Free Republic

Federal managers are using illegal secret settlements that pay disruptive, incompetent or dangerous employees not to work for months on end before quitting on an agreed-upon date as an alternative to endless termination paperwork, legal appeals and costly battles with civil service unions. Government employees accused of wrongdoing often spend months on paid leave, while publicly agencies cryptically speak of lengthy "investigations," even when establishing misconduct can be as simple as talking to a few people or reviewing some documents. Eventually, the agencies will say, just as vaguely, that the person is "no longer employed." Evidence obtained by The Daily...

A former White House switchboard supervisor was charged Wednesday with embezzling thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds by manipulating an employee's time sheets. Prosecutors accuse Andrea Turk of Upper Marlboro of stealing nearly $11,000 by funneling money through an employee she supervised. Turk, 46, was director of switchboard operations at the White House, supervising 15 operators, from 2009 until she was fired in August 2013. Her duties included overseeing employee work schedules and approving overtime hours, according to federal court records filed Wednesday in Washington. The alleged thefts began in early 2012, according to an FBI affidavit, when Turk called...

Sequestered in the depths of the state's now-defunct Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency offices, more than 250 state workers and others are quietly and quickly working on one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's most ambitious projects yet. The workers, on loan to the governor from other departments forced to make do without them in the midst of a hiring freeze, are attempting to reinvent the bureaucracy to trim costs and cut waste in virtually every corner of state government, all by June 30. Some are skeptical that this mysterious group promising a dramatic government reorganization can succeed. Others worry that recommendations...