GSA employees paid lavish salaries, generous bonuses, excessive overtime

Washington Free Beacon ^ | Aug 6, 2012 | Andrew Stiles

[kevcol]

Rep. John Mica (R., Fla.), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, revealed last week that the General Services Administration (GSA), the government agency at the center of a luxury spending scandal, had awarded $44 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses last year, far more than previously reported.

Though GSA staff constitute just one percent of the federal workforce, agency bonuses made up 10 percent of government bonuses paid out in 2011.

Mica’s analysis of GSA compensation data found a number of bonuses worth as much as $50,000 or more. One employee received an $80,000 bonus, in addition to $180,000 in salary and other compensation.

The congressman also found widespread abuse of overtime pay, and cited one case where a GSA electrician receiving an $84,000 salary also earned $115,000 in overtime as well as a $4,600 bonus.

“There’s something wrong at GSA when you have to pay an employee $115,000 in overtime,” Mica said.

A Washington Free Beacon review of GSA payroll records for 2011, compiled by WUSA9 News, found numerous examples of GSA employees receiving unusually high salaries, in many cases inflated by large amounts of overtime pay.

Records show that two air conditioning equipment mechanics earned total pay of $130,000 and $201,000, respectively.

[kevcol]

And they brag about it...

The musical celebration of careless spending was so well received by other GSA workers, they actually gave it the top prize in a talent show held during a notorious 2010 junket to Las Vegas in which the federal agency blew $820,000 on a four-day bash. In the short video — dubbed “American Idle” — employee Hank Terlaje, 28, raps about spending the agency’s budget “all on fun,” as a large-screen TV is shown being installed in a GSA office.

“I buy everything your [ATF] field office can’t afford,” he warbles, in what appears to be a hip-hop slam on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

He then quips, “I’ll never be under OIG investigation,” referring to the GSA’s Office of Inspector General, which, ironically, uncovered the video as part of its probe into the 2010 party.

[molson209]

well they had to do something with all that money threw at them ,when he increased all agencies budgets by what was it 50 to 200 %

[UCANSEE2]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I worked for a government agency.

Their unwritten policy was to give all employees a Merit Performance Award (raise) each year, despite performance.

This increased the budget needed, and the more money you handle, the more money they must pay you.

The Chief Financial Officer understood that system well.

Also, at the END OF FISCAL YEAR, government agencies go on buying sprees, buying unneeded junk to spend their ‘allocation’ and go over just a bit , to help justify getting.... a bigger ‘allocation’ (budget).

This was to avoid the rule that if you had money left in the budget, it was taken out, and your ‘allocation’ might even be lowered to match.

[Red Badger]

In a sane government, public employees would never get ‘bonuses’ as long as the unemployment number was above zero...........

[RightOnline]

OK, um.......color me slow, but......since when do salaried employees ANYWHERE get overtime?

[RightOnline]

Yep.....spend it or lose it. Rampant in the Fed (and, I may add, many large corporations as well).

[unitedwestand]

I too have a history of working in a government environment. When it comes to appropriations, you either spend it or you lose it. What GSA did was not unusual in the policy of today’s federal government. I learned early on that the government is not run like business and business is certainly not run like government. Business seeks a profit, government could care less. Government is not set up to save money. It’s the last thing they want to do. That is why I am scared about Romney and anxious to hear how he is going to go about things. Changing things in a business environment is one thing but a government environment is totally different. Romney needs to stop spending time on all the decoys like the reid tax thing and start explaining what he intends to do and how he is going to get results or my vote is going libertarian.

[kevinm13]

Questions that need to be asked:

1. why do any of these people get bonuses or overtime?
2. is anybody being held accountable for this excess spending?
3. isn’t the GSA simply administrative employees pushing paper?
4. now that the excesses have been identified what is going to be done to stop it and cut useless government spending?

Base line budgeting needs to be made illegal at the federal level. In other words, every dollar that is expected to be paid this year needs to be justified from dollar one next year and no increases in government (tax dollars folks) spending should ever be automatic.

[Red Badger]

Base-line Budgeting is not budgeting at all.

We are better of with ‘continuing resolutions’ than with base-line budgeting, since the continuing resolutions do not allow for increases above the current spending levels.......