[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
GSA'S SQUANDERING OF TAXPAYER
DOLLARS: A PATTERN OF
MISMANAGEMENT, EXCESS, AND WASTE
=======================================================================
(112-81)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 17, 2012
__________
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey Columbia
GARY G. MILLER, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois CORRINE BROWN, Florida
SAM GRAVES, Missouri BOB FILNER, California
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
DUNCAN HUNTER, California RICK LARSEN, Washington
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
BILLY LONG, Missouri HEATH SHULER, North Carolina
BOB GIBBS, Ohio STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania LAURA RICHARDSON, California
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JEFFREY M. LANDRY, Louisiana DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
STEVE SOUTHERLAND II, Florida
JEFF DENHAM, California
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,
Tennessee
------ 7
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency
Management
JEFF DENHAM, California, Chairman
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Columbia
Arkansas, HEATH SHULER, North Carolina
Vice Chair MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
BOB GIBBS, Ohio DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania BOB FILNER, California
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN, (Ex Officio)
Tennessee
JOHN L. MICA, Florida (Ex Officio)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ iv
TESTIMONY
Panel One
Hon. Brian D. Miller, Inspector General, U.S. General Services
Administration................................................. 9
Susan Brita, Deputy Administrator, U.S. General Services
Administration................................................. 9
Alison L. Doone, Chief Financial Officer, U.S. General Services
Administration................................................. 9
Robert A. Peck, Former Public Buildings Service (PBS)
Commissioner, U.S. General Services Administration............. 9
Lisa Daniels, Event Planner, Public Buildings Service, U.S.
General Services Administration................................ 9
Panel Two
Hon. Brian D. Miller, Inspector General, U.S. General Services
Administration................................................. 82
Hon. Daniel Tangherlini, Acting Administrator, U.S. General
Services Administration........................................ 82
Martha N. Johnson, Former Administrator, U.S. General Services
Administration................................................. 82
David Foley, Public Buildings Service Deputy Commissioner, U.S.
General Services Administration................................ 82
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Hon Elijah E. Cummings, of Maryland.............................. 117
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Hon. Brian D. Miller............................................. 119
Susan Brita...................................................... 123
Alison L. Doone.................................................. 125
Robert A. Peck................................................... 127
Lisa Daniels \1\.................................................
Hon. Daniel Tangherlini.......................................... 132
Martha N. Johnson................................................ 141
David Foley \1\..................................................
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Hon. John L. Mica, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Florida, request to submit list entitled, ``Timeline of
Investigation and Ongoing Travel Abuses''...................... 6
Hon. Brian D. Miller, Inspector General, U.S. General Services
Administration, request to submit report entitled, ``Management
Deficiency Report: General Services Administration Public
Buildings Service 2010 Western Regions Conference,'' Office of
Investigations, Office of Inspector General, U.S. General
Services Administration, April 2, 2012......................... 10
Hon. Daniel Tangherlini, Acting Administrator, U.S. General
Services Administration, responses to questions from Hon.
Patrick Meehan, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Pennsylvania................................................... 137
----------
\1\ Lisa Daniels and David Foley did not submit written
statements.
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GSA'S SQUANDERING OF TAXPAYER
DOLLARS: A PATTERN OF
MISMANAGEMENT, EXCESS, AND WASTE
----------
TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2012
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Economic Development,
Public Buildings, and Emergency Management,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 8:35 a.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jeff Denham
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Denham. The subcommittee will come to order. At the
request of the Administration, we are going to change things up
a little bit this morning. We are going to have two panels
today. The first will include the Honorable Brian Miller, GSA
inspector general; Ms. Alison Doone, GSA chief financial
officer.
At this time, we are going to clear the panel during
opening statements. Also, at this time, I ask unanimous consent
that members of the Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure who are not on the Subcommittee on Economic
Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management be
permitted to sit with the subcommittee at today's hearing,
offer testimony, and ask questions. Without objection, so
ordered.
If you will just grab your name tags and sit in the
audience for now, we are going to go through opening
testimonies and then we are going to swear everybody in in a
different fashion this morning, and then bring you up to
testify yourselves.
Two weeks ago the inspector general released a scathing
report on a GSA conference that cost taxpayers nearly a million
dollars. We have seen a lot of reports about the Las Vegas
lavish vacation, the spending, and I appreciate Mr. Cummings,
Ranking Member Cummings on the Government Oversight Committee,
as well as Chairman Issa for discussing in great detail those
lavish expenditures and the wrongdoing that happened with the
Las Vegas vacation.
The purpose of this committee is to talk about the systemic
problem, how deep it goes; the corruption, the fraud, the
waste. It is not just within the Western Region, but within GSA
as a whole, and possibly within other agencies.
This committee is going to lay out a timeline of how many
trips, how many people, how much money. We are going to talk
about how big of a problem this is and how deep within the
Administration it goes. Now, you heard yesterday the testimony
of Mr. Robertson, the Chief of Staff, who is also the White
House liaison, and was on Senator Obama's personal staff.
We are going to hear today from Mr. Peck, who for the last
year-and-a-half I have asked, I have requested, on a bipartisan
level, with Ms. Norton, we have sent emails, memos, held
hearings, and asked for a budget that is outside of Congress'
purview. We have been held up for far too long. And I am here
to tell you the buck stops here. We are not going to hold up
any longer. The American public demands to see the budget on
the public buildings fund, the Federal buildings fund, and how
that money has been spent. This slush fund is no longer going
to be used for personal uses. When Federal buildings, when
other agencies pay rent into this personnel building fund, it
is meant to redevelop. It is meant to sell off, which we have
been attempting to do for the last year-and-a-half, sell off
the properties that are unused, underutilized and redevelop,
put people back to work where we can by utilizing these funds.
The public has a right to know how much money is in this
fund, where it has been used, a full accountability of the past
and, most importantly, what is going to happen in the future.
We are going to hear from the new administrator, Mr.
Tangherlini, this morning about what has been done to reprimand
those that have been involved.
But again, this goes much deeper than what has already
happened; those that have been fired, those that have been put
on administrative leave, those that have resigned. The American
public deserves to have money paid back. And where crimes have
been committed, people will go to jail. And if we have to have
future hearings on this topic, you bet we will. This is about
the distrust of the American public in its Government. This is
about the waste of taxpayer dollars. And if you can sense my
anger and frustration, you should see it at home, where we have
got double-digit unemployment, the highest foreclosure rate in
the Nation, people out of work, twice the national average. And
to see these types of expenditures, to see the stonewalling by
this agency for the last year-and-a-half hiding from the public
the expenditures that have been made, and what has happened
with this public buildings fund.
You bet it is an outrage. And I am looking forward to full
testimony this morning to get to the bottom of it.
I am angered not only at the waste of money, but the fact
that there would be people that the systemic issue here is that
you would actually go out and brag about it; that you would
insult the ranking member and former chair of this committee,
who chaired the committee while you will were having this
vacation; that you would laugh about our Commander in Chief and
laugh about how you would spend this money. This goes down from
the interns to those at the top, and it is a culture that we
are going to get to the bottom of, and let me just issue a
warning. If this continues to go on, if we continue to not only
see this type of spending, we will continue to audit. If we
continue to see that you are not giving us the information on a
bipartisan level to show us how these expenditures are
happening, I am prepared to systematically pull apart GSA to
the point where we will make it a question to the American
public on whether GSA is needed at all. But the wasteful
spending is going to stop, and the transparency is going to
begin.
I would now like to recognize the ranking member, Ms.
Norton, for any opening statements she may have.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our subcommittee has
just returned from a scheduled recess, but we are obligated to
turn at once to the General Services Administration inspector
general and others today for testimony about the 2010 Western
Regional Conference, a conference run amuck near Las Vegas,
Nevada.
The final IG report found that expenditures related to the
conference were, and here I am quoting, ``excessive, and
wasteful, and that in many instances GSA followed neither
Federal procurement laws nor its own policy in conferences.''
End quote.
Some who planned the conference appeared to have
deliberately set out to have a boondoggle of a conference, and
explicitly to go ``over the top''; in the words of one
conference planner, hiring mind readers and clowns and having
dinner and a talent show in the desert at taxpayers' expense.
The expensive partying at a four-star casino resort occurred
before the recovery began to take hold and as millions of
Americans were living hand to mouth, struggling under debts,
and the worst recession since the Great Depression.
The emerging evidence shows that the conference had been
building in extravagance for years, but in the last 10 years
had escalated considerably. Only now is the full extent of the
spending coming to light. Moreover, coupled with the conference
scandal are reports by the IG of a Federal employee awards
program in the same region with little or no controls,
resulting in yet more excessive spending.
The awards program, apparently helped feed the exorbitant
conference in Nevada, providing iPods and other desirable
technology to employees for non-work related matters. I am
perhaps more shocked and saddened than most because I have sat
on this subcommittee for more than 20 years and, by and large,
have found GSA appointed officials and civil servants alike,
including some of those named in the IG report, to be among the
most dedicated and professional Federal employees. It is
particularly disappointing that the actions of a few officials
have cast a shadow over the hard work and professionalism of
the great majority of GSA employees.
I am grateful to the President for asking immediately to
take out the top officials and bring in Daniel Tangherlini, a
professional of proven management skill and impeccable ethics.
Further, it was a political appointee of the administration
who first alerted the IG when she saw signs of possibly
excessive expenditures and employee misconduct in connection
with the 2010 conference. The result was the investigation
which outlined the wasteful spending that is the subject of
today's hearing.
The GSA administrator resigned, two top political
appointees that were overseeing the Public Buildings Service
were discharged, and the civil servants who were responsible
for planning the conference were placed on administrative leave
pending disciplinary proceedings as required by law.
The underlying behavior was indefensible, but the system
that was designed to identify and punish that behavior works.
Work remains that may involve considerable reform and even
restructuring of the agency. I look forward to hearing from GSA
officials about the steps they themselves believe must be
taken.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. At this time, I would like to recognize the
chairman of the full committee, Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Well, first of all, I have to thank you, Mr.
Denham, for your leadership and for not just on this--not just
on this issue and the outrageous matter that is before us, but
from the very beginning when I had to select someone to chair
this subcommittee that oversees public buildings, I think the
country was fortunate to have you and your experience and
leadership, and I think when we met our first assignment was to
pick up what we had discussed we would do before you got here
in the minority and we published this report.
This report basically was October, ironically, of 2010, the
same time that they were spending money on their GSA lavish
convention. But this report is entitled ``Federal Government
Must Stop Sitting on Its Assets.'' It is online, and I hope you
all get a chance to read it. The first part starts right out
with GSA and the abuse of not just millions of dollars in a
convention junket, but billions of dollars in waste.
This was our primer, and I couldn't have had a better
partner than Mr. Denham. One of the very first hearings this
committee did, and I asked him to help lead, was in the vacant
annex building next to the post office, vacant for almost 15
years, between that and the Old Post Office, losing $6 million
a year. Put this in perspective. Here again, I reference this
document. So this isn't the Johnny-come-lately hearing or
attempt to get an agency under control.
We held the first hearing in that empty building. It was 32
degrees outside, 38 degrees inside. The picture you can see
here are the GSA bureaucrats with their coats on because we
brought them down to the empty building to try to get a $6
million-a-year loss, again two blocks from the White House, a
Federal building. There is the empty building that we held the
hearing in, and get it turned around, and make it a productive
property.
The Federal General Services Administration is our
Government's landlord. It is appalling to see the wasteful
spending, of course, on this conference that Mr. Denham will
outline, not just this conference. He is going to talk about
trips to Hawaii, Atlanta, junkets to the South Pacific,
California, Atlanta, Hawaii, Guam, Saipan, all at taxpayers'
expense. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. The billions
that are lost, again, by having the Federal Government's
primary landlord agency out of control and not operating as it
should and making these assets perform for the public is what
is outrageous.
You know, we smelled a rat, and we asked for data, because
if you look at the budget, and the expenditures for the public
buildings commissioner, they went from $2.9 million in 2007 to
$9 million. That is what, 200- or 300-percent increase? So we
started asking for data. We got stonewalled time and time
again. Mr. Denham asked at almost every hearing, you heard him
say, we requested information and data.
What we got instead, this is what we got instead, folks,
just a few pages of the top numbers. Anyone can see now why
they didn't want to disclose what was going on. Ms. Norton
said, and I agree, we have thousands of people who work for the
Federal Government who work day in and day out and do a good
job. This is not an example of the average performance of our
Federal employees. We have some incredible men and women.
We are going to hear from one of them today, Susan Brita.
She worked on this committee. When you see the timeline of what
took place, you see a timeline of coverup, a timeline of
deceit, a timeline of keeping Congress in the dark on what was
going on, you see one woman who stood up. This conference was
held in, what, October 10th in Las Vegas. In November she
requested the IG, the Office of Inspector General, to look into
this matter. You see yesterday, and our committee has
legislative oversight responsibility for public hearings, and
we coordinated this very well with Mr. Issa because he has
broader jurisdiction over the White House and others that we
don't have. And you saw yesterday and in the timeline that the
White House knew about this in June of 2011. That is great for
the President and others to condemn the action in the last week
or two. They have known for nearly a year of what was going on.
And again, our former staffer not only went to the IG on this,
but other matters, and that is detailed and I will submit this
list for the record, Mr. Chairman, without objection.
Mr. Denham. Without objection.
[The information follows.]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mica. You know, it is kind of upsetting in a way, and
it should be upsetting to the American people that this has all
been revealed, and maybe it wouldn't have been revealed. It
probably could have all been swept under the table but for one
person who stood up, and I want to hear from her today. I hope
they haven't intimidated her. I hope that she feels secure, and
I hope that she realizes that we recognize her patriotism in
stepping forward and, again, revealing what was going on.
Because otherwise, we might not have known. We have would been
handed one sheet and said don't pay attention.
When I announced I was going to do hearings on this, I was
pretty saddened by the comments of the majority leader of the
U.S. Senate. He said Mica needs to get a life. Well, I want to
tell him and others that I have a life, and that is dedicated
to uncovering waste and inefficiency in Federal Government and
bringing business-type commonsense practices to whether it is
GSA or other Federal agencies.
So we were stonewalled. We were delayed. We were not given
information, but the American people need to know that this is
just the tip of the iceberg and they will hear much more about
what is going on and what needs to be done to reform this
agency, or to replace it. Mr. Denham and I had a discussion
last night. Maybe it is time to look at a total replacement.
How many of you out there, how many of you out there, if
you have property, would turn it over to the Federal Government
to manage for you? I ask you that question. Not very many of
you. And as you see the wasteful overhead and cost and what
takes place when you are on the taxpayers' dime, it is even
more offensive.
So with that, again, I thank Ms. Norton for her
cooperation, Mr. Denham for his leadership, and other Members
for being with us today.
