Luxury spending found in legal program (socialist pork alert!)

Bad enough my tax dollars are going to this agency to begin with, but then for this???

In other words a typical government funded program !!!

BARNETT, HELAINE
NEW YORK, NY 10021
LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

CLINTON, HILLARY RODHAM
VIA HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON FOR US SENATE COMMITTEE INC
07/15/1999 1000.00 20020040053

excerpt of ap on yahoo is not required..

I just got my full thread which was 4 seconds behind you yanked.

Thanks for spotting it... and Thanks for your service to your country. :-)

...

Here is the entire article.

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WASHINGTON - The federal program that provides legal assistance to poor Americans turns away half of its applicants for lack of resources. But that hasn't stopped its executives from lavishing themselves with expensive food, chauffeur-driven cars and trips to Ireland.

Agency documents obtained by The Associated Press detail the many luxuries that executives of the Legal Services Corp. have given themselves with federal money — from $14 "Death by Chocolate" desserts to $400 chauffeured rides to locations within cab distance of their offices.

The government-funded corporation also boasts spacious headquarters in Washington's trendy Georgetown neighborhood — with views of the Potomac River and a rent significantly higher than that of other tenants in its building.

And the board members even wrote themselves a policy that doubled the amount they could claim for meals compared with their staff.

Clients of the program were upset when they were told of the excesses.

"I don't think that's right," said Richard Taylor as he walked from an austere, carpet-stained office in Washington, his head covered with a towel to protect himself from the searing heat.

"They're depriving some others that really need it and that's not good. ... It's supposed to be about the people."

Three congressional committees have questioned Legal Services spending, and the chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, Charles Grassley, is threatening to withhold future money if the corporation doesn't trim its extravagance.

"It's waste and abuse," said Grassley, R-Iowa, citing the doubling of the meal money as an example. "At 200 percent, it seems to me what we would call in Iowa living high off the hog."

Legal Services officials defend their program, saying administrative expenses are kept separate from money distributed to the local, independently run legal programs.

Corporation spokesman Tom Polgar said LSC president Helaine Barnett and board chairman Frank Strickland "are aware they are using taxpayer funds and try to operate in a manner that is frugal and appropriate." Barnett is a former legal services attorney. Strickland is an Atlanta lawyer.

Barnett declined to be interviewed. Strickland did not return several phone messages seeking comment.

Neighborhood Legal Services, the local program that serves Washington, D.C., is a refuge where a federally funded lawyer can help a client stave off homelessness, fight an unscrupulous landlord, get a divorce or receive help with a host of other problems.

The lobby at corporate headquarters in Georgetown has a curved reception desk beneath a large LSC logo, with a glass-enclosed conference room in the rear.

The lobby at the neighborhood office looks like a doctor's waiting room that has kept the same hardback chairs and magazine stand for decades.

The carpet at the neighborhood office is worn and stained. Some offices are barely big enough for a desk. Unlike the headquarters' well-stocked library, filled with criminal code books and Supreme Court opinions, the local program library has mostly bare walls. The conference table doubles as a staff lunchroom.

Marie Parran of Washington, a legal services client, said, "There's so many poor people in the Washington, D.C. area who need the help and can't afford a lawyer. I think that's money that should be going to the poor that live in D.C."

Grassley said the corporation's spending "may be legal, but it's waste and abuse."

Besides Grassley, Rep. Chris Cannon (news, bio, voting record), R-Utah, and Sen. Michael Enzi (news, bio, voting record), R-Wyo., also head committees that are questioning the spending. Separately, LSC Inspector General Kirt West has questioned in reports whether the corporation has more space than it needs and whether it pays too much for rent.

"If we don't get proper changes and commitments from the Legal Services Corp., then obviously we're going to have to put some restrictions on their appropriations bills," Grassley said.

GLASS WALLS

The Legal Services Corp.'s headquarters has multiple conference rooms and kitchen/pantry areas. Yet, the corporation's 11-member board of directors holds its meetings at hotels around the country, including Washington, at costs ranging from $20,145 to $55,125 — the latter in San Juan, P.R.

The decision to avoid the Georgetown headquarters when meeting in the capital was explained in an October 2004 memo from Strickland, the board chairman. He said board members, who work outside the corporation, preferred the Melrose Hotel in the same upscale section as the headquarters.

The board members sought "convenience to their rooms" and did not want to "feel confined" to LSC headquarters for two entire days, he said. In addition, he said he was worried that the headquarters lacked privacy because "all meeting rooms at LSC have glass walls."

Bills from the Melrose, with all costs per person, included: a $59 three-entree buffet, an $18 breakfast featuring scrambled eggs with chives, a $17 breakfast including Belgian waffles, a $28 deli buffet, a $13 "high tea" service, a $12 "bagel break," a $12 "Crazy for Cookies" assortment and $14 "Death By Chocolate" deserts.

