[caption id=”attachment_87802″ align=”aligncenter” width=”4843″] AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
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If this isn’t a sign of bloated government, we don’t know what is.
Over the past three years, the Obama administration had paid more than 57,000 workers to stay at home while they were investigated for alleged wrongdoing, The Washington Post reported. Collectively, taxpayers have paid out about $775 million in salaries for these workers, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.
About 53,000 workers were put on administrative leave for one to three months, while 4,000 government employees were on leave for three months to a year. Several hundred did no work for a year or more.
This is the first time there has been any attempt to track administrative leave or its cost to taxpayers.
According to the GAO report and the Post, these extended leaves have been occurring because of “wide discretion” by supervisors.
Some employees are on leave “for alleged violations of government rules and laws, whistleblowing, doubts about trustworthiness, and disputes with colleagues or bosses. Some employees remain on paid leave while they challenge demotions and other punishments,” the Post reported.
And the employees are not just getting paid a salary during leave time. They are also accruing pension earnings, vacation and sick days, and moving up the federal pay scale, which is based on years worked.
The Office of Personnel Management rule book does not permit these lengthy leaves and the comptroller general has spoken out against it for decades. But it seems like OPM just turns a blind eye.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) , along with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), requested the GAO report.
“It’s not authorized by any law,” Grassley told the Post. “Bureaucrats are abusing it.”
Grassley is also working with Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) on legislation that would narrowly define the circumstances in which employees can be kept home and would limit pay to just a few days, the Post reported.