Mr. Denham. In deference to the Administration's request,
we will swear in those that have been fired, put on
administrative leave, or resigned together at this time. I
would like to request Ms. Johnson, Mr. Peck, Mr. Foley, and Ms.
Daniels to please rise. Stand and raise your right hand and be
sworn in under oath.
[Witnesses Johnson, Peck, Foley, and Daniels sworn.]
Mr. Denham. We will have two panels today. The first panel
includes, and I invite you back to the table, the Honorable
Brian Miller, GSA inspector general.
Mr. Mica. Mr. Denham, Chairman Denham, I would just like to
insert at this point in the record this comment, and note for
the record, that Mr. Neely is not with us today. We had
requested that he be with us. And he has, I guess, taken the
Fifth in another committee and is not appearing today against
one of the requests that at least I made for him to be with us.
I guess the only way we will get to see him is on a video in
the hot tub, so, but I want to make certain that it is noted in
the record that he did not appear.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Miller; Ms. Susan Brita, GSA deputy
administrator; Ms. Alison Doone, GSA chief financial officer;
Mr. Robert Peck, former Public Buildings Services commissioner;
Mr. Neely is--Chairman Mica has already said Mr. Neely, through
his attorney, has refused to appear this morning; and Ms. Lisa
Daniels, the event planner for Public Buildings Service.
Would you join us at the table up front. I ask unanimous
consent that our witnesses' full statements be included in the
record. Without objection, so ordered. Since your written
testimony has been made part of the record, the subcommittee
would request that you limit your oral testimony to 5 minutes.
And as far as this committee today, we will be going by the
strict 5-minute rule. We have a lot of questions.This is going
to be a very long hearing. We want to make sure that we have as
many opportunities to go through Members' requests as possible.
Mr. Miller, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE BRIAN D. MILLER, INSPECTOR GENERAL,
U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION; SUSAN BRITA, DEPUTY
ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION; ALISON L.
DOONE, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, U.S. GENERAL SERVICES
ADMINISTRATION; ROBERT A. PECK, FORMER PUBLIC BUILDINGS SERVICE
(PBS) COMMISSIONER, U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION; AND
LISA DANIELS, EVENT PLANNER, PUBLIC BUILDINGS SERVICE, U.S.
GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Miller. Good morning, Chairman Denham, Chairman Mica,
Ranking Member Norton. Thank you for inviting me here this
morning to testify about our report. I think everyone is
familiar with the facts of our report. OK, and so I would
simply ask that my written statement and the report itself be
included in the record. I would be happy to answer any
questions. Thank you.
[The report follows. Please see the table of contents for
the section entitled, ``Prepared Statements Submitted by
Witnesses'' for Mr. Miller's statement.]
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Mr. Denham. Without objection, so ordered. Ms. Brita, you
may proceed.
Ms. Brita. Good morning, Chairman Mica, Chairman Denham,
Ranking Member Norton, thank you for inviting me to testify
here this morning.
Mr. Denham. Pull the microphone up.
Ms. Brita. Can you hear me now? How about this? Better? It
is hard being on this side of the dais. As you all know, I
spent 18 years on this committee working with all of you in a
bipartisan manner to conduct oversight on a variety of general
Government management issues, but with an emphasis on the
operations of the General Services Administration.
On February 2nd, 2010, I had the honor of being appointed
by President Obama to the position of deputy administrator at
the General Services Administration. During my 18 years with
this committee there were many serious issues that this
committee addressed, but none rises to the level of the
wasteful spending and lack of management associated with the
Western Regions Conference. As deputy administrator, as a civil
servant, and as a taxpayer, I share your anger and
disappointment in GSA's conduct. When I first became aware of
the excessive spending related to the Western Regions
Conference, I requested that the GSA's Office of Inspector
General conduct a review of these allegations. I am grateful to
Mr. Miller and his office for the work that they did in
uncovering and reporting these abuses. I believe the inspector
general's report warranted immediate corrective action within
GSA, and I advocated for such action. I am committed to working
with acting administrator, Mr. Tangherlini, to restore faith in
the agency, not only to members of this committee, but also to
colleagues and other Government agencies and more importantly
to the American taxpayer.
I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
Ms. Doone. Good morning, Chairman Denham, Chairman Mica,
Ranking Member Norton, and members of the subcommittee. My name
is Alison Doone, and I am the chief financial officer of the
General Services Administration. I appreciate the opportunity
to come before the committee today.
I have served as the GSA's CFO since September 27th, 2010.
Before arriving at GSA, I served at the Internal Revenue
Service for 5 years as a CFO and deputy CFO where I oversaw the
financial management and accounting operations for a $12
billion budget and $2.3 trillion in tax revenue. I also have
held executive positions as deputy staff director and CFO of
the Federal Election Commission and deputy assistant
administrator at the Office of Finance at the Drug Enforcement
Administration.
Until the acting administrator's recent action to
centralize oversight financial management, GSA's financial
management operations were decentralized and were managed by
autonomous regional CFOs with no oversight or control by my
office. The budget and all costs for the Western Regions
Conference were approved by employees in the Pacific Rim
Region, including those in the regional budget and financial
management division, commonly referred to as the region's
``CFO,'' and not by anyone in the GSA office of the CFO. This
decentralized organizational structure of GSA financial
operations increased the risk of these types of abuses at the
regional conference and in the Hats Off Program.
In my experience at IRS, and other Federal agencies, the
agency CFO had far more oversight and control. To correct these
issues, the acting administrator has already taken strong
action by realigning all Public Buildings Service regional
budget and financial management operations under the direct
authority of GSA's CFO. In addition to this strengthening of
the internal control environment, the acting administrator is
reviewing employee relocations, will require all future
relocations to be approved by both the chief people officer and
the CFO, and has closed the Pacific Region Rim Hats Off Store,
as well as all similar programs.
In addition to the actions taken by the acting
administrator, I added two controls to CFO processes. First,
CFO is now performing an additional review of selected approved
invoices before payment to verify appropriateness of the
expenditures. The second control is the addition of a monthly
review of obligated amounts compared to budgeted amounts to
ensure expenditures are within budget. These additional
controls, together with centralization of budget and financial
management operations, will greatly improve our ability to
prevent the abuses described in the IG report. I welcome the
opportunity to answer questions.
Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Mr. Peck.
Mr. Peck. Good morning, Chairman Denham, Chairman Mica,
Ranking Member Norton, and members of the subcommittee. My name
is Robert A. Peck. Until earlier this month, I served as the
national commissioner of the Public Buildings Service of the
GSA, having served in that role previously from 1995 to 2001.
I am deeply troubled and disappointed about what I have
learned about the costs associated with the GSA Western Regions
Conference held in October of 2010. There were excessive and
inappropriate costs that should never have been incurred. Those
planning it made fundamental errors of judgment. It is also
troubling that procurement policies, travel policies, and other
agency procedures appear not to have been followed.
While I was not personally involved in planning,
conducting, or approving the conference, and the unacceptable
conference expenditures described in the IG report, they took
place within the PBS on my watch. I am not here to shirk that
responsibility.
I am deeply disappointed by what the IG reported. I have
been removed from the job I loved, and I offer my personal
apology that some people within the GSA acted as they did. The
taxpayers deserve better than this. The actions of those
responsible for the expenditures outlined in the IG report
failed to meet the obligation we all owe the American people.
Those actions failed to meet the standards I expected from
those employed in PBS headquarters and throughout the regions,
and those actions dishonored the thousands of hard working and
dedicated Federal employees I have worked with over the years.
At the GSA, and at other agencies, the Federal employees
and managers with whom I have worked in my times both inside
and outside the Government, have overwhelmingly been concerned
with carrying out their missions within the Government's rules
at the lowest costs possible.
As PBS commissioner, I was not involved in planning
conferences. As a political appointee I had a policy to not be
involved in the selection of contractors or vendors. In the
case of 2010 Western Regions Conference, it was a regionally
organized event, and while I was invited to address the
conference, I had nothing to do with its planning, nor was I
involved in approving any part of its spending or program in
advance. I was present for only a portion of the conference
before returning to DC.
As is the case with most large Federal agencies, the GSA
holds training conferences for its employees. In my many years
at the GSA, I attended a number of conferences. From what I
personally saw, the conferences I attended were not
extravagant. The 2010 Western Regions Conference described in
the IG's report was a serious aberration.
When I arrived the first afternoon of the conference I was
shown to a very large suite. I questioned the organizers as to
the cost. They told me that all of the rooms were within the
Government rate, including this room, and that my suite was
included at the basic room rate as part of the conference's
package of rooms.
My first morning at the conference, I made a PowerPoint
presentation to the entire group about national PBS goals and
priorities. I attended presentations from the four western
regions about their projects and performance and another about
the GSA's sustainability goals.
That afternoon, I asked the conference organizers to invite
a number of employees of their choosing to my room. My
intention was to have a meet and greet with a group of regional
employees attending the conference. This pre-dinner reception
went from about 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Since this was my
initiative, rather than an event on the organizers' agenda, I
said I would pay personally for beer, wine, and chips. I was
told that food would be made available without additional cost
under the conference contract with the hotel. The beer and wine
were purchased separately and upon returning to DC, I wrote a
check for that cost. Only within the past few weeks did I learn
from the GSA inspector general that the food for this reception
was apparently invoiced at $1,960.
It is not unusual for an IG to issue a report and Federal
managers count on that as part of our internal oversight. In
the normal course of events the IG will issue a draft report,
then the agency will respond, and ultimately the IG will issue
a final report with its recommendations. The IG's
recommendations, including those calling for any disciplinary
action, are ordinarily implemented following the release of a
final report. In this case, the IG issued a very preliminary
report last May, and at that time, I understood that the IG
cautioned the GSA not to take personnel actions until the final
report was complete. That final report which contained the IG's
recommendations was just published 2 weeks ago.
Until the IG's draft report last year, I was not aware that
there had been numerous planning trips incurred in connection
with this conference. Nor was I aware until I was recently
informed by the IG that there were questions about the
competitive contracting procedures used to find the conference
hotel. As I have indicated, it is now clear that much of the
expense at the hotel was excessive and unacceptable. Therefore,
even before having the benefit of the final IG report, I took
measures to try to ensure that something like this would not
happen again.
In fiscal 2011, in response to this conference, and as part
of my focus on overhead expenses, I canceled a number of
nationally controlled PBS conferences, instituted a review of
PBS outside conference attendance, and took steps to reduce
spending on travel.
Further, when I was first interviewed about the conference
by the IG last month, I invited the IG to audit other travel
and conferences that PBS had conducted under my tenure.
I deeply regret the behavior of the GSA employees involved
in this incident and the damage that this caused. I look
forward to answering any questions you may have.
Mr. Denham. As the chairman mentioned, Mr. Neely is not
with us today. He has used his Constitutional right to plead
the Fifth Amendment and has hired a lawyer, nor did he testify
yesterday.
Ms. Daniels, you are next to testify. Do you have a lawyer?
Ms. Daniels. I do not.
Mr. Denham. Can you pull the microphone, please?
Ms. Daniels. I do not have a lawyer.
Mr. Denham. I would just issue you a word of caution. I
read your testimony, and there is a great deal of troubling
information on there. I would certainly issue caution today as
you testify.
Ms. Daniels, you may proceed.
Ms. Daniels. Good morning. This is my first time at a
hearing. I am not--I did not prepare testimony because I was
placed on administrative leave last Wednesday. All of my files
were confiscated. I was directed to turn in all of my
Government equipment and cell phone to the Director of HR in
Fort Worth on Thursday morning. And on Thursday evening, my
supervisor called me late in the evening and said that I would
be receiving a letter from the House of Representatives
requesting my testimony. As you know, I did not provide 100
copies by close of business. I received my letter at 10:30 on
Friday morning, and I am not clear what testimony you are
referring to unless you are referring to interviews that I held
with the IG, of which I didn't sign anything, other than the
Garrity warning, and without my files or anything--and I was
not even sure since the title of this hearing was: ``A Pattern
of Mismanagement, Excess, and Waste''--I didn't feel
comfortable without my computer or files to be able to even
provide testimony to that subject.
I will be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Daniels, if you don't have prepared
testimony, we will allow up to 5 minutes, but I was referring
to your transcripts and the investigative report that the IG
did. That is what we have gone through. We got emails as late
as last night and certainly there is a great deal of concern
with your transcripts. So you are not obligated to have an
opening statement, or obligated to go any further than you
already have, but we certainly afford you that right to up to 5
minutes.
Ms. Daniels. I will decline to provide testimony, but happy
to answer any questions that I can.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. I will now recognize each Member for
an additional 5 minutes. We will start the first round of
questioning.
Mr. Miller, I want to first start by better understanding
how you get around rules; how you get around Executive orders;
how when the President issues an Executive order, how members
of an agency may disregard those Executive orders and figure
out a way to get around it.
So as my staff has put together an outline here for me,
basically, if you get a large number of people together, in
this case, Western Regional Conference, 300 people, it gives
you a reason to have an offsite meeting. Now, certainly you
could have a meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, or Modesto,
California, but the whole purpose of having these lavish
conferences is to go to places like Hawaii, Las Vegas, Palm
Springs, Napa, New Orleans. That is going to be a good question
on why the Western Regional Conference would need to go to New
Orleans, which is not even a Western Regional Conference.
So you get a lot of people together. It gives you a reason
to have a conference, and then you go to a luxury resort. How
much per diem are you supposed to get on a trip?
Mr. Miller. Per diem varies from place to place. And it is
listed on the GSA Web site as to how much per diem per day
individuals would get. For example, in Las Vegas, the per diem
for breakfast is $12. And it is stated, there is a chart on per
diem. If your question is, why did they have the conference,
they--the Western Regions Conference this year, they said that
they wanted to showcase GSA talent.
Mr. Denham. Is the per diem cumulative, meaning if you pay
your own way for the entire week you get a check at the end of
the week? And is it you get a lunch, a breakfast, a lunch and a
dinner per diem?
Mr. Miller. Well, you have to put a voucher in, and you
would get repaid the money. It is $71 for the whole day in Las
Vegas. That is for everything, meals and everything. The hotel
room was $93. So a traveler would come back and submit a
voucher, and that would be paid back to the traveler.
Mr. Denham. So if you got a free room or a comp room, you
could then apply for that $93 at the end of the day?
Mr. Miller. If you received a free room, you should not
submit that in the voucher. If you received a free meal that
the conference provided, you should not submit that in the
voucher.
Mr. Denham. And how about appetizers?
Mr. Miller. Well, we don't think the appetizers were
appropriate at all. We think that the appetizers were
impermissible expenses.
Mr. Denham. And how do you get around that rule to have
appetizers?
Mr. Miller. There is a rule that says that if you have an
awards ceremony and food is necessary for the performance of
the awards ceremony, you may have food as part of the awards
ceremony. That was routinely skirted by Region 9.
Mr. Denham. How often are awards given at these
conferences?
