We ask ourselves this question every day to make sure we have the resources and capacity to serve you.
If you look at the additional disbursements we made during the pandemic for equipment, hardware, connectivity and so on, it's just over $3.5 million. These are large amounts, but a lot of work has been done to enable virtual work and so on.
On the one hand, we have reallocated existing resources to help support change in this environment. We reduced the investments we had planned. In some cases, this involved certain updates or renewal of our technology tools and internal projects. We're trying to find the balance.
On the other hand, the savings are quite significant, as far as travel is concerned. We're talking about nearly $9 million in travel savings. You have to be careful, because $5 million of that is a statutory budget that I cannot deploy elsewhere. However, if you look at the committees, the associations and the House Administration, including travel, we still see fairly significant amounts that are approaching $4 million.
The savings also include all equipment and supplies for our printing department, which was closed for a while. In addition, as the operations of restaurants, cafeterias, committees and other events on the Hill have decreased, there is no need to purchase equipment for these services.
Looking at trends, there are even more savings than expenditures because of COVID-19, because we've made an adjustment to allocate resources elsewhere.