Legal Services spokesman Polgar and Charles Jeffress, the LSC chief administrative officer, said the headquarters conference room can hold about 80 people, but that was too small to accommodate the 11-member board, the staff, the media and the public.

They also contended that meal costs for board members may be just as expensive if catered at headquarters

DON'T DINE ALONE

Beyond the hotel-prepared meals at their meetings, it made sense for board members to dine together. The board fashioned for itself an expense policy that permitted members to receive up to 200 percent of the allowable meal expense — as long as board members ate together.

"The only time it was ever used was in conjunction with a board meeting," Jeffress said.

That policy recently was rescinded after congressional investigators questioned it.

CARS AND DRIVERS

Barnett, Strickland and another board member have used limousine services.

Strickland had a packed schedule last April 25, so the agency ordered a car and driver to take him and Barnett to meetings on Capitol Hill with lawmakers — about a 15-minute ride from headquarters. The car also took them to Arlington National Cemetery for a funeral and to a separate memorial service, also in Arlington — all short rides.

Even the Legal Services Corp. comptroller, David Richardson, questioned the expense.

"With cab fares from our office to Capitol Hill costing $20 and the nominal cost of a cab to Arlington Cemetery and return, this $423.99 seems to be an extraordinary cost," he wrote in an internal memo.

Polgar, who acknowledged making the decision to hire the car, said he was very concerned that Strickland would not be able to meet his schedule.

Barnett also used a hired car and driver to attend a funeral service for a former board member in Harrisburg, Pa., about a two-hour drive. The cost was $400.

Polgar said Barnett, who does not have a car in Washington, wanted to work on the trip rather than rent a car and drive herself. The cost was competitive with train fare and airlines, he said.

LUCK OF THE IRISH

Barnett and Strickland both attended the International Legal Aid Group Conference in Killarney, Ireland in June 2005.

Barnett took a cab from Shannon Airport to Killarney for $220 and returned to the airport by taxi for $189; the roundtrip of about 160 miles that cost $409.

Polgar said Barnett was supposed to have a free ride from Shannon, but she was stranded at the airport and had to take the cab. She couldn't find a ride for the return trip, he said.

THE BUILDING

The Legal Services headquarters was bought by a nonprofit group, Friends of the Legal Services Corp., that was formed to purchase a permanent headquarters for LSC.

The chairman of that board, Thomas Smegal, said the $38 per square foot rent charged the Legal Services Corp. was a good deal — even though other tenants were paying less than $30.

Nonetheless, he said Legal Services was not getting ripped off.

Smegal said LSC's rent won't change for the 10-year lease, while other tenants' rents keep getting raised. The tenants paying low rent already had those leases when Friends took over the building, said Smegal, a San Francisco lawyer.

When the building is paid off, he said, it will be turned over debt-free to the Legal Services Corp.

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On the Net:

Legal Services Corporation: http://www.lsc.gov

This article misses the point. Legal Services is meant precisely to provide benefits to lawyers. The indigent clients are merely fodder for the machine. Consider, for every suit the LSC brings, somebody on the other side must hire counsel at his own expense to fight them. So it's twice the bang for every buck, and all OPM to boot!

Senate Finance Committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, seen in this June 17, 2006, file photo in Des Moines, Iowa, is threatening to withhold future money from Legal Services corporation if doesn't trim its extravagance. Legal Services is a non-profit corporation run with federal money to provide legal help in civil matters for Americans who can't afford their own lawyers. 'It's waste and abuse,' said Grassley, citing the board's doubling of the meal money as an example. 'At 200 percent, it seems to me what we would call in Iowa living high off the hog.' (AP Photo/Matthew Putney/File)

Exactly. Government is inherently wasteful.

This is just another waste of our tax monies...typical dumbass government rules and regulations and no one is at fault or can be held accountable.....damn, just damn!!

Nice work if you can get it.

"typical dumbass government rules and regulations and no one is at fault or can be held accountable"

That's right. Here, we again take taxpayer money to redistribute it to the Lawyers (the Democrat donee's with the largest amount of contribuitons of any group), so that they can be en-riched through the use of identifying people who can't pay their lawyer fees, so we take taxpayer monies to use them as an excuse.

There's no reason for this EXCEPT to bilk the taxpayers, as usual.

Let's have that car service start bringing clients to headquarters with some of their lawyers working out of those unused conference rooms.

Paid for with federal money, no personal accountability, no consequences. That describes pretty much everything our fed. gov. does. And someone is suprised that there's waste in this system?

And someone is suprised that there's waste in this system?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I can't understand what is happening to all my chickens, I posted a healthy fox in front of it as a guard.

But they are lawyers and lawyers always work to benefit the little people.

Do you think any to this will be repaid?