Mr. Miller. I would guess fairly often. They gave out----
Mr. Denham. Once a conference?
Mr. Miller. At least.
Mr. Denham. Every day of a conference?
Mr. Miller. I am not sure if they received an award every
day. They had----
Mr. Denham. What type of awards?
Mr. Miller. Well, they received a number of things. They
received souvenir coins. Everyone in the region received----
Mr. Denham. To write off a meal, to write off, to have the
expense of appetizers or a full meal, whether it is sushi or a
long list of different types of appetizers we have here, what
types of awards would be given?
Mr. Miller. Well, I am not sure that any of those things
would be appropriate at an awards ceremony. And the rule is
these--food has to be necessary for the awards ceremony, not
the other way around. You don't get the food. You don't give
out an award in order to get the food. You are giving an award
and you have a ceremony, and if incidental food is necessary
for that awards ceremony, then it is permissible under the
rules. It became kind of a running joke.
Mr. Denham. That is how they felt it was justified.
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Denham. To get around the Administration's rule of not
having food, they got around it by having an awards ceremony at
every conference, or every day of a conference.
Mr. Miller. Many times, in Region 9, witnesses told us that
it became a running joke with the Region 9 regional
commissioner, that even at staff meetings, he would say we are
going to have a meeting in another location and we are going to
have food, so we have to do what? Senior staff is said to have
said, give out awards. And so according to witnesses that we
have interviewed, it was a running joke in Region 9 that in
order to get food, you had to give out awards. And many of
these awards were silly awards. One of our witnesses
characterized them as I guess fake awards and jackass awards,
and things of that nature.
Now, getting back to the Western Regions Conference, they
gave out awards for theatrical performances. We do not consider
that a proper award. The award has to be for contributions to
the work of the agency.
Mr. Denham. How might they also get around the lodging per
diem limits? How would you get a 2200-square-foot suite or
several 2200-square-foot suites? How would you get a suite at
every conference? How would multiple suites be given when it is
only $93?
Mr. Miller. Well, suites are provided by the hotel.
Sometimes as part of the negotiation a hotel will provide an
upgraded room or suites as part of the negotiation. They will
throw in what they call comped rooms, if they have a number of
rooms paid for by the Government, by the conference.
Mr. Denham. What type of negotiation? How would you justify
a 2200-square--how in this case would you justify two 2200-
square-foot luxury suites? It must be some large contract. How
do you get a contract that large?
Mr. Miller. Well, GSA apparently had a very large contract
with the hotel. And the large contract with the hotel would----
Mr. Denham. I am sorry, Mr. Miller, proceed.
Mr. Miller. With the large contract with the hotel, the
hotel would throw in a room. And----
Mr. Denham. So how do you build up a large contract?
Mr. Miller. Well, GSA had a number of rooms that they were
renting from that hotel. And----
Mr. Denham. Rooms alone would allow you to get those large
luxury suites.
Mr. Miller. Well, they had catering as well. They had food.
Mr. Denham. How much catering?
Mr. Miller. It is detailed in the report. They had
receptions. They had light refreshments. By the way, light
refreshments are allowed in between sessions at a conference
according to the rules. The report identifies food
expenditures. On page 9 of the report, we have identified
$146,527 of expenditures on food and beverage catering.
Mr. Denham. Let me move on. We are short on time here and
we are going to try to stick to the 5-minute rule. If you have
luxury suites, how would you bring your entire family and
friends? How would you have a 21-year-old birthday party for
your daughter? How would you have all of these various friends
and family gatherings, extended stays on these different trips?
Mr. Miller. Well, they would have to be a gift from the
hotel. The hotel would provide an upgraded room, or a suite,
and if you are in the middle of negotiating a contract with the
hotel, that might be conceived as a gift from the hotel.
Mr. Denham. So let me ask you. If you set up a contract and
said our per diem rate is $93, that is how much we can spend on
lodging. We would like to have 5 days at $93 but we are going
to spend several hundred thousand dollars on appetizers. We
would like to extend our stay on the front-end and the back-end
and create a 9-day trip out of that. And by the way, we would
like 2200-square-foot rooms so that we can bring our family and
friends and throw a party there on the weekend. Is that
possible?
Mr. Miller. Not under the regulations. Not under the rules.
Mr. Denham. Is it possible under what you have seen in your
investigation?
Mr. Miller. Yes. Yes. In fact, I think that does describe
what happened. What you are talking about is essentially
inappropriate relationships with vendors. And an inappropriate
relationship with the hotel would be to go to the hotel and ask
for favors that benefit the individuals personally. And all of
that is improper. It is appropriate to negotiate a good rate
for the food, appropriate food under the rules, but it is
inappropriate to negotiate with vendors for personal benefits.
That would--you are not allowed to use your office for personal
gain.
Mr. Denham. Nor can you accept----
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Mr. Denham. Many other perks were accepted here. I am out
of time. I want to definitely go back to this a little bit
deeper, but at this time I recognize ranking member, Ms.
Norton, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Miller,
what the chairman has just described, if someone in Region 9
wanted to know whether or not what they were doing was within
the rules under the present structure, would they turn to--who
would they turn to in Region 9?
Mr. Miller. Is that directed towards me?
Ms. Norton. Yes. Or to you or Ms. Brita. In Region 9, if
what the chairman described, if someone wanted to know, is this
within the rules, who would they go to to find out in Region 9?
Mr. Miller. They have regional counsel in Region 9, and
regional counsel was consulted at least once about the
possession of the----
Ms. Norton. And what did regional counsel say?
Mr. Miller. I believe that regional counsel provided an
opinion that the regional commissioner requested was not in
writing, and if you can hold on a minute--they provided an
unwritten opinion about bicycles, when the charity----
Ms. Norton. Because there was an inquiry about the
bicycles, but not about other things.
Mr. Miller. Well, the regional commissioner asked about the
bicycles----
Ms. Norton. Yes.
Mr. Miller [continuing]. Because it would involve disposal
of Federal property.
Ms. Norton. Yes. Mr. Neely is not here. Did he have the
final authority on the matters, for example, just described by
the chairman, or was there someone above him who had some
authority and to whom he reported on matters of the kind that
have just been described?
Mr. Miller. Well, at the time of----
Mr. Denham. Can I clarify Ms. Norton's point. They asked
for legal opinion on the bicycles, correct?
Ms. Norton. Only.
Mr. Miller. Yes, they did.
Mr. Denham. And what was the legal opinion?
Mr. Miller. The legal opinion was that if the charity
maintained the bicycles it would not be disposal of Federal
property.
Mr. Denham. And was that in writing?
Mr. Miller. No, it was not in writing.
Mr. Denham. Is it normally in writing?
Mr. Miller. Yes, it is. The regional commissioner requested
that it not be in writing to avoid any obligation under FOIA.
Mr. Denham. Is that in writing?
Mr. Miller. I believe we have--we have some evidence of
that. I am not sure if it is a direct writing or not. But we do
have evidence of that.
Mr. Denham. Tried to cover it up after they made the
request?
Mr. Miller. Well, he requested that it not be in writing.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. I am sorry.
Ms. Norton. So the counsel himself didn't want his opinion
in writing? What I am trying to establish, who was the
operating officer who was in charge of this conference, and
whether he, in fact, had to report what happened in the
conference, or had to ask for any permission, or whether he was
an island unto himself who had control in Region 9 over the
matters that we have just heard about?
Mr. Miller. What we found in our investigation was that the
regional commissioner essentially controlled everything, and
that he was the final say-so. He was acting regional
administrator at the time. There was little oversight or
supervision by central office and, you know, as a practical
matter, the regional commissioner decided----
Ms. Norton. Yes, well, I am going to have--I am going to
have questions for Mr. Tangherlini and Ms. Johnson about the
structure of GSA, which is very troubling in this regard. I
would like to ask Mr. Peck a question.
Mr. Peck, there are many who have come to your defense. I
have known you in this administration, or prior administration.
And so it is unusual for people to publicly speak well of
someone who has had--has encountered what you have and been
discharged by the President. Do you understand why the
President took out the top of the agency and do you believe
that that was the right thing to do and the fair thing to do?
Mr. Peck. I understand why he did it. And as I said in my
testimony, I was--it was on my watch. I was brought up in a
military family. I was an Army officer and I subscribed to the
axiom that someone in charge is responsible for everything
their organization does or fails to do.
Ms. Norton. I just want that on the record. The way in
which--normally in this country, it doesn't operate the way it
does in parliamentary democracies, where the top resigns.
Somehow in our country, often only people who have hands on but
not direct authority are the ones held culpable. So I can
understand the feelings for you, but in light of how structures
should be structured in this country, I understand your
response.
There is a question, Mr. Peck, about the letter of
reprimand for Mr. Neely. We just heard that Mr. Neely was
essentially an island unto himself. You didn't know anything
about him. But when it became known, you believed he deserved
only a letter of reprimand. I mean, he may be facing
termination now. He may be facing criminal charges. What made
you believe that what is one of the lightest forms of penalty,
given his large responsibility, regional administrator, and
commissioner, that a letter of reprimand was all that should
take place here, especially when you say you understand why the
President would fire you and other top officials because of the
responsibility that the top must have for what goes on and
those charged to him?
Mr. Denham. Mr. Peck, I would allow you to answer, but I
would ask you to be brief.
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir. I believed it was the appropriate
response at that time. The IG investigation was ongoing. It was
my impression, and I think I have seen documentation since,
that the IG was asking us not to take disciplinary action
against anyone involved in this until the IG----
Ms. Norton. Well, I thought it said do not take any
personnel action, and that is a personnel action, isn't it?
Mr. Peck. The letter?
Ms. Norton. Yeah.
Mr. Peck. Well, I am not sure the letter was actually sent.
There was a great deal of conversation about what we could and
could not do at that time given what we knew about Mr. Neely.
The other thing I will just note is that a lot more facts
have come out since about what happened at that conference. But
we certainly----
Ms. Norton. So you still believe he deserved only a letter
of reprimand?
Mr. Peck. Oh, no. Not based on what I know now, no.
Ms. Norton. No, at the time, what you knew about the
conference, you think he deserved no more than a letter of
reprimand?
Mr. Peck. No. At the time, we took it into account in--I
took it into account in his rating. I spoke to him, I spoke to
the other regional commissioners about conferences, I took
other actions. At that time, given what we knew about what had
happened at the conference, particularly with respect to him--
and we didn't know a lot of other things about his travel
expenditures and other things--we thought that that was an
appropriate response at that time. It was kind of like a shot
across the bow rather than a final action.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Peck.
Chairman Mica?
And before we do, in consulting with Democrats in a
bipartisan fashion, we have made a determination that, Ms.
Daniels, after receiving a transcript over the last 48 hours,
it is in our judgment on a bipartisan level that we will excuse
you at this time. I would advise you, as chairman of this
committee, you ought to seek legal counsel. You are dismissed.
Chairman Mica?
Mr. Mica. I thank you.
First of all, Ms. Doone, an expenditure that rises about
300 percent for the public buildings commissioner's
expenditures, from $2.9 million to $9 million, does that raise
any flags to you, a 300-percent increase? Actually, it is in
about 2 years because it was about $3.2 million in 2009.
Ms. Doone. I am not sure what number you are referring to.
Mr. Mica. The expenditures for the public building
commissioner's operations, its administrative and personnel
costs. Does that raise any flags?
Are you aware of a request that I have had in, our
committee has had in, we sent it to David Foley on December
7th, 2011, to give us a breakdown of administrative costs?
Ms. Doone. I was not aware of that request, and I only
became aware of it as the Public Buildings Service came close
to finalizing its response.
Mr. Mica. We have been trying to get this information since
last year. So you are the chief financial officer. And, of
course, in my opening statement, I described what was sent to
us, and we see why there wasn't much detail sent to us now.
Mr. Miller--well, first of all, Susan Brita, you asked
that--this conference took place in October 2010. In November,
shortly thereafter, you asked for a review, IG review; is that
correct?
Ms. Brita. Correct.
Mr. Mica. And it looks like a preliminary briefing was not
done until May of 2011.
All this was not made public until a few weeks ago, Mr.
Miller. What took so long between briefing Administrator
Johnson and Ms. Brita in May 2011?
Mr. Miller. Chairman Mica, we investigated a number of
individuals. We interviewed individuals. We turned over every
stone, and every time we turned over a stone we found 50 more,
with all sorts of things crawling out from under----
Mr. Mica. But you never published a report.
But in June, after providing that briefing to Ms. Brita and
Administrator Johnson, somehow the GSA chief, Michael
Robertson, yesterday who was before OGR Committee, informed
Kimberly Harris, a White House counsel, about the investigation
going on. Were you aware of that?
Mr. Miller. I was not aware of that.
Mr. Mica. You were not aware of it.
It was interesting that, back in May, you advised
Administrator Johnson to get a handle on the Regional
Commissioner Neely's--this is May of 2011--on RC's travel,
Regional Commissioner Neely's travel. Is that correct?
Mr. Miller. Chairman Mica, I did brief Administrator
Johnson on the interim report----
Mr. Mica. But did you tell them to get a handle on his
travel expenditures?
Mr. Miller. I told the regional administrator to get a
handle on his travel in August of 2011.
Mr. Mica. So you told him?
Mr. Miller. I told her. It is Ruth Cox.
Mr. Mica. OK, Ruth Cox. OK. And then we have a trip to
Hawaii, we have another trip by Neely to Hawaii in October,
another trip to Atlanta, another--Susan Brita warned, I guess,
you about an upcoming 17-day South Pacific junket headed by
Neely?
Mr. Miller. Well, actually, Chairman Mica, we were so
concerned about it, we contacted Ms. Brita, the deputy
administrator----
Mr. Mica. You contacted her.
Mr. Miller [continuing]. And said, ``Do you know that this
travel is going on?''
Mr. Mica. And, Ms. Brita, you notified the regional
administrator, Ruth Cox, about the upcoming junket and
expressed concern, right?
Ms. Brita. I did.
Mr. Mica. Yeah. And what happened?
Ms. Brita. I expressed concern and asked her to review the
plans and make sure the----
Mr. Mica. And that called it off, didn't it? No.
So they went on that junket; then another one to Dana
Point, California; the Hawaii-Guam-Saipan trip with staff;
another trip to Atlanta; a 4-day site visit to Hawaii. And then
I guess one--where is Napa, this offsite trip to Napa? Is that
California? You have to go to the wine region.
Well, I see why Mr. Neely is not with us today and the only
pictures I can get of him are in his hot-tub suite. But I thank
you, Ms. Brita, for your coming forward and for your trying to
be a good steward of taxpayer dollars.
I yield back.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Chairman Mica.
Mr. Michaud?
Mr. Michaud. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member, for having this very important hearing today.
Needless to say, I was appalled when I first heard about
some of the things that the GSA administration had charged to
the taxpayers for their conference. This Congress has had its
share of disagreements over the past on how to reduce the
Federal spending and how to address the deficit issue; however,
I think that we all can agree on that there is no place for
this type of an abuse of taxpayers' funds.
