Larry Craig paid bonuses to staffers

WASHINGTON - Payroll records show that a handful of top aides in former Sen. Larry Craig's Senate office received handsome increases - one received as much as $36,000 - if they stayed with the Idaho Republican from the fall of 2007 through his retirement last January.

Craig, who spent 27 years in the House and Senate, saw his career as an elected official come to an ignoble end after his June 2007 arrest in a sex sting in a men's room of the St. Paul-Minneapolis Airport.

About 25 employees remained with Craig from the time of his arrest to his departure, according to records on LegiStorm.com, a Web site that compiles congressional pay reports and other public records not easily accessible online. Four received five-figure pay increases, according to an analysis of the reports.

One former staffer, Will Hart, said the pay increases were to reward people who stayed on through a difficult period for Craig and the office. Hart, now the executive director of the Idaho Consumer-Owned Utilities Association, was one of those people. His increase was an estimated $14,000.

"I was the last one out the door in the Boise office - I locked it on the way out on the last day," said Hart, a former spokesman for the senator who served as the state director of the office at the time of Craig's retirement.

BIG WINNERS: COUNSEL, ADMINISTRATIVE CHIEF

According to an analysis of the payroll records, the biggest pay increases went to Patricia Olsen, the now-retired administrative director of Craig's office, and Brooke Roberts, his chief counsel and deputy chief of staff. Olsen received an increase of an estimated $36,000; Roberts received an estimated $32,000. Both retired, Hart said. Neither returned phone calls seeking their comment.

Although Craig retired Jan. 2, Senate payroll records are released only every six months, and those covering his final months in office were released only this fall. The bonuses are estimates of the employees' increases in pay in the last three months Craig was in office, based on the amount of money staffers made in the six months before the final report.

Senators have wide discretion in how they award pay from their taxpayer-funded office accounts. Technically, they are prohibited from paying outright bonuses. Instead, the extra money is classified as a pay raise. So it is not possible to determine from the payroll records whether some of the money covered pay raises or other money due employees - including unused vacation or sick time. However, Craig would have had to approve such lump-sum payments personally, according to the secretary of the Senate's office.

Craig's former chief of staff, Mike Ware, confirmed that the office awarded pay raises to serve as bonuses.

Craig was unavailable for comment Friday. Ware, asked to pass on a request for comment, said he would make Craig aware of the Statesman's inquiry.

Ware, who is now in business with his former boss as a consultant, was unapologetic about the pay boosts for top employees. End-of-the-year merit bonuses were a common practice for Craig throughout his time in Congress, Ware said, and the senator made the decision to reward many long-term staffers for their service.

"These were all merit-based bonuses," Ware said, adding that he thought there was "nothing sinister" about them. In a subsequent interview, Ware clarified that some of the extra money paid to staffers could have been for unpaid vacation or sick time and not just bonuses.

"Part of it is unpaid leave, part of it is unpaid sick leave and part of it is bonuses," Ware said. "They are consistent with the bonuses that have been paid when we have money left over to pay bonuses. Nobody's trying to hide anything."

Ware himself received an estimated $27,000 increase at the end of Craig's term in office. The increases were "not out of line" with previous bonuses, Ware said. "All the people deserved them. It is not very easy to close a Senate office after the member has been there for 27 years. They worked very hard."

ONE GOAL: A CUSHION WHILE JOB HUNTING

It also wasn't easy to hold onto employees when they knew that as of Jan. 2, they would no longer have jobs. However, Ware said that all but one of Craig's former staffers now have jobs. Some landed posts with Sen. Jim Risch, who was elected to replace Craig.

"I think the goal for Sen. Craig and our senior management was to reward people for their loyal service, keep them on the payroll for as long as possible, and help them out as they headed out in the job market," Hart said. "You're trying to maintain your high-quality employees to maintain a smooth transition for the next officeholders. It's absolutely not abnormal in any way. It happens often on the Hill. It'd be similar to a private company trying to maintain employees in a transition."

The practice of paying bonuses is widespread in congressional offices, although it often raises flags. The Wall Street Journal found that in 2008, more than 200 House lawmakers from both parties awarded bonuses totaling $9.1 million to more than 2,000 staff members.

For years, it's been especially common to see bonuses handed out by representatives and senators who are retiring or who lost their elections, said Pete Sepp, vice president for policy and communications at the National Taxpayers Union.

GROUP: END-OF-TENURE REWARDS COMMON

"The golden handshake is not something confined solely to Wall Street or the corporate world," Sepp said.

"Granted, we may not be talking about millions of dollars here, but comparatively these are very large bonuses, and both House members and senators have shown a tendency to reward their most loyal staffers near the end of a lawmaker's tenure."

The problem is not whether the practice is ethically suspect, Sepp said, because Congress has the authority to hand out bonuses. It's that voters no longer have a way to hold accountable members of Congress who pay the bonuses and then depart from Washington, Sepp said.

"That's probably the single biggest question: Who's around to answer for these increases once they've been given out?" Sepp said. "And unfortunately, no one really is."

Craig was arrested by an undercover officer in June 2007, but he told no one of his arrest until it was uncovered by a Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, in late August of that year. He was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct as part of an undercover investigation into complaints of gay sex in an airport bathroom.

After his arrest, Craig lost his committee leadership posts and was given a rare public scolding by the Senate Ethics Committee.

Craig spent more than $407,000 in campaign money trying to overturn his guilty plea but abandoned the effort when the Minnesota Court of Appeals rejected his claim.

Throughout it all, Craig blamed the Idaho Statesman for what happened, saying he panicked and pleaded guilty as part of his fear of the paper's investigation into longstanding rumors that he engaged in gay sex. The newspaper contacted scores of Craig's friends, demanded Craig's FBI file and patrolled bars and restrooms with Craig's picture, the senator complained in court filings.

The Statesman investigation, which was not published until news of Craig's arrest broke in 2007, found among other things that one man reported having oral sex with Craig in Washington's Union Station and other men reported restroom encounters.

Erika Bolstad: (202) 383-6104.

Chris Adams of the McClatchy Washington Bureau contributed.