Some federal bureaucrats pump up their salaries and cut their taxes by listing their “duty stations” as expensive cities while actually working remotely from low-levy rural states.
Senior executives at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service know of the situation but look the other way.
The practice has even occurred in the FMCS human resources department, which is responsible for punishing such violations.
Human Resources Development Specialist Paul Voight’s duty station is the District of Columbia, agency spokesman John Arnold told the Washington Examiner.
Having a D.C. duty station qualifies him to receive “locality pay” as compensation for D.C.’s high cost of living. But Voight files his income taxes in Wisconsin.
Reached at his agency phone number — a D.C. area code set up to forward to another phone — Voight told the Examiner that’s because that’s where he lives and works.
“I don’t live in D.C.,” he said, adding that he was in Wisconsin at the moment of the telephone conversation with this reporter.
“I come in there quite a bit,” he said, referring to FMCS’s D.C. headquarters. “They pay for a hotel, or I stay with friends.”
That would mean that the agency is both paying him more because he supposedly lives in D.C., and also paying expensive hotel rates for him to “visit” the place where he officially works full-time.
Meanwhile, he pays Wisconsin taxes, which are significantly lower than D.C.’s.
With only 230 employees and a $50 million annual budget, the FMCS was established in 1947 to provide voluntary mediation when unions are considering striking, but only rarely appears in the public eye, usually while mediating labor-management conflicts for professional sports groups.
Voight’s boss, human resources director Arthur Pearlstein, was previously the agency’s general counsel before leaving to become a law professor. But he left that post after a plagiarism scandal.
“It has come to our attention that an article … by Arthur B. Pearlstein, contained significant passages taken without attribution or written authorization,” a law journal wrote in a retraction.
“The Journal regrets this unfortunate incident and extends Mr. Landers an apology on the unauthorized use of his work by Mr. Pearlstein.”
Pearlstein returned to FMCS, accepting a lower-level position at a much lower pay grade than his prior post in the government.
But after an independent inspector general began investigating misconduct by top FMCS managers, those same managers promoted Pearlstein to human resources director, even though he has no prior experience in the area.
Pearlstein’s first major act was to tell agency managers that it was the official “recommendation” of the human resources department that they order the IG to stop investigating them.
Just Sign HereFederal Workers Max Out at Taxpayer ExpenseA five-part series by the Washington Examiner watchdog team Got tips?Do you know more about what’s going on at the FMCS — or any other federal agency? Contact Luke Rosiak at [email protected]. |
Meanwhile, FMCS’ director of mediation works out of Pennsylvania despite her job requiring her to spend up to half of her time in D.C., for which FMCS pays to put her up in a Washington hotel.
Scot Beckenbaugh, FMCS’s deputy director, had his duty station listed as Iowa for five years while he lived in D.C., with FMCS paying his apartment rent. He still files taxes in Iowa.
One FMCS IT staffer, James Donnen, is officially based in D.C. making $113,000 but works from home in West Virginia, even though a major function of his job is setting up computers and related equipment, and another staffer works from a houseboat in California.
Acting director Allison Beck often works from a waterfront home she owns in Maine and has billed the government for her travel there.
Last week, Beck circulated an email to FMCS employees encouraging them to ignore credible evidence that she has for years committed serious violations of federal regulations.
“By now, many of you already know that the Washington Examiner has resumed its negative and misinformed articles about our agency.
“The most recent articles continue the pattern of misrepresentations, distortions, and unfair accusations that we have addressed in the past.
“In response, we will redouble our ongoing efforts to ensure the integrity and professionalism of the agency,” she wrote.
“I urge all of us to remain focused on our important work and to remember that the outstanding reputation of the FMCS is determined by our work and not by the irresponsible reporting of a small Washington newspaper.
“Working families, employers and their communities across our nation are depending on us as they have for more than six decades. Let us maintain our standards and meet the challenges ahead as we always have in the past.”
The Examiner ceased publication of its daily print edition in June 2013.
President Obama announced Beck’s nomination six days after the termination of the investigation. She would replace George Cohen, who resigned after an Examiner series reported he used federal funds to purchase artwork that his wife had created.
Beck has hired a personal lawyer to represent her after the Examiner series spurred a House Oversight Committee investigation.
Beck, a former general counsel for an AFL-CIO union, has often told colleagues that she will have significant latitude to do what she pleases “after the election,” invoking the political support of unions. The Senate will have to vote to confirm her nomination as permanent director.