The employees that put together this conference forgot that
the Federal Government is supposed to work on behalf of the
taxpayers. Families and small businesses throughout Maine
should not have to pay for employees of GSA to take lavish
vacations in Las Vegas or anywhere else throughout the country.
And I hope that we can get the information that we need here
today to make sure that this does not happen again.
And, additionally, I plan to offer an amendment to the
financial service and general Government appropriation bill to
prevent GSA from holding this type of conference in the future.
But this is just extremely disturbing.
I do want to commend Ms. Brita for what you have done and
are going to do, hopefully, with the agency.
I guess my question is for the inspector general and Ms.
Brita both. Since this has been brought to light in the
public's attention, what has been done or will be done in the
future to make sure that this does not happen again?
And for the inspector general, Mr. Miller, has the IG
looked at other agencies that you are aware of for similar type
of abuse that might have occurred or is occurring?
Mr. Miller. We are currently looking at all the conferences
in Region 9. And we are looking at conferences in general.
Mr. Michaud. Just Region 9?
Mr. Miller. No. Well, we are focusing on Region 9 right
now, but we are generally looking at conferences. We are
receiving a number of hotlines, as you can imagine, about other
conferences throughout the country.
Ms. Brita. Mr. Michaud, Acting Administrator Tangherlini
has committed to do a complete, top-to-bottom review of the
agency, management structure, reporting lines, centralization
versus decentralization, and with an eye, of course, to
improving the management and overall service delivery of the
agency.
Mr. Michaud. Is the acting director also looking at making
sure that the Federal Government is reimbursed?
Ms. Brita. Yes, sir. He has already taken action in that
regard. Three letters were sent out, and additional letters
will be forthcoming. Yes.
Mr. Michaud. And, Mr. Miller, what do you expect or what
should Congress do to make sure that this doesn't happen again,
not only with GSA but other agencies, when you look at these
type of conferences?
Mr. Miller. I think supporting IGs is something that helps.
We have to investigate these frauds and abuses and waste.
Unfortunately, you cannot legislate good judgment, you can't
legislate good management. And so I think one of the things you
can do is strengthen inspectors general in all the agencies.
Mr. Michaud. OK. Now, as far as GSA, are you understaffed
in the inspector general's office for GSA? And how many
vacancies do you currently have?
Mr. Miller. I will leave that to the judgment of the
appropriators.
We currently have 70 special agents. They are the ones that
actually interview witnesses. And I think you have read some
transcripts with our special agents. We have forensic auditors
that are trying to find all of the funds that are charged to
purchase cards as part of this conference, charged to building
operations funds, just trying to trace the money. So we do have
forensic auditors. We have auditors currently who are under our
FTE level and not hiring due to appropriations problems.
Mr. Michaud. Could you submit to the committee the number
of vacancies you currently have?
Mr. Miller. I would be happy to.
Mr. Michaud. Thank you.
I see I have run out of time. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you very much, Mr. Michaud.
The vice chair of the committee, Mr. Crawford.
Mr. Crawford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Peck, what were your impressions of the $30,000 pool-
party award ceremony where you were given an award for your
work on the stimulus program?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Crawford, there was a reception, I think, the
afternoon I got there. It was outdoors at the hotel. I wasn't
aware of what it cost. Until reminded by the investigator, I
didn't remember what the food was because I don't think I ate
very much of it. Nor was I aware that there might have been an
award ceremony there to justify food expenses. That is not
something I would have thought of, not a rule I believe I was
familiar with.
I thought as part of a hotel package I had seen both in
public and private sectors before that those kinds of
receptions were provided as part of a hotel package. So I
thought, at the end of the day, not knowing the expense, I
didn't think it was out of the ordinary.
May I say one thing about the awards?
Mr. Crawford. Sure.
Mr. Peck. If I have an opportunity, I would like to say
something about coins.
When I left the Government in 2001, Federal agencies did
not give out coins. When I came back in 2009, this fad had
apparently evolved from the military where civilian agencies
had coins. Everywhere I went, somebody gave me a coin from
their agency.
There had been a coin minted for the commissioner's office
of the Public Buildings Service. When I was told that they were
running out and that we needed to order more, I asked how much
they cost. They told me about $10 apiece. And I said, we don't
need coins; if I want to give someone an atta-boy, I can give
them a handshake or a paper certificate.
So that was my view. I was concerned when I saw the coins,
I will say that.
Mr. Crawford. OK. We will get back to that in a minute.
I am going to ask that they put up a slide of your suite.
When you arrived at your two-story, 2,400-square-foot suite,
what was your impression?
Mr. Peck. That it was ludicrously large and kind of like
you would see in Las Vegas. And I also, as I noted in my
testimony, immediately asked what the charge was for this suite
and whether there was an extra charge for it.
Mr. Crawford. OK. I have an email here. It is dated October
28th. It is from you to Jeff Neely. And it states, ``Jeff, that
conference is unbelievable, awesome, a terrific lesson to all
our folks about what preparation, professionalism, and a sense
of perspective and humor can do. I just sent a rave review to
Martha Johnson. Thanks for inviting me.''
Do you want to comment on that?
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir. At that time, I was--remember, I had
arrived on Monday afternoon or late Monday morning. What I had
seen were, during the presentations that I saw the 1 day I was
there, a number of presentations that were all substantive
about the work of the Public Buildings Service. I thought that
the presentations prepared by the four regions were good. The
conversations that I saw during the sessions were about the
work of PBS and how we could get work done better. I thought
that was professional, and that is what I was referring to.
Mr. Crawford. OK. When you decided to throw a party in your
suite, who ended up paying for the food and alcohol, which was
about a $2,000 bill for the food? You indicated in your
testimony, in your written testimony as well as your oral
testimony, that you actually paid for the alcohol. Is that
correct?
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir. Well----
Mr. Crawford. You had bartenders and staff there for the
party?
Mr. Peck. No, sir.
Mr. Crawford. No?
Mr. Peck. Not to the best of my recollection, but I don't
recall the----
Mr. Crawford. OK, why would it be OK--there were no awards
at this party. Why would it be OK to bill the taxpayers for
$2,000 worth of food at your party?
Mr. Peck. It would not.
Mr. Crawford. So it is not OK to do that?
Mr. Peck. No, sir. And, as I said, I specifically said,
because it was not an award ceremony, it was not part of an
official function--I had a practice when I went to meetings,
whether they were in regional office buildings or somewhere
else, of trying to meet the GSA employees and mostly talk shop.
This thing was a pre-dinner thing. I thought it was a nice
thing to do. And I specifically said it was not a part of the
conference program, I would pay for it myself.
By the way, I was not prepared to pay for fancy food, and
that is why I said, let's do beer, wine, and chips. And then
this other food arrived, and I said, how did that happen, and
they said, well, it is covered in the existing conference
contract. And I believe I said something to the effect of, so
no additional cost? That is what I was told. I did not know
that it had been charged additionally or separately until I was
interviewed by an IG agent about, I guess, 4 weeks ago now when
I asked him when he told me about the money whether that was an
additional amount or was it covered by the contract.
In any event, Mr. Crawford, I totally agree with you. I had
no intention of charging it to the taxpayer, did not believe it
was a legitimate taxpayer expense. And I yesterday sent a
letter to the inspector general saying if that, in fact, was an
additional cost, I am prepared to pay it back.
Mr. Crawford. OK, I have one quick question for Mr. Miller.
These OIG reports are a great window into how well or poorly an
agency is being run. Do you believe the public would be better
served by having a central location where any citizen could
access all the OIG reports from across the Government and be
provided with an opportunity to learn what the OIG does, how to
read the reports, and why they are important?
Mr. Miller. I think that would help. We have a Web site
where you can access our public reports, and every IG does.
There is also a Web site called IGnet.gov that will give you
the list of all the IG Web sites.
Mr. Crawford. All right, thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Crawford.
Mr. Walz?
Mr. Walz. Well, thank you, Chairman Denham and Ranking
Member Norton.
I would like to thank the chairman, too, for his unwavering
commitment to transparency. And I have had the opportunity,
along with Congressman Michaud, to work with Mr. Denham on the
VA side.
And I bring that up for a reason. Every adjective has been
used on this, from deeply disappointed, furious, and so forth.
None, to me, get to the heart of the matter, and I think the
folks sitting here recognize this. It is always healthy in a
democracy to be skeptical--be skeptical about Government, be
skeptical about large institutions. But it is this type of
behavior that moves into cynicism, and cynicism is cancerous.
The American public is cynical, if you look at some of the
polling, at rates never before seen. They don't trust large
financial institutions. They watched Wall Street go broke. They
watched their taxpayer dollars bail them out. And they watched
bonuses paid to those very people who caused the problem in the
first place. And then the very people they expect to oversee
things being done do this very same thing.
And I think, as Mr. Denham said, this attack on trust is so
frustrating at a time when, yes, we are all being asked to
provide efficiencies and get things out of this. But I think to
put this into perspective, to understand the choices that were
made here, for you to understand, the folks who made those
choices, exactly what this means, I would like to just talk a
little bit about what it means, the choices we have too.
We have an unprecedented number of veterans trying to seek
service. And in my Sunday paper in Minneapolis this weekend, it
talked about this. One-point-two-five million veterans were
treated for especially mental health care. And when interviewed
by this, 70 percent of these providers said that they do not
have adequate resources or space. We are asking them to do more
for less on the very basic principle of providing mental health
care for our warriors when they return. And somebody had the
audacity to do this.
It goes beyond public trust. It goes beyond a thought that
how can we get to a point of that type of selfishness when
others are being asked to do more with less. And it is so
frustrating to me that this becomes--and I thank the inspector
general.
And I want to be very clear, Mr. Miller, I am an unabashed,
huge fan of inspector generals. They return $12 for every $1 we
spend on them. I fought for years to make sure in the VA--one
of the most important jobs we do sitting up here is to provide
oversight in the checks and balances.
And amongst this whole thing, I think you brought up a very
good point: You can't legislate some of these poor choices that
were made. But you know what we can do? We can put in
redundancies and safeguards. That is the way you protect
against bad judgment. That is the way you protect against a
rogue employee or whatever it might be.
I am just baffled here that the redundancies fell through.
At some point in time, somebody is looking at this--and, Mr.
Peck, you know this. There is no free lunch. If it is part of
the contract, the price was jacked up. They don't give you
something free in Las Vegas. You could have a big suite, they
know you are going to spend the money elsewhere. That money was
spent elsewhere. They are not going to give that away.
And I appreciate your attention to detail in trying to look
at this. But at some point in time, somebody just had to
recognize that, that it had to be.
And your coin issue is exactly right. Members of Congress
have to use their own money or campaign money, which is private
money, not taxpayer money, if they are going to use coins. So I
think you bring up a point on that.
But how does it just get passed beyond those redundancies?
So, Mr. Miller, I am going to come back to you for just a
second. How, when they knew this was being done on, you know--
and I don't--we can pick out the things, sushi or whatever
makes the highlight tonight or whatever, but 44 bucks for
breakfast? I am a big man, I can't spend 44 bucks for
breakfast. Somebody had to say that. Are you kidding me?
And then what it does is the American public believes every
single employee and every single agency is corrupt and not
doing what they are supposed to. And I watch those providers,
those mental-health providers out at those CBOCs in southern
Minnesota doing the best they can with a crowded waiting room,
and it is simply unacceptable.
So, Mr. Miller, I think what needs to come out of this is,
yes, somebody needs to be held accountable and, yes, ensuring
it doesn't happen again and that the safeguards are put into
place. So how do we do that? How do we strengthen that? What
are your suggestions going to be, if I can ask?
Mr. Miller. Sir, I think that we need to have stronger
central control. I believe the new Acting Administrator
Tangherlini has already instituted more centralized control of
the finances so that each budget is not controlled by a
regional commissioner or a regional administrator. I think he
is working on having control over their IT systems, as well.
But, as you said, redundancies, controls, checks and
balances, those are all things that can help check the
excesses, the bad judgment, the criminal activities of others.
And we always rely on people to tell us when they see something
wrong. And that is why Acting Administrator Tangherlini and I
reminded all GSA employees recently to call our office if they
see anything wrong, because we do rely on people telling us
about this. And I, too, commend Susan Brita for bringing this
to our attention.
Mr. Walz. Would you have caught it without her help, if I
can end on that? Would the IG have been able to figure this
out, with the things that are in place, without her coming
forward?
Mr. Miller. That is a difficult question. We are told by
witnesses that the culture in Region 9 was a culture that put
down anyone that complained. Witnesses said that the regional
commissioner would put people down, and the witness said, ``And
he knew how to put people down.'' One witness said there was
somebody who tried to raise an objection and the witness said,
quote, ``He squashed her like a bug,'' unquote. And with that
kind of an atmosphere----
Mr. Walz. That is some of the most disturbing things I have
heard, because the culture of an organization is where all of
this starts. And if it is in there, it will continue forward.
That is the piece that has to be changed.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the extra time. I yield back.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Walz.
Mr. Barletta?
Mr. Barletta. Thank you.
I have gone through this report here, and to be honest with
you, I don't know where to start. I mean, we could probably
spend weeks talking about all the abuse and the different items
of abuse. And to be honest with you, it actually makes me sick
to my stomach. So I don't want to go there, because I think the
public will eventually see what has happened.
I think there is a bigger problem here. I think there is a
much bigger problem here. Because, you see, the people back
home in my district in Pennsylvania, they may not be able to go
on one vacation this year, not one, because of the price of
gas. They are hardworking, blue-collar Americans. And to look
at reports where the GSA spent $136,000 on a scouting trip
before the conference is more than upsetting.
And I am just fortunate that I have the opportunity to be
here today to get some of this off my chest, but most Americans
don't have that chance. They won't be able to stand here and
get it off their chest, what they feel. In my 1 year here, I
will tell you, I have seen more waste, fraud, and abuse in this
Government, and it is absolutely frightening. It is
frightening, the way our Federal Government works and how we
treat the hardworking taxpayers' dollars and laugh. And those
videos literally make me sick.
Mr. Peck, you said that you told someone that the food--
someone told you that the food at your party in your suite was
covered. Who did you tell?
Mr. Peck. I don't recall exactly, Mr. Barletta, but I
asked----
Mr. Barletta. OK. Well, who told you that it was covered?
Mr. Peck. One of the conference organizers.
Mr. Barletta. Who was it?
Mr. Peck. I don't recall who it was. It may have been----
Mr. Barletta. You don't recall who it was----
Mr. Peck. It may have been--excuse me----
Mr. Barletta [continuing]. You don't recall who you told.
Mr. Peck [continuing]. It may have been Ms. Daniels.
Mr. Barletta. OK. Let's move on. Let's move on. Who did you
ask about the cost of the room?
