The Hill News

The House has canceled two staff research tools after the annual million-dollar subscriptions were found to be woefully underused.

In a “Dear Colleague” email circulated Wednesday, Chief Administrative Officer Daniel Strodel wrote that the use of the Dow Jones/Factiva and Associated Press subscription-based services would end July 31.

{mosads}The CAO conducted a survey of House offices to determine which tools staff used regularly to carry out constituent and legislative duties. According to the email, the “vast majority” of survey respondents did not utilize those two news and business information and search tool services. 

The House Administration Committee declined to offer the number of current users for the services, but a staffer did tell The Hill that user rates were “surprisingly low” given the high cost of the subscriptions. 

Terminating the services will save the House approximately $1.2 million in fiscal year 2012 an! d recoup almost $195,000 for the remainder of FY11, Strodel wrote in the email. 

Dow Jones/Factiva and Associated Press have announced plans to offer single-user service contracts to House offices that prefer to keep them, Strodel added.