Spending in U.S. senators’ office accounts spiked by 43% since 2020, with big jumps in 2022 and the last fiscal year for senators to pay their staff, travel and other expenses, an investigation by The Center Square found.
In 2020, the U.S. Senate office account was spending less than half a billion dollars, but that has since increased by nearly $200 million, an analysis of data provided by the American Governance Institute and other online data shows.
Overall Senate spending that includes the office accounts but also expenses for leadership, committees, security and operations was about $1.5 billion, increasing as much as 50% since 2020.
The $1.5 billion overall spending included a litany of staff positions that government watchdogs questioned, such as a chaplain who has his own chief of staff and communications director, dozens of door keepers, picture framers, telephone operators, barbers, wellness resources staff and furniture artisans.
Included in the office account spending was at least $1 million a year for private jet flights and repeated reimbursements for individual senators.
David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, said senators spending on themselves is out of control after The Center Square detailed the expenses in the Senate office accounts and the history of spending.
“In a time where we have a debt of $39 trillion, a deficit approaching $2 trillion, belt tightening needs to begin somewhere and that somewhere is in Congress, in the Senate, in the House of Representatives,” Williams said. “And the Senate has to lead by example.
“We’re not talking about small numbers or small increments,” he added. “That is a significant jump, significant increase in expenditures, and it seemingly goes unchecked.”
Inflation over those years was about 24%, but Williams discounted that as a justification for the Senate spending.
“This has nothing to do with inflation,” he said, adding that this is just lawmakers wanting taxpayers to pay for perks to make their lives more comfortable.
Daniel Schuman, executive director of the American Governance Institute, which studies Congressional spending, said over the long-term the growth in Senate spending tracks with inflation and is needed for expanded job requirements.
“There were some big jumps to make up for huge cuts and operational needs,” he wrote in an email exchange with The Center Square. “The number for personal offices … is driven in part by formulas to deal with growth in the states.”
Last year, The Center Square analyzed spending in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2019, finding an increase of 21 percent in just one year, perks like daycare and an on-call doctor, more than $130,000 in private jet travel, big bucks for mileage and luxury car leases and $50 million for mostly partisan caucus and committees.
The Center Square’s House analysis was considerably easier because the staff provides sortable electronic data of their spending. The Senate, however, only posts PDFs for each six months of spending, which required The Center Square to spend months converting the data into a trackable format.
Williams said that was intentional to make it difficult to understand what taxpayers are funding.
“Taxpayers are paying their expenses,” Williams said. “Taxpayers should know where their money is going and it should be an easy process.”
Senate spends big
Each of the 100 U.S. Senators receives between $3.5 million and $5 million a year to run their Washington, D.C. and state offices. The amount depends on the cost of living in their states and how far they are from Washington, D.C.
Senators have wide discretion on how to spend the money and there is very little transparency except the PDF files the Senate posts twice a year.
Digging into the U.S. Senate data once it was converted, The Center Square found millions of dollars going for private jet travel when there were commercial routes readily available. Nearly all of the senators who had taxpayers pay for private flights refused to explain the reasons to The Center Square or provide documentation – which they don’t have to do because Congress has exempted itself from the Freedom of Information Act.
Some lawmakers also reimbursed themselves for travel expenses instead of using Senate credit cards, which Williams says could result in padded expenses or fraudulent reimbursements for expenses that never happened. It also allows lawmakers to rack up credit card points or miles for personal use instead of keeping them on Senate credit cards to offset official spending.
Williams questioned the staff expenditures The Center Square found.
The Senate chaplain makes $223,800 a year, which is $30,000 more than the majority leader, and he has a communications director and chief of staff who also make six figure salaries. Two wellness specialists and a wellness manager each make more than $100,000 a year, The Center Square found.
No one in the Senate wanted to explain the large increases in recent years or why some of the spending was necessary.
Emails and calls to the staff and offices of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, who are the leaders of the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration that oversees the office account spending, were not returned. McConnell was also majority or minority leader during most of the legislation to set the recent increases, but he is retiring in 2027 when his current term expires.
When a reporter for The Center Square caught up with him at the Capitol, he refused to respond to questions.
Williams lamented that few media organizations regularly write about the spending, adding it will take pressure from taxpayers to force senators to change their ways.
“I think if people found out about these expenses, they would be appalled to find out that Congress is spending so much money on themselves,” he said.