Mr. Peck. I asked Mr. Neely. I asked at least one of the
other people who worked on the conference.
Mr. Barletta. And they told you that there was nothing
wrong with it. Who was the other person?
Mr. Peck. It is either Ms. Daniels or one of the other
people who had worked on the conference.
Mr. Barletta. Is this the only time that you have witnessed
any type of abuse in the GSA? Was this conference, was this the
only example that we could talk about today? Or were there
other times other than this?
Mr. Peck. As I said in my testimony, Mr. Barletta, this is
the only conference that I am aware of in which this kind of
expense, including pre-conference planning and all that, was
out of control. Most of the GSA meetings and conferences I
attended were focused on the business of the General Services
Administration and trying to do a better job getting real
estate for the Government.
Mr. Barletta. This happened--and this is where I am going,
about the bigger problem--this happened in 2010, and here we
are in 2012 talking about it. But it didn't end there. That
wasn't just a one-time deal here. Just this year, just this
year, on February 4th, the regional commissioner spent 17 days
in Guam--17 days, this year. Who does that in the private
sector? Who does that? Who leaves their job for 17 days? That
is not the way the private sector works, that is not the way
real people work, real companies work.
Oh, it didn't end there either. March 12th, there was a
meeting in Napa, offsite, $40,000 for that offsite meeting. Why
do we have to meet in Napa?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Barletta, that is--I believe you are talking
about the same regional commissioner. I don't know. I was not
aware of the meeting.
I can tell you the senior management meetings that I held
were mostly in regional cities, many of them held in Federal
building conference rooms. We brought in boxed lunches. When
people went to dinner, they paid their own way. Those are the
kinds of meetings, when necessary, that I believe are the right
kinds of meetings to have.
Mr. Barletta. And who reports to who? I mean, we can sit
here and pound on Mr. Neely, as well he should be pounded on.
But who reports to who? Who oversees who?
I ran a company, I ran a business. And I could tell you,
this would not have been going on. And it wouldn't be 2 years
later that we would just be sitting here talking about it.
Who reports to who? Who oversees whom? Who is responsible
for whom? And who did you report to? At what point do you blow
the whistle, like Ms. Brita finally did? At what point do other
employees in the GSA say, ``This is wrong, and something needs
to be done''? Why are we here now trying to drag information
out of people when most Americans are barely making it.
Let me just finish this. Here is the bigger problem, and
here is a news release. Big Government doesn't work. It just
doesn't work. This is not the way the private sector works. And
I think what we need to be talking about is, what do we do
instead of the GSA? Because there is lots of abuse in the GSA,
and there is lots of abuse in other Government agencies
throughout this Government. And I believe the $822,000 spent in
Las Vegas by the GSA should be a farewell party.
Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Barletta.
Mr. Cummings?
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank you and the ranking member for your
decision with regard to allowing the witness, Ms. Daniels, to
be excused. I thought that was the appropriate thing to do. As
a lawyer practicing for many, many years, I think it was the
appropriate thing.
I want to follow up a little bit on some of the questions
that Mr. Walz was asking. And, Mr. Miller, we have heard
these--you just restated something that you said yesterday
before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee about Mr.
Neely saying to one witness that you interviewed that she would
be squashed like a bug.
Let me read her entire--the statement that she made. And I
quote, ``She has been''--this is a quote. ``She has been trying
to bring this stuff up at the board of directors meeting, and
she would promptly get squashed like a bug when she brought up
any kind of things concerning the conferences and the
extravagances and the suites and, you know, the hotel suites.
Because typically at a conference--I mean, the WRC was not a
one-time thing where certain people got these very extravagant
accommodations.''
Does that sound familiar at all?
Mr. Miller. Yes, sir, it does.
Mr. Cummings. And the witness also said that, and I quote,
``The intimidation factor is pretty large,'' end of quote.
Mr. Peck, let me return to you. Were you aware that Mr.
Neely intimidated employees who reported to him?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Cummings, I didn't know that he intimidated
employees, but I did, in fact, on more than one occasion, tell
him that I had heard that in his headquarters, as opposed to
some of his field offices, there were people who might be
reluctant to give him bad news because he wouldn't take it
well.
Mr. Cummings. What did you mean by that?
Mr. Peck. I meant that I--this was hearsay. It is the kind
of thing that, as a manager, I think you want to pick up. And I
reflected it in his performance evaluation that I meant that I
had heard there were some managers who, when people sit in a
meeting and say, ``Gee, I don't think that is the way we ought
to be operating.''
Now, to be honest, I thought that we were talking about
policy issues. I didn't know we were talking about issues of
real Government waste and integrity. But I----
Mr. Cummings. OK.
Mr. Peck [continuing]. Had heard this enough to talk about
it.
Mr. Cummings. I only have a limited amount of time. I want
to ask you some other questions.
Did any GSA employee ever raise with you concern about Mr.
Neely's conduct in terms of lavish or excessive spending?
Mr. Peck. Not that I recall, sir, no.
Mr. Cummings. Did any GSA employee ever raise with you
concerns about Mr. Neely's retaliatory actions, whether through
negative performance reviews, threatening to relocate them, or
other similar actions?
Mr. Peck. No, sir, not to my recollection. And I am sure if
I had, I would have taken action on it.
Mr. Cummings. This GSA employee who was squashed like a bug
was clearly right about all the lavish spending. What does this
mean to you if it was not retaliation?
Mr. Peck. That----
Mr. Cummings. In other words, somebody who felt that they
had been squashed like a bug.
Mr. Peck. Mr. Cummings, I am not going to--I wouldn't split
hairs over that. That is an intimidating atmosphere.
Mr. Cummings. And if somebody had said that to you, you
would have taken some type of action?
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. According to the inspector general's office,
Mr. Neely may have spent a quarter of a million dollars on
travel over 5 years. Mr. Peck, as the head of the Public
Buildings Service, did you track the travel expenditures of
regional administrators or commissioners?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Cummings, thank you for asking that. The way
we tried to maintain managerial controls was by benchmarking
the travel, training, information technology expenses, and
other overhead expenses of one region against the others,
balancing them for the amount of workload they had, their
geographic dispersion.
And that is what at least the PBS assistant commissioner
for financial management was supposed to be tracking. I am not
able to access the information anymore; I don't know how it is
that that kind of travel might have happened without showing up
in that kind of a review.
Mr. Cummings. Well, you stated that Mr. Neely did, quote,
``a great job for GSA over the years,'' end of quote. You
argued that Mr. Neely should receive a positive performance
rating, and you basically defended him. So I am having great
difficulty understanding your position.
Mr. Peck. OK.
Mr. Cummings. Let me finish. Maybe you were not aware of
what Mr. Neely was doing or maybe you did not fully appreciate
the level of abuse. And I agree with Mr. Walz, this is abusing
people. We are better than that, we are a better country than
that, and this is a better agency than that.
But there is no question that Mr. Neely's actions were
inappropriate and they should have been halted. And you were
his supervisor, were you not? Yes or no?
Mr. Peck. No, sir. But I don't want to--again, the way the
GSA structure works, the regional commissioners do not report
directly to the national commissioner. However, there is a very
strong dotted-line authority to the PBS national commissioner.
So there is certainly--I could exert control when I felt it
necessary.
Mr. Cummings. And you were head of Public Buildings, were
you not?
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Hultgren?
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller, please tell me what you know about the 2010
intern conference in Palm Springs. I wonder if you could tell
me--we have heard about luxury suites and catered award
ceremonies. I wonder you can tell us a little bit about that.
Mr. Miller. We are currently investigating that. The intern
conference occurred between May 10 and May 14, 2010, in Palm
Springs, California.
Mr. Hultgren. And what do you know about it so far?
Mr. Miller. Well, there were 150 attendees, and we are
currently in the process of investigating it. There appears to
be food served, as well. Food is also served at that
conference, and we are looking into the propriety of that as
well as other allegations.
Mr. Hultgren. And, Mr. Peck, I wondered, how is it after
your briefing by the IG in May of last year that you continue
to allow lavish conferences to continue?
Mr. Peck. As I testified, in fact, when I came back, after
that, I cancelled a number of conferences. Before that even, we
had eliminated funding for the next Western Regions Conference.
I cancelled a number of other national conferences, which, by
the way, I do not believe would have been lavish but which we
still felt, given the budget environment, that there was not
enough benefit given the expense that they were going to make
us have.
Mr. Hultgren. Mr. Miller, I wonder if you could tell us a
little bit about some of the offsite meetings in Region 9. I
wonder how often were they having those site meetings, where
would they go, and how much would they cost.
Mr. Miller. Well, the offsite meetings appeared to be
fairly regular. There was an offsite meeting at Napa, I
believe, at the end of March of 2012--that is March of this
year--a PBS Region 9 offsite leadership meeting in Napa. Food
is reported to be about $40,000 for that particular offsite.
We are also looking into allegations regarding other
offsites and tours, like a Jeep tour and that sort of thing,
charged to the Federal Government.
Mr. Hultgren. Now, that one in Napa, that was just
recently, wasn't it?
Mr. Miller. In March, yes, of this year.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you.
Mr. Miller, I wonder also if the investigation that you
have been overseeing with your Hats Off investigation revealed
that more than $400,000 was spent in Region 9 alone for that
awards program. I know you found evidence of employees
exchanging awards with one another and supervisors getting
awards from subordinates. What controls, if any, were in place
to prevent this?
Mr. Miller. Well, the problem with Hats Off was there were
very little controls. GSA had a policy about all of these so-
called reward stores, and they were not being followed in
Region 9.
We did our report, we gave a draft report in May of 2011,
along with the interim Western Regions report. Our Hats Off
report became final. And in terms of providing discipline or
adverse personnel action, the agency could always have taken
adverse personnel action against the Region 9 regional
commissioner based on the Hats Off award and based on other
issues. And we always said, even with the interim Western
Regions Conference report, that the agency should take steps to
prevent further waste. They could restrict his travel, they
could restrict conferences, but they didn't.
The only thing we said was, with respect to Western
Regions, we were still investigating and that a technical
adverse personnel action that would end up in litigation would
not be a wise thing. But everything else was permissible, and
adverse personnel action based on Hats Off was permissible.
Mr. Hultgren. I know you began your investigation largely
because of a report of some stolen items. I wonder if you can
tell us a little bit more. Were you able to locate those? What
happened to some of those stolen items? Where and how did you
find them?
Mr. Miller. Originally, I think around 40 items were
reported stolen. We began the investigation. We subpoenaed
Apple. We found that there were about 115 iPods missing. Apple
provided us with some of the addresses where iTunes were being
downloaded, and one of the iPods was located in Mr. Neely's
personal possession. The subpoena from Apple told us that his
daughter had been downloading iTunes and that sort of thing.
Ultimately, there were just so few controls and so little
restrictions preventing people from even going into the store
and taking things out that we could not tell for sure who stole
what from that store.
Mr. Hultgren. My time has expired. I yield back. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Hultgren.
Mr. Peck, my anger and frustration have finally gotten to a
boiling point. February 10th, my first committee hearing. I
became chair--was sworn into office January 5th of last year,
had concerns about this agency. Held our first hearing February
10th, where I first requested information from you. March 10th,
2011, requested it again at a hearing. May 12th, requested it a
third time. October 21st, we sent a letter, a bipartisan
letter, from the committee on behalf of myself and Ranking
Member Norton. November 4th, we held a hearing on the LA
courthouse where we again requested the budget. December 7th,
written request once again on the administrative costs.
February 9th, we held another hearing and requested the PBS
administrative cost information once again. March 20th, another
written followup letter to the December 7th request. March
20th, again we went over the administrative cost information
received from the GSA and let you know how lacking that very
top line one page was. March 22nd, had another hearing where
again we asked for the administrative costs. And March 30th of
this year, we had a staff meeting on the administrative costs.
April 13th, we have now sent a letter to the new GSA director,
Mr. Tangherlini.
It has been a year-and-a-half. We have requested, we have
sent a letter from the committee, we have demanded. Why are you
hiding the information from this committee and from the
American public?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman, I don't----
Mr. Denham. You are not hiding it? Do you not have the
information?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman, I don't have access anymore to
either your letters demanding information or our response.
What I recall is that, in December, this past December, the
committee asked for detailed information about overhead costs
of the PBS nationally, the PBS headquarters in Washington, and
the commissioner's office. I believe we responded to that in
February or March. There were a number of conversations, I
know, that were had amongst my staff and the committee staff--
--
Mr. Denham. Were there details of these conferences?
Mr. Peck. Sir, I don't believe that--you know, again, not
having access to what you requested, I don't know if that was
covered. I believe that the requests were for spending on
things like travel and training----
Mr. Denham. Did you give us any information on travel and
training?
Mr. Peck. As I said, Mr. Chairman, I no longer have access
to what we gave you or not, but I do----
Mr. Denham. Look----
Mr. Peck [continuing]. Believe we gave you an answer to the
best of our ability on----
Mr. Denham. I don't have the data in front of me either
right now, but I can tell you for the last year-and-a-half I
have been requesting the information. Do you not remember any
of these requests? I can name them off again. I mean, but it is
over a dozen times that I have requested and you and I have had
the conversation.
You and I had several conversations on cell phone where we
have discussed this issue. And I have asked you, what is it
going to take? Do you have to have a letter from the committee?
Do we have to pass a bill, a legislation, demanding that we
actually have a budget in place?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman, I am fairly certain the agency
provided you with information about the PBS budget we provided
to the committees as a matter of course. I don't know what
exact demands for information you are talking about.
Mr. Denham. We asked for one page. Obviously there was no
information on there on this Las Vegas scandal or any of the
other trips that were planned. And we are going to go through
all of those trips, but several dozen trips across the Nation,
lavish expenses. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but none
of that information was in there.
So the question is, if it wasn't in there, why are you
hiding it from us?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Denham. Do you not have it? Do you not have that
information?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman, I don't have access to any
information from GSA anymore.
Mr. Denham. Anymore. Did you have information--you were the
top guy. Did you have information that would show you the
budget for Mr. Neely for Region 9, for the Western Regional
Conference or all of the conferences?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman, are you referring to a specific
request that the committee gave for information about
conferences?
Mr. Denham. I am trying to figure out, if you are the top
guy at GSA, how did you not know that this was going on in the
Western Region or all of the regions?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman, the allegations that I have heard
so far today have been limited to Region 9. And we have
discussed when and how I became aware of the expenses of the
Western Regions Conference in October of 2010. With respect to
other----
Mr. Denham. So you did not know?
Mr. Peck. With respect to other conference spending and
travel spending in general, we were always taking a look at
what expenses were across the various regions. I was working at
a level where I was looking at large numbers across the Nation,
not at specific conferences.
Except to the extent that nationally planned conferences I
did put under review in my office, partly in response to budget
restrictions and partly in response to what we learned in May
of 2011 about the Western Regions Conference.
