Posted on 04/03/2012 12:48:57 PM PDT by Carriage Hill
An obscure federal agency may have set a new benchmark for lavish conferences on the taxpayers' dime.
Lawmakers are voicing outrage following a government report that found the General Services Administration held a blowout $820,000 conference near Las Vegas which grossly exceeded what the planners were allowed to spend.
The employees dropped thousands of dollars on luxury items and convention giveaways -- including more than $6,000 on commemorative coins, $8,000 on a "yearbook," and $3,200 for an in-house mind reader.
"It's unbelievable that red flags didn't immediately go up well before this junket," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said.
In the wake of the report, the White House accepted the resignation of General Services Administration chief Martha Johnson. Johnson also dismissed two deputies and suspended other career employees over the affair.
The 300-person event at the M Resort Spa and Casino in Henderson, Nev., included a $95-per-person dinner and reception as well as several violations of federal laws and policies.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
” I’ll bet she’s... no, I won’t say it.”
You don’t have to..
The proponents always figure that if they can boot GSA out of their buildings then the vets will just go away and not bother them anymore.
Sorry, there are more issues surrounding the employment of janitors in the federal government than the convenience of the agency managers or the cost to the taxpayers.
Wars just never end do they.
USPS was set up to run its own facilities operations ~ and due to the need to protect mail you simply can't contract out the basic janitorial duties to private companies ~ they can't be trusted for one thing. On the other hand, postal administrative operations, where you have people in offices handling your complaints and phone calls, and planning various things ~ they can and do have contract help.
We were once housed in a building previously owned by the Defense Intelligence Agency. (In Rosslyn) Our janitorial contractor simply could not find Americans to work for him (due to his low pay rates) so all his help were illegal aliens. We were handing those people over to ICE all the time. They didn't realize 3/4 the people in the building were conversant in Spanish and the other 1/4 knew what they were talking about ~ mostly how to steal and their boyfriends.
CIA has to have people with serious clearances available to take out the trash, plough the snow in the parking lot and change burned out lights. There are thousands of people there. They are compartmentalized so if you work in certain sections you can never go into other sections, nor can you even have friends outside with the wrong connections.
The guys changing bulbs cross the lines ~ think of that management problem.
Then, there's the White House ~ my neighbor had the job of managing the guys who change their bulbs. He was given a quarterly examination (interrogation while hooked up to a lie detector) just to make sure he hadn't gone over to the bad guys somewhere.
He didn't work for GSA. He didn't work for the White House ~ Navy had the lightbulb job at the time.
When you get to the Department of Defense most of their facilities are managed by internal organizations, just like USPS.
Department of Education and other agencies with no real responsibilities could probably hire people off the street and nothing bad would happen.
Just as they’re doing now: cowering in fear of the POS-In-Chief. The more things change, the more they remain the same. They’re afraid of being called “racists” - or (((shudder))) - worse names.
Why is this news now?
As I recall, the conference took place two years ago...was reported upon at the time...raising a proper outrage on FreeRepublic...and then forgotten.
Is it now news because our elected public officials have only now caught up with the act?
No.
That Obama has added much more to the debt than Clinton or Bush
etc.
Thanks for your kind reply.
“Most GSA employees are worker bees.” muawiyah
Sure sure. Hard at work at graft and corruption apparently.
The inspector general for the General Services Administration said Monday that he is investigating possible bribery and kickbacks in the agency, as lawmakers accused the former GSA administrator of allowing a Las Vegas spending scandal to erode taxpayers’ trust in government.
Inspector General Brian Miller told a congressional committee scrutinizing an $823,000 Las Vegas conference that his office has asked the Justice Department to investigate “all sorts of improprieties” surrounding the 2010 event, “including bribes, including possible kickbacks.” He did not provide details.
Miller’s revelations of possible further misconduct by organizers of the four-day event, coming on the heels of a highly critical report, enraged Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The lawmakers put GSA officials on the defensive during a tense four-hour hearing, with some Republicans loudly rebuking former administrator Martha N. Johnson and her colleagues
You find corrupt MANAGERS throughout the federal system.
Worker bees are generally out of the loop when it comes to being able to affect spending or budgets, or to decide who gets what contracts.
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