fiscal year 2022 enacted total and includes an additional FTE. While 70% of your budget goes toward pay and benefits for these employees, you are also enhancing several of your programs.
I look forward to your testimony today. At this point I would like to yield to my colleague and friend, the Ranking Member, Jaime Herrera Beutler for any opening comments she would like to make.
Source: U.S. Department of HCA