Mr. Denham. Well, you have managed to filibuster long
enough to get through my entire time here. But let me reiterate
one more time exactly what this committee has requested and
then demanded.
First of all, we asked for the number of employees of PBS
as well as the number of authorized FTEs; the amount of
administrative costs with a breakdown of how much relates to
the personnel costs; to the extent additional staff were hired
for the purposes of the stimulus bill, how many staff were
hired, and costs associated with additional personnel; a
breakdown of GSA-occupied space for administrative purposes,
including square footage and to the extent space is leased and
the annual lease cost; and an explanation of which account the
employee and administrative costs are coming from.
We wanted a detailed budget for the last 5 years, not just
about the Obama administration but the Bush administration as
well, 5 years of a budget. How much money has been spent, in
what areas, in what regions--transparency for the American
public. This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue; this is
about an American issue of knowing what their Government is
doing.
You have certainly went through my time here, but we have
plenty of time today.
Mr. Peck. Mr.----
Mr. Denham. I hope you had a good breakfast, because we are
going to have a long time to go through these.
Mr. Peck. Mr.----
Mr. Denham. You can take as long as you want on these
questions, but we are going to continue to go through them.
Ms. Norton?
Ms. Norton. Mr. Miller, I think it would be important for
the committee to know, as far as you know or perhaps Ms. Brita
or anyone at the table may know, whether or not what we find in
Region 9 has metastasized to other parts of the agency. I think
it is fair to say that there was building up over time
something of an abusive culture or a region apart. But we need
to know whether this culture has spread to other parts of the
GSA or whether you believe that it is essentially a Region 9
issue.
Ms. Brita. Ms. Norton, that is precisely why the acting
administrator has decided, and informed this committee, to
doing a top-to-bottom review, so that we will be able to answer
that question rather than just intuitively come up with an
answer or speculate. One of the purposes for doing the top-to-
bottom review will be to answer that question: Is this an
isolated Region 9 issue or do we have a larger issue
agencywide? And we believe that the review, where we are
looking at all facets of GSA, will be able to answer that
question as we move forward----
Ms. Norton. Well, Mr. Miller, have you seen any evidence
outside Region 9? And in light of what you see in Region 9, are
you looking at other parts of the GSA at this time?
Mr. Miller. We have continuing investigations into other
conferences in other districts. We are looking at at least one
other conference in another district. But Region 9 employees
say that spending was part of the culture in Region 9. So we do
have plenty of evidence regarding Region 9.
Ms. Norton. Are you doing continuing investigations in
Region 9?
Mr. Miller. Yes, yes, we are, into many issues in Region 9,
other conferences. And we are looking at other conferences
outside of Region 9, as well.
Ms. Norton. Ms. Doone, now, your title is chief financial
officer of the General Services Administration. The CFO for
Region 9 apparently did speak up about the excessive spending.
Did any of his concerns--I don't know if it is a he or a she--
reach your office?
Ms. Doone. No, they did not.
Ms. Norton. Well, how could you be called the CFO for the
GSA? I don't understand what your function is then.
Ms. Doone. The regional CFOs in the Public Buildings
Service report up through the regional commissioners of the
Service and do not report to the agency chief financial
officer.
Ms. Norton. So you never know anything about the financial
matters in the regions? Who does know then?
Ms. Doone. The Public Buildings Service has a central
budget and financial management division in their headquarters
office. And that is the office that allocates the funds out to
the various regions.
Ms. Norton. You can see the difficulty I am having----
Ms. Doone. Yes.
Ms. Norton [continuing]. With an agency whose hierarchy,
whose structure is very difficult to understand. Do you think
that that is--do you believe that you were the CFO for the
entire agency? What were you the CFO of?
Ms. Doone. Well, I believe that I was the CFO of the entire
agency, but, unfortunately, with a decentralized financial
management structure in place, it was very difficult to have
the visibility into the financial operations----
Ms. Norton. When did that happen? Has that always been the
case, that----
Ms. Doone. It has been that way for a number of years. I
joined GSA in September of 2010, and it is my understanding
that it has been decentralized for at least a number of years.
And that is why----
Ms. Norton. Is there a CFO at the Public Buildings Service
then?
Ms. Doone. There was a position in the Public Buildings
Service that had carried the title of CFO. And I was very
concerned, actually, about this decentralization because it
caused a number of issues when one is trying to oversee the
financial operations of the agency. And this is one of the
reasons that Acting Administrator Tangherlini has taken the
step very quickly to recognize----
Ms. Norton. This issue, Mr. Chairman, of how this agency is
structured, it seems to me, is a major factor if we are going
to look at how to prevent this in the future. And I have to
asked Ms. Brita, who, apparently, the moment she understood--it
must be the moment, because the conference was held in October
and in early November Ms. Brita asked for a report.
Do you think, Ms. Brita, that there would have been any way
for you to have known or for the agency to have taken
preventative action? The agency worked well with your IG when
it came to action to penalize what had taken place, and the
penalties are still rolling out. But, of course, the taxpayers
are going to want to know, isn't there anything that could have
been done to prevent this problem in the first place?
Ms. Brita. As Alison said, under the decentralized
structure, it would have been very difficult for people in
central office to have found out. But----
Ms. Norton. You then think that the----
Mr. Denham. Ms. Norton, your time is expired.
Ms. Norton. All right.
You then think that the structure should be more
centralized?
Ms. Brita. Yes, I do. And the acting administrator has
taken steps to do that already.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Barletta?
Mr. Barletta. Mr. Miller, you had said earlier that you
thought that there was inappropriate behavior with vendors by
employees of the GSA. Would ``inappropriate behavior'' mean
possible criminal behavior?
Mr. Miller. Congressman, I do not want to talk about
criminal charges. We do have a referral at the Department of
Justice, and so I would decline to answer.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you.
Do you also believe--I mean, we are talking about this
conference, and I know you said you are looking at other
conferences around the country. But this would send a red flag
that this abuse could be more than just conferences. Are we
also looking throughout the entire agency?
Mr. Miller. My office does look throughout the entire
agency. And we have had a number of important criminal
prosecutions over the last couple of years. We sent some
individuals making counterfeit goods, selling counterfeit IT
products to the United States, we sent them to Federal prison.
There was a Chief of Staff that lied to our agents in the FBI.
We have had a number of property managers receiving bribes and
kickbacks. About 11 of them were sentenced recently.
So we have a number of criminal prosecutions. And to answer
Congressman Walz's question more precisely, the ultimate
deterrent to this kind of behavior is criminal prosecution.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Barletta.
Mr. Walz?
Mr. Walz. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I am going to come back and go on this. I am a cultural
studies teacher by trade, so this idea of culture, all the
learned and shared values, beliefs, and customs of a group of
people, I think we would be very naive to not see this in other
regions.
I am deeply concerned of this decentralized accounting,
which seems to me to go back to the heart of the lack of
transparency, the lack of oversight, the lack of direct
accountability back to it, which makes it much more difficult.
And this culture--and just like the private sector, there can
be healthy and unhealthy business practices, there can be
healthy and unhealthy agencies. This one I am getting very
concerned about.
And I am going to segue here because--which region is
Kansas City in?
Mr. Peck. Six.
Mr. Walz. So it is a different region here. So an IG report
that dates back to 2010, and I think I quote here, ``The
inspector general first accused Regional Commissioner Mary
Ruwwe's office of providing misleading information and doing
damage to GSA's credibility in an audit of health and safety
conditions.'' There is a concern there. And are some of you
aware of what is being reported there? And it was again last
night here on WUSA about the health risks that are being
reported by GSA members.
And it troubles me deeply that--were they squashed like
bugs, too, when they brought this concern forward? Because
apparently this was a big enough concern for the commissioner
there that she spent $234,000 of taxpayer money to get a PR
firm to, I quote, ``respond to questions regarding toxic
substance exposure'' instead of dealing with that.
Mr. Miller, can you tell me about this? Is this out of your
realm of responsibility? Or how familiar are you with this?
Mr. Miller. Sir, we wrote the report. And we did a report
of the Bannister Federal Building in Kansas City, Missouri, at
the request of Senator Bond and other Senators, Senator
McCaskill, and Congressman Cleaver. And we did a report; we
found that GSA did not manage the environmental risks at that
facility well over the last 10 years. In the last year, they
were taking steps to manage the environmental risk, but
historically they did not.
Mr. Walz. The risks or the risks of bad PR? Because it
seems to me they spent more money on the risks of bad PR than
the environmental risks.
Mr. Miller. Well, that is a fair statement. Our audit
report was on the environmental risks.
Now, as soon as we announced our audit, they entered into a
PR contract within 24 hours to handle PR, even though they had
a PR staff there----
Mr. Walz. Is that legal to do that?
Mr. Miller. In our opinion, they violated just about all
the procurement rules in hiring this PR firm.
Mr. Walz. How long did it take them to get that contract?
Because it has taken me 18 months to get the contract on the
community-based outpatient clinic for southern Minnesota for
our veterans.
Mr. Miller. They had it done within 24 hours. The CO was
starting to do a competition, a bid, and the CO was directed
not to do that bid.
Mr. Walz. So we have basically a no-bid contract for
$234,000----
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Mr. Walz [continuing]. To cover up--I won't use that term;
we will let the courts decide on that--at least to not address
the issues that were being brought up by employees there who
were trying to do a job--again, these are good civil servants
trying to do a job who were exposed to toxic substance, in
their opinion.
Mr. Miller. Well, we didn't get into the exact--how much
toxic substances were there. We only looked at how GSA managed
the risk, what did GSA do when they got notice of a problem. So
we didn't--we are not scientists, we didn't get into the
environmental----
Mr. Walz. Did you get into how, for lack of a better term,
the whistleblowers or the affected people were treated? Were
they squashed out? It appears to me like they were not taken
seriously in this.
The reason I bring this up is, I think, you know, being the
cultural studies teacher, not the lawyer, it doesn't take a
great leap of imagination here to see this is not just Western
Region. Now I have another region that we brought in with a
very similar cultural disinterest in their employees and a
desire to have PR trump----
Mr. Miller. Right. As an IG, before I make a general
statement, I need to have facts supporting it.
Mr. Walz. Right.
Mr. Miller. We have facts in Region 9, but we do have this
incident in Kansas City. We did the report. They hired the PR.
There were hearings before Senator McCaskill's Subcommittee on
Contracting, and Senator McCaskill tried to hold them
accountable. We noticed a number of misstatements. We informed
the committee of that, the misstatements by GSA officials in
the context of that hearing.
Mr. Walz. That is just deeply troubling again. We move at a
snail's pace until it is something with PR in an agency and we
were able to issue a contract. Again, it goes back to this. We
have crossed between healthy skepticism to cancerous cynicism
and that doesn't make it any better.
So Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Walz. I want to get down to the
point of who reported to who, and who is accountable on these
budgets. Ms. Brita, who did Neely report to? Everything is
getting blamed on Neely because he has pleaded the Fifth. I
want to know who he reported to.
Ms. Brita. Jeff Neely had two reporting streams. One was to
the regional administrator, and then a separate reporting
requirement to commissioner of the Public Buildings Service. So
he had two people that he reported to.
Mr. Denham. And there was no regional administrator,
correct?
Ms. Brita. Well, Jeff Neely, at that time, Jeff Neely was
acting in both capacities, regional administrator and as the
head of the Public Buildings Service.
Mr. Denham. So in that position who did he report to? He
reported to himself on one hand and as administrator he
reported to somebody?
Ms. Brita. And as acting regional administrator, he also
reported to Steve Leeds, who was a senior counsel to the
administrator who handled all of the regional administrators.
So he had--Jeff reported to Bob, and then he reported to Steve
Leeds. Once Ruth Cox was appointed as a regional administrator,
he then reported to her and stopped reporting to Steve Leeds.
Mr. Denham. Did you agree with that, Mr. Peck? Yes or no.
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir.
Mr. Denham. So he was a direct report?
Mr. Peck. There is not--there is not a--in GSA's
organizational chart there is not a direct report between the
regional commissioners to the PBS commissioner, but as I said,
for all intents and purposes the Public Buildings Service
commissioner has a lot of command and control over----
Mr. Denham. You signed his letter of reprimand.
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir.
Mr. Denham. And Miss Brita, you did not feel that that
letter of reprimand went far enough?
Ms. Brita. That's correct.
Mr. Denham. And what did you think should be done at the
time?
Ms. Brita. At the time, we had not decided what would--what
we were going to do. It was still in draft. I felt the letter
was too weak, given what we knew already about Western
Regional, as well as the Hats Off Program.
Mr. Denham. Let me read your email. ``You were not there
and you are not in a position to judge the entirety of the
conference. We will not be sending two separate letters if I
have anything to do with it.'' That was Bob Peck's email to
you.
Ms. Brita. That's correct.
Mr. Denham. And though he didn't--you are saying he did not
officially report to you, and even though you sent a letter of
reprimand to him, you still recommended him to be upgraded so
that he could receive a bonus.
Mr. Peck. Well, I recommended----
Mr. Denham. You are under oath. And I do have the email in
front of me.
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir. I don't--I don't know what you mean by
upgraded, but I did recommend a rating of 4 for his performance
for the year, most of which was based on the performance of his
region on business metrics that we had in place.
Mr. Denham. What did the Performance Review Board
recommend?
Mr. Peck. I don't--I thought the Performance Review Board
recommended a 4 as well, but I don't have access to that
information anymore.
Mr. Denham. Do you not chair that board?
Ms. Brita. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. What did you recommend?
Ms. Brita. The rating that was reported out of the board,
we recommended that his rating be held as a 3. He came in as a
3. We recommended that he be held as a 3.
Mr. Denham. Well, let me read a separate email from Martha
Johnson. ``I spoke to Bob yesterday after the session. He is
recommending a 4. Yes, on a bonus. He was also the acting RA
forever and a day. Martha Johnson.'' Should he have received a
bonus?
Ms. Brita. The board did not recommend that he get a bonus.
Mr. Denham. Should he have received a bonus, Mr. Peck? You
are the one who upgraded him.
Mr. Peck. In retrospect, no, sir.
Mr. Denham. What has changed your mind today? What do you
know now that you didn't know a year ago when you were
recommending him for a bonus?
Mr. Peck. That principally that there were contracting
irregularities in the Western Regions Conference, and a pattern
of conduct that Mr. Neely apparently engaged in that I did not
know about at the time.
Mr. Denham. You didn't know about it at the time. You were
at the conference.
Mr. Peck. No, sir. I didn't know about the pattern of the
other trips, the travel, the other conferences that were held
in the Region 9. That's--that's the difference.
Mr. Denham. You are the Public Buildings commissioner. When
it comes to public buildings you are the top person. The
regional--each of these different 11 regions report to you. You
are supposed to be overseeing the budgets and doing an
authorization--let me ask. I know you are going to give me a
long-winded question. I only have so much time. Miss Doone, do
you not see all of these budgets?
