Pursuant to Section 1381 (h)(3) of the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (CAA), the Office of Compliance shall:
[C]ompile and publish statistics on the use of the Office by covered employees, including the number and type of contacts made with the Office, on the reason for such contacts, on the number of covered employees who initiated proceedings with the Office under this chapter and the result of such proceedings, and on the number of covered employees who filed a complaint, the basis for the complaint, and the action taken on the complaint.
Under this provision, we issue our yearly statistics in our annual report. Nothing in this subparagraph requires the Office to release award and settlement figures referenced in Section 1415 of the CAA. However, based on the volume of recent inquiries regarding payment of awards and settlements reached under the CAA, I am releasing these figures beginning with Fiscal Year 1997, up to and including FY 2017. A large portion of cases originate from employing offices in the legislative branch other than the House of Representatives or the Senate, and involve various statutory provisions incorporated by the CAA, such as the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The statistics on payments are not further broken down into specific claims because settlements may involve cases that allege violations of more than one of the 13 statutes incorporated by the CAA.
Susan Tsui Grundmann
Attachment: Awards and Settlements Appropriation
Awards and Settlements Appropriation
Section 415 of the Act established “an account of the Office in the Treasury on the United States for the payment of awards and settlements .. . under this Act,” and further authorized to be appropriated “such sums as may be necessary to pay such awards and settlements.” Section 415 stipulated that awards and settlements under the Act can only be paid from that account, which is to be separate from the operating expenses account ofthe Office of Compliance established under section 305 of the Act. The Executive Director approves all such awards and settlements.
