84 GSA Employees Got $1.1 Million In Taxpayer Funded Bonuses While Already Under Investigation For Wrongdoing Or Misconduct

WASHINGTON, DC – An ongoing congressional investigation reveals $1.1 million in bonuses were awarded to 84 employees of the General Services Administration since 2008 — while the inspector general was probing these individuals for wrongdoing or misconduct.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who is heading the investigation, said the overall number of employees receiving bonuses while under investigation is likely to be “far higher” since not all information for current investigations is now available, according to a release from the senator.

Of the 84 GSA employees, each received an average of eight bonuses, totaling $13,000.

One program officer received more than $38,000 in bonuses since 2008, despite being reassigned for abuse of authority. Another employee, a GS-14 level supervisor, received more than $20,000 in bonuses, even after being reprimanded for interfering with an IG investigation, according to the release.

“It doesn’t pass the smell test to be awarding huge bonuses in taxpayer dollars to officials who are being investigated, or have already been found responsible, for fraud and waste of those very taxpayer dollars. That’s why I’m not letting up on our fight for accountability in government,” McCaskill said in the release. McCaskill is the chairman of the subcommittee on contracting oversight in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The GSA has no policies to freeze bonuses to employees under investigation by the IG, according to the release.

The scrutiny of GSA came most heavily starting in April after an investigation by the IG revealed the agency spent more than $823,000 on a Las Vegas conference in 2010. Among the employees investigated was Public Buildings Service Region 9 Commission Jeff Neely, who received a $9,000 bonus despite being under investigation.

In a letter to Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry, McCaskill asked for information from 2008 to 2011 on bonuses awarded to all federal agencies, “including what actions OPM could take to ensure that bonuses that would otherwise be awarded to federal employees under investigation by the Inspector General are withheld pending the resolution of the investigation.”

McCaskill gave OPM a deadline of June 20 for the federal employee bonus information.

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Federal Government Handed Out Nearly A Half Billion Dollars In Bonuses Last Year

WASHINGTON, DC – The federal government paid at least $439 million in employee bonuses last year, down $43 million since new austerity restrictions were announced.

The largest merit awards went to senior executives in Washington and air traffic controllers, an Asbury Park Press investigation found. The highest award, $62,895, went to 16 employees from agriculture to NASA.

The $439 million in bonuses may be a staggering amount — enough to buy the former New Jersey Nets, valued at about $357 million by Forbes magazine — but it represents just 0.4 percent of the $105 billion in salaries for most of the government’s civilian employees. In 2010, at least $482 million was paid in bonuses, according to federal data.

“This is the same president that criticized the banks for distributing bonuses when they were under — some of them involuntarily — government support,” said Grant Cardone, of Los Angeles, a regular commentator for Fox Business News. “Federal employees are already overpaid and coddled with pensions and a variety of benefits…. How many roads could have been fixed or people put to work with this money?”

Bonuses have long been part of the federal pay structure as a way to motivate employees and to reward good work, government labor experts have said.

Moira Mack, a spokeswoman for the Office of Budget and Management, said “the Administration eliminated bonuses for all political appointees, directed agencies to adopt more rigorous personnel management processes, and set a cap to reduce spending on awards for career staff, saving taxpayers an estimated $200 million this year alone.”

The caps and freezes will “save taxpayers over $3 billion by the end of this year and more than $60 billion across the next decade,” she said.

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