Ms. Doone. No, my office does not see those budgets for the
regional commissioners.
Mr. Denham. Should Mr. Peck be able to see all of those
budgets?
Ms. Doone. Yes, he should.
Mr. Denham. Is there any reason that those budgets would
have been hidden from him?
Ms. Doone. I don't know.
Mr. Denham. Is there any reason that Mr. Peck should be
hiding those budgets from this committee after requesting them
over a dozen times?
Ms. Doone. Not that I know of.
Mr. Denham. Is there any reason that this issue should not
have come to light a year-and-a-half ago when the IG released
his initial report?
Ms. Doone. I don't know.
Mr. Denham. I'm out of time. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just
want to follow up on the chairman's questions. Mr. Brita--I
mean, Mr. Peck, what is up with this? I mean, what's happening
with the budget? I mean, why can't you get that information to
us? And I know--don't tell me that you don't have it now. I'm
talking about when you did have access to it.
Mr. Peck. Mr. Cummings, the--as to the detailed questions
that Mr.--that Chairman Denham mentioned about personnel
employment and those kinds of things, I believe that we
submitted that--that we first got a request in that detail from
the committee, to my memory, my memory last December, and I
believe we submitted it in late February or early March, and it
had to go through--we had to dig out the information, get it
reviewed and approved, and then sent it up here. I believe that
was delivered.
Mr. Cummings. Now, let me go back to the questions I was
asking you a few minutes ago with regard to your supervisory
role over Mr. Neely. I think you said that you had heard some
complaints about him, is that right?
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. And tell me what the nature of those
complaints were again.
Mr. Peck. Well, it was general and not specific, but I had
heard that Mr. Neely in his headquarters at least was regarded
as someone who you didn't--he didn't take well if people
debated with him on his decisions.
Mr. Cummings. And did that concern you?
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir, and I discussed it with Mr. Neely on
more than one occasion.
Mr. Cummings. And so did you hear about this on more than
one occasion?
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. And did you hear about it from a number of
employees, one, two, three?
Mr. Peck. I actually heard about it more from senior
management peers of Mr. Neely, than I did from employees in the
region itself.
Mr. Cummings. And so, you know, I guess what's bothering me
about your role, and I have listened to your testimony very
carefully, it seems as if you play down your role in all of
this, but as the immediate supervisor, and you can call it
whatever you want to call it, when you have got a man who has
got two supervisors and one is himself and the other is you, as
far as I'm concerned, you are his supervisor. It seems as if
you, you know, would have had more hands on Mr. Neely. And I
just--and you know, my mother used to--who was a former
sharecropper, used to say, son, you can have motion, commotion,
and emotion, and no results. And I don't want these hearings to
be, you know, very emotional, and then we don't get results.
And so I'm trying to get to what happened here. I'm wondering
if somebody, the structure was one which the person in your
position should have had more authority and should have had
access to more information, or whether you didn't do your job;
whether you failed to overlook Mr. Neely. Then I wondered, too,
whether you felt intimidated by Mr. Neely. Because obviously,
he had a reign of threats going on around him, and so I just--
help me with this. I mean, if you had to restructure that
relationship, that is, the Neely position and your position, I
mean, how would you restructure that? Because Mr. Tangherlini
is trying to make sense of this, and I know he is going to do a
great job. So--but help him. He is watching you. So tell him
what--give him your suggestions.
Mr. Peck. Mr. Cummings, before I left the agency I was
discussing with Miss Doone and with former Administrator
Johnson doing what Mr. Tangherlini is doing, which is providing
more direct control from the central office over the financial
operations of the regions. That's one. Two, I would have the
regional commissioners unequivocally report directly to the PBS
national commissioner. I was focused a lot on the business
metrics for each of the regions, including how much space the
Government was occupying, how much we were spending on leasing,
and we were working very hard to get those numbers down because
they are in the billions of dollars, and they can exercise real
savings----
Mr. Cummings. So as far as these conferences were
concerned, you would have it so that you had absolutely nothing
to say about that, a person in your position?
Mr. Peck. Unless someone brought something to my attention
and I thought that there was something out of line, I would not
generally be supervising where and when regional conferences
were happening.
Mr. Cummings. Very well. I mean, as I listen to you, I
think that you made it sound like you played a very lightweight
role in this, and sir, I must tell you, I think that you played
a major role and I am sure we will get to the bottom of it at
some point.
With that I yield back.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Cummings. Mr. Peck I'm going to
remind you not only that you are under oath, but that this has
already been referred to the Department of Justice. There are
criminal issues at hand here. And to play this lightly, that
everything is Mr. Neely's fault, certainly I think has this
entire committee puzzled. I want to just bring back those
emails that I was talking about. The emails from you to Miss
Brita, July of last year, the whole bonus, November 5th of last
year, an IG report, which came out in May of last year. This is
an internal report. The conference happened in 2010. Miss Brita
very bravely stepped forward and brought this attention to the
IG. The IG did a preliminary report, issued that report back to
Mr. Miller.
Who did you submit this report to?
Mr. Miller. Administrator Johnson.
Mr. Denham. And who did the administrator give it to?
Mr. Miller. Well, Miss Brita as well, and I'm not sure who
she gave it to. I don't know the exact nature of the list, but
I believe she gave it to Mr. Peck and----
Mr. Denham. Mr. Peck, did you receive a copy of this?
Mr. Peck. I'm sorry. Could you say again what it is?
Mr. Denham. Did you receive a copy of the Western Regions
Conference ``OIG Interim Alert Report on Investigation Into
Potential Fraud, Waste, and Abuse.''
Mr. Peck. I did, yes, sir.
Mr. Denham. And did you receive it in a timely fashion,
somewhere around May of last year?
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir.
Mr. Denham. This gets to a bigger question of the culture
in GSA. If somebody stepped forward, a whistleblower stepped
forward and alerted the IG to an issue, and the IG came back
and issued a report on investigation into potential fraud,
waste, and abuse, why then would you have a dispute with Miss
Brita and Martha Johnson and recommend somebody to get a bonus
at the end of the year?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman, as I described, the bonus system is
based on a number of performance metrics. And I was looking at
the performance of the region with respect to its major real
estate responsibilities as well as Mr. Neely's problems with
the conference. But I will say again, as I said in my
testimony----
Mr. Denham. This is 20 pages long with quite a bit of
detail. And you told Susan Brita, ``You were not there. You are
not in a position to judge the entirety of the conference. We
will not be sending two separate letters if I have anything to
do with it.''
She sits on the committee. She recommended a 3, no bonus.
You came back, and sent an email to Martha Johnson, or Martha
Johnson sent an email to Susan Brita. ``I spoke to Bob
yesterday after the session. He is recommending a 4. Yes on a
bonus. He was also the acting RA forever and a day.''
There are criminal issues at stake here. This is all in
this report that you had a copy of a year ago, that you read,
that Mr. Neely had a copy of and he read, and still continued
to take many other trips, which we are going to get into
greater detail here shortly, many other trips with other
criminal issues involved, and you felt that it was important to
go against committee staff and upgrade him and give him a
bonus.
That is a culture within an agency that shows no matter
what investigative report is going on, no matter what
information or details we have, we are going to operate
business as usual. So I don't think that you can sit here and
blame everything on Mr. Neely when you are the one who
recommended him for a raise after giving him a letter of
reprimand.
Do you have a response?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman, as I said, I take responsibility
for everything that happened on my watch. As I said, I was
focused on performance among the regions on a lot of the
metrics, things that you and I discussed about reducing the
amount of space the Government occupies, trying to do a better
job, getting real estate----
Mr. Denham. In this report.
Mr. Peck. Excuse me, sir, and but I understand--what I knew
at the time in that report, I believe it deserved him being
graded down to a 4 because on performance metrics alone he
might have got--he would have gotten a higher number, so we
were grading him down to a number and then we had a
conversation about whether it should be a 3 or a 4, yes, sir.
Mr. Denham. In this report, I'm going to go through one
page of it before I turn this back over to Ms. Norton. The
preplanning meetings, the dry runs. Again, this goes to the
overall culture of these expensive trips. Back in 2009, March
9th through 11th, was the first planning trip with free stays
at Caesars Palace for several attendees. March 30th through
31st, 2009, 13 attendees at the Ritz-Carlton and M Resort.
August 17th through the 19th, 2009, other attendees, $6,000
cost. November 4th through 6th, the M Resort, 65 attendees.
March 8th through 12th, 15 attendees, back at the M Resort.
June 30th through July 2nd, 8 attendees. And August 17th
through 19th, 20 attendees. And on several of these trips Mr.
Neely not only approved, approved all of them, but on several
of these trips Mr. Neely went and brought his family and
friends as well.
Many of these trips I should verify--I don't know if all of
these trips included suites, the very large 2200-square-foot
room that you and Mr. Neely, separate hotel rooms, but you and
Mr. Neely both enjoyed. And then October 12th through 15th, 31
attendees, including Mr. Neely. Nine trips before this lavish
conference. This is part of this that was in this report that
you saw; that you shared with Mr. Neely. You gave a copy to Mr.
Neely, this official inside document, showed him what he did.
You knew of it, and then you still went against Ms. Brita's
recommendation--the Commission's recommendation and gave him a
bonus and upgraded him from to 3 to a 4. How can you blame all
of this on Mr. Neely when you were the one who approved it?
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman, I'm not saying that--as I made
clear, I thought that Mr. Neely's actions were wrong. I thought
the conference went--was clearly excessive.
Mr. Denham. I am not going to continue to beat up on the
conference. I think that Mr. Cummings and Mr. Issa did a very
good job talking about the Las Vegas conference yesterday. This
is about the overall culture and you were the man that was in
charge of the public buildings area which allowed all of these
different trips.
Now, we are going to go into many other trips that GSA has
gone through, but the Public Buildings Fund has been used not
only on these nine trips, but the lavish Las Vegas vacation and
Napa and everything else that was on your watch that not only
the Western Region did, but every other region.
Miss Norton.
Ms. Norton. This question is not only for Mr. Peck. I have
to ask all of you sitting at the table, because you all live
with this system. This puzzled us yesterday at the Government
Reform hearing. I sit on that committee as well. This notion
about performance and conduct sounds very, very bureaucratic,
but I can tell you one thing, that nobody in the real world, I
don't think in the private sector even, would separate out
conduct and performance so that one could, in fact, be seen as
an excellent performer or a good performer while engaged in
conduct that the agency frowned on.
So you have to make me understand where the system comes
from, if it is peculiar to GSA, and whether you think it is
defensible. I would like to go right across the board. Do you
think it is a defensible system to bifurcate performance and
conduct?
Mr. Peck. No. And I think some of--some of the ways in
which there are impediments to--in personnel management and in
conducting discipline--have something to do with this, by which
I mean this: That there are on the one hand, as every civil
servant should have, the right to fair play, the right to due
process in disciplinary action. But it is sometimes a very
cumbersome practice, and what one is able to do and not to do
is not clear, and I think that that gets in the way of mixing
the two.
Ms. Norton. Well, I have got to ask Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller,
you are an inspector general. Is this system found across the
Government where performance and conduct are on two separate
tracks?
Mr. Miller. No, I don't--I don't believe--well, first of
all, I'm not an expert in personnel law, but I don't believe
that that distinction makes sense. If someone brought in a lot
of leases, but they did it through stealing, that is still a
bad performance. You can't separate out the two. And you know,
the fact of the matter is that Mr. Neely got a performance
award of $9,000, and he got a special act award.
Ms. Norton. It does seem to me that civil service, which is
supposed to keep favoritism out of the picture, this almost
encourages favoritism because you can always say, and I'm not
assuming that that happened here, you can say well, this is
based on one factor or the other. And of course, it runs
counter to everything you teach a child. It runs counter to how
the President handled this situation. Mr. Peck and Miss Johnson
have extraordinary performance records in the Federal
Government, but the conduct of the employees under them was
laid to them, and so the President decided, it seemed to me
appropriately, that he could not bifurcate even their years of
excellent performance.
Now, Ms. Brita, you have been in the Government a long
time. You were I think Chief of Staff, or very high in the
General Services Administration before your record there
brought you to the Congress. You have been brought back as a
political appointee. Did you see this in the agency when you
were there before? Mr. Miller didn't know of any such
bifurcation elsewhere, and given your--given your time in the
agency, I would like your view of the performance versus
conduct way of viewing one's employees, and where it came from.
Ms. Brita. Well, Miss Norton, I can tell you what we did on
our performance board, not only most recently, but certainly in
the mid-1980s, when I was there. Performance and conduct were
always considered----
Ms. Norton. There were no separate tracks in the 1980s.
Ms. Brita. Performance is a bedrock. Everyone has to
perform, so that is a--you must consider performance, but
overlaying that is always the overall conduct.
Ms. Norton. So you don't know when this bifurcation took
place.
Ms. Brita. No, but when you are evaluating the SES conduct
as well as performance has to be a part of the overall
evaluation.
Ms. Norton. If one is looking for one way, one remedy, it
would certainly be that.
Could I ask you, Mr. Miller, in light of what you testified
about the aura of retaliation, and the rest, whether you found
that there was any obstruction to your own investigation.
Mr. Miller. We are looking into all sorts of leads. We
currently--we did not find any outright obstruction yet.
Ms. Norton. In fact, you were able to put quite a bit on
the record, it does seem to me.
Mr. Miller. Yeah, well, we were able to investigate and
write this report and publish it without obstruction.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. And thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Let's go to slide 13. Mr. Miller, we talked
about the 17-day trip to the South Pacific in February 2012;
this February, a couple of months ago. So in the last couple of
years, Mr. Neely has taken many trips to Napa, several trips on
the planning missions to Las Vegas. It all came out in your IG
report of May last year. Miss Brita downgraded him on her
committee. Mr. Peck went ahead and gave him a bonus anyways.
And then your new report came out, which I have got to hand it
to you, this report was pretty detailed. This would have been
several, I think, committee hearings just in having your
initial report a year ago. So your new report comes out. Now it
is all hands on deck.
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Denham. Everybody in GSA knows, apparently, because we
have handed this report out. We have seen Members hand this
report out to many people beyond Martha Johnson. The
Administration is now aware of it. And then several other trips
happened, including this trip, a 17-day trip to the South
Pacific, to Hawaii, Honolulu, Guam, Saipan, in an internal
email trying to justify it.
But here is the personal email at the bottom where his wife
asks about the schedule. He tells her it is going to be a
birthday present for her. They are excited about the party.
What can you tell us about this trip? Was it justified?
Mr. Miller. Well, we were concerned about the trip. That's
why we brought it up with the deputy administrator, Susan
Brita. She then brought it up with the regional administrator.
Mr. Denham. Miss Brita, did you bring that up to the
regional administrator?
Ms. Brita. Yes, sir, I did.
Mr. Denham. Which was who?
Ms. Brita. Ruth Cox. She is the regional administrator.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Peck know about it?
Ms. Brita. I don't know if Ruth called Bob or not. I know I
spoke directly to her.
Mr. Denham. Martha Johnson know about it?
Ms. Brita. I don't believe I mentioned it to Martha. I
think I just called Ruth directly.
Mr. Denham. OK, so you had concern about this. Obviously,
this has gone on for well over a year-and-a-half. We have got
two IG reports out now. Still at this point nobody has been
fired. Nobody has been put on administrative leave. Nobody has
resigned.
A year-and-a-half more of lavish spending, lavish trips.
This trips happens. You once again are put in a position
where--and you have already been a whistleblower. I mean, I
think you did your job. I think you did your job by going to
the IG in the first place to say hold on a second, I think we
have a problem here. Now, I mean, I congratulate you on that. I
think most people would have stopped there. And then this
continued to go on for the next year-and-a-half, and you
brought it to a number of different people's attention, that
this trip shouldn't go on.
And Mr. Miller, you also made a recommendation. What was
your recommendation?
Mr. Miller. Well, we were concerned that this was an
unnecessary trip and a waste of money. You saw the email. He
says it is a birthday gift for his wife. They quote the song,
it is your party, we are going to party like your party--you
have read the emails. We were very concerned about this. We
were concerned about the performance award that was given,
$9,000. There was a special act award of $3,000.
Mr. Denham. And have you investigated this trip and the
expenses associated with this trip?
Mr. Miller. We are currently investigating them, yes.
Mr. Denham. And you have not provided any of that
investigation to this committee yet, have you, other than the
emails that directly correspond to it?
Mr. Miller. We provided the emails, yes.
Mr. Denham. You don't have the expenses associated with
that trip?
Mr. Miller. I'm not sure that we provided that yet. We are
still working on all of the expenses and working in conjunction
with the Department of Justice.
Mr. Denham. Did Mrs. Neely or Mr. Neely pay for the expense
of a spouse travel?
Mr. Miller. If you hold on, I will check with staff.
1We have no evidence at this time that the Government paid
for Mrs. Neely.
Mr. Denham. How often does this happen that you can take a
family, you can throw a 21st birthday party for your kids in
these suites? How often does it happen that you have family
travel, you have friends travel, you have these expensive
suites on the taxpayers' dime?
Mr. Miller. It seems like they have it backwards. They have
to have a legitimate business reason. If it is necessary to
travel to accomplish your goals----
Mr. Denham. Would a 1-hour ribbon cutting justify a 7- to
9-day trip?
Mr. Miller. Not in my opinion.
Mr. Denham. But in some opinion in the GSA it happens.
Mr. Miller. Well, apparently it happened. I can't see how
anyone can condone that, but----
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Mr. Walz.
Mr. Walz. I yield back my time to you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller. They have it backwards. If you have to travel,
it is permissible if a family member stays in your hotel room
and you pay for that family member's travel apart from that.
That's OK. But to plan travel for a birthday is totally
impermissible.
Mr. Denham. In one of these lavish suites, one of these
2200-square-foot rooms that Mr. Peck and Mr. Neely each had,
there was a 21st birthday party thrown for family and friends.
Can you discuss what you found in that issue?
Mr. Miller. As I recall, there was a 21st birthday of a
family member of one of the event planners for PBS. And the
Location Solvers, I believe, according to testimony, the
Location Solvers found a hotel in Las Vegas for that family
member and the party, and kind of helped arrange the party, and
that they had a party in Las Vegas and they got special room
rates arranged by the Location Solvers. Is that the event you
were referring to?
Mr. Denham. Yes.
Mr. Miller. OK.
Mr. Denham. That was one of the nine trips prior to the Las
Vegas vacation.
Mr. Miller. That was a separate trip. There were nine
trips, and I guess planning for the Western Regions Conference.
And there were--maybe you are thinking of--they stayed on an
extra day and tried to get the special Government rate that was
not available for the loft suite, and they tried to get that
special rate. Ultimately, they could not get the special rate,
and they charged the balance to the Federal Government.
Mr. Denham. That was the $1,000, roughly $1,000.
Mr. Miller. Yes, roughly that.
Mr. Denham. So the Government paid for the room?
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Denham. GSA is the landlord of all of our public
buildings. Is there any reason that GSA, all agencies of
Government, is there any lack of space that we have right now
that would not allow all agencies of Government to hold some
type of conference in a public building?
Mr. Miller. I think there is plenty of space in public
buildings to have conferences. This particular conference was
to showcase talent, theatrical talent as well as other talent
of the GSA employees. You can draw your own opinion as to
whether it was necessary in the first place.
Mr. Denham. Miss Doone, we have been asking for the
financial information and administrative cost data since last
year. Obviously, you can see my frustration. It does seem like
GSA has been stonewalling us for quite some time. Why has it
taken so long to get this basic information?
Ms. Doone. I can't answer that, but I can tell you that we
have your most recent request, your most recent letter that you
sent to Acting Administrator Tangherlini, and my office is
working on that answer.
Mr. Denham. Is there a reason that we have a 200-percent
increase in the PBS commissioner's budget.
Ms. Doone. I can't answer that question because I don't
have the numbers that you are referring to.
Mr. Denham. Has there been an increase in the PBS budget?
Ms. Doone. Yes, there has been.
Mr. Denham. How big, in your estimation?
Ms. Doone. It has gone up--it has gone up over the past
several years, and as a result of an increase in FTE, as well
as cost in utilities and fuels in the administrative cost area
that you are referring to.
Mr. Denham. Traveling conference budget gone up?
Ms. Doone. I do not know.
Mr. Denham. How do you not know?
Ms. Doone. Because that information is managed at the
level--at the Public Buildings Service level.
Mr. Denham. It is not managed. Mr. Peck is unaware of it as
well. Does GSA have the authority to remove funds from the
Federal Buildings Fund?
Ms. Doone. The money stays within the Federal Buildings
Fund.
Mr. Denham. Does GSA have the authority to move money from
the Public Buildings Fund?
Ms. Doone. Not that I'm aware of.
Mr. Denham.What is your relationship with the regional CFOs
and how are you ensuring that their authority is not undermined
at the regional level?
Ms. Doone. I had no authority with the regional CFOs until
Acting Administrator Tangherlini realigned that relationship.
Mr. Denham. You have been there for a while though. Did you
not have a relationship before?
Ms. Doone. No.
Mr. Denham. So this is a new procedure that is being put in
place----
Ms. Doone. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Miller, did you learn from your
investigation how a regional office can go so far over budget
without anyone holding them accountable?
Mr. Miller. Yes, I think Region 9 is a good example of
that. And if I could just correct something for the record. The
special act award to Mr. Neely was $2,000 this year, not 3 that
I said. And the performance award was $9,000.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Miss Norton.
Ms. Norton. I have been--Mr. Neely apparently figures as a
central character in this drama. I have been trying to figure
out how he became so powerful, if I may use that word.
Mr. Neely is not a political appointee, is that correct? Is
Mr. Neely a political appointee?
Mr. Miller. No, he is career SES.
Ms. Norton. So this is a career civil servant, not a
political appointee who was acting regional administrator for a
very long time. I believe 30 months. Could I ask you, Mr.
Miller, you, Miss Brita, in playing the role of regional
administrator for all intents and purposes and PBS
commissioner, in effect was Mr. Neely reporting from one level
as himself to another level as himself with no reporting above
him?
Mr. Miller. When he was acting regional administrator, he,
as regional commissioner of PBS in one sense would report to
himself as acting regional administrator. Theoretically, the
PBS regional commissioner would report to the central office
PBS commissioner, and to the deputy administrator and the
administrator.
Ms. Norton. So he was reporting in his commissioner roll up
through a something of a chain of command to Mr. Peck?
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Ms. Norton. In his acting regional administration role, he
was doing what?
Ms. Brita. He was reporting to Steve Leeds, who was the
senior counsel to the administrator. He----
Ms. Norton. Which is like reporting to the administrator?
Ms. Brita. Well, he was directly reporting to Steve Leeds,
and----
Ms. Norton. No, I am trying to establish whether he had a
chain of command.
Ms. Brita. And Steve reported to the administrator,
correct, yes.
Ms. Norton. What did that lead to? Were there reports up to
whoever Steve Leeds is to the--to headquarters from--in his
role as acting administrator?
Ms. Brita. When Jeff reported to Steve Leeds?
Ms. Norton. Yes.
Ms. Brita. Whatever conversations he had with Steve Leeds,
Steve reported to Martha. I was not part of that reporting
chain.
Ms. Norton. I'm simply trying to understand whether or not
Mr. Neely was an island unto himself when he held these two
roles, or whether there was any coherent reporting authority
who was in charge here.
Ms. Brita. Well, certainly on paper there was a chain of
command and a coherent reporting.
Ms. Norton. And what paperwork would that have been, Miss
Brita?
Ms. Brita. It would have been--as RA he was reporting
himself to Steve, and then Steve--Steve Leeds reported to the
administrator. In his role as commissioner, he reported through
the RA and he reported directly into headquarters to the
commissioner of Public Buildings Service.
Ms. Norton. Is this true of all of the regional
administrators, they have this dual reporting----
Ms. Brita. Yes.
Ms. Norton. And how does that work at GSA?
Ms. Brita. It has been something--we are looking at that.
It is something that the acting administrator is reviewing very
carefully. There are obviously things that need to be
streamlined, but we are looking at that as part of our top-to-
bottom review.
Ms. Norton. One wonders if the--two, this is one agency.
The two functions are of course quite distinctly different. And
I can understand the difficulty we have here. It does seem to
me, though, that other agencies with very distinctively
different parts end up where somebody at the top is in charge
of the whole, and I don't know if this is what happened with
the Western Region. I do not know whether this is what happened
with Mr. Neely. But Mr. Peck said, in essence, he knew nothing
about the conference. So whatever you do down there, if you
hold conferences, it apparently never gets to headquarters.
Miss Doone knew nothing about the cost, and her title is CFO of
the entire agency. This is an agency whose structure makes no
sense. I don't know if it grew like Topsy over time, so that
you just kind of fill in the the triangles, but I do not
understand how, allowing each level to not know what the other
is doing with a level of decentralization that comes without
accountability. Certainly you have got accountability at the
top.
So I am very, very concerned about the structure of the
agency. I don't know the origin of this structure. At this
point it seems simple minded, and it--and I do want to--I do
want to make clear that as a person who ran a complicated
Federal agency myself, I certainly believe in decentralized
management control. I mean, if you run Federal agencies like it
is the Army, you are really going to get in trouble, and by the
way, even in the Army there is very decentralized control that
you have got. For example, and this is not quite the Army, but
in the Selective Service or the Secret Service matter, you
notice that when that scandal broke this week that they took
the whole unit out? And ultimately, they are going to the
supervisors and they are going, it seems to me, up a chain of
command. As long as we know who reports to who, so that each
one can hold the other accountable, then the decentralization
is good. Otherwise, you lose all sense of innovation. People
have to ask the layer above them, and then the layer above it
what should be done.
Mr. Miller, I don't know if you will be involved because
you now know more about at least what went wrong, when the new
administrator considers whether there are structural issues. So
could I ask you, generally is the IG consulted on such matters
as to whether or not there are structural issues that should be
remedied when an agency like this one has to consider what its
conceivable remedies are?
Mr. Miller. In the past we have not been, but I would
suspect that Dan Tangherlini, the new acting administrator,
will consult with us. And I did want----
Ms. Norton. You would have some recommendations, I take it.
Do you think----
Mr. Miller. We will have some recommendations. Generally,
this is an agency function, how to manage itself. It has
spilled over into all sorts of problems that we have observed.
So----
Mr. Denham. Your time has expired. We are going to get
deeper into those recommendations in the second panel. We are
going to invite you backup for the second panel as well.
Miss Brita, going in a slightly different direction. Do you
think the L.A. Courthouse should be built?
Ms. Brita. The agency has made a decision to move forward
with the L.A. Courthouse, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Do you think it should be built?
Ms. Brita. As a member of the agency, that is a decision of
the agency, and I abide by the decision.
Mr. Denham. We have emails. Do you think--we have email. Do
you think that it should be built?
Ms. Brita. I am a member of the agency, and as of now, I
believe the L.A. Courthouse, that is the decision the agency
made, and I abide by it.
Mr. Denham. Have you changed your mind?
Ms. Brita. I personally will not change my mind about Los
Angeles, but as a member of the----
Mr. Denham. OK, I will not push any further in this
direction.
Ms. Brita. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. The reason I bring up the L.A. Courthouse, this
is something that was authorized a decade ago. We have less
judges than we had a decade ago. We have empty office space in
the Roybal Building, a courthouse that is adjacent to the old
courthouse that is there now. The old courthouse has eight
vacant buildings. We have vacant courthouses across the Nation.
Why I bring this issue up, it is estimated $400 million
that we are going to spend that exceed authorized amounts. This
committee in a bipartisan fashion has asked for a new
prospectus, regardless of GSA's position, regardless of L.A.,
or California's position, or the Western Region's position.
This is a decade-old prospectus. The building has changed
significantly. Expenditures are grossly going to exceed the
amounts that have been authorized and there is going to be less
space than what was originally authorized a decade ago.
I mean, to me, this seems like we are going to build this
at any cost. Why this is relevant, not only has the GSA not
come back with a prospectus and ignored this committee, but we
have a separate letter from Martha Johnson on the very topic.
We are going to be bringing that up again at the next panel as
well.
To me it smells like an inside deal. Why would you move
forward on this? Let me back up. I don't think that it is a
question of why wouldn't you move forward. Because GSA may have
its reasons. L.A. may have a way to justify it. There may be a
number of different issues and questions out there. But a
project that has changed significantly from what it originally
was, an expenditure that is going to far exceed what was
originally allocated, and a congressional committee that has
not said stop the project, not give the money back; just said,
give us a new prospectus. Show us how you are going to spend
the money. If it is justified, show us that it is justified.
Is there any reason why we would not do a new prospectus on
this building?
Ms. Brita. Mr. Chairman, we have, in Region 9, a new
regional commissioner for the Public Buildings Service. We have
a new commissioner here at headquarters, and we have a new
acting administrator. I believe that this project will get a
thorough review. We will work very closely with the
subcommittee to answer as many questions--in fact, all of your
questions and we will come to a joint resolution about the Los
Angeles courthouse project. It is one of the projects that the
acting administrator has asked about in his first few days. We
are preparing that briefing. We will get it ready, and we will
work with the committee to reach resolution on Los Angeles.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Mr. Walz.
Mr. Walz. I yield back to you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. I want to go through a separate
timeline, Mr. Miller. May of 2010. Intern conference in Palm
Springs. You are doing an investigation on that property, or
that----
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Denham [continuing]. That conference?
Mr. Miller. Yes, sir, we are.
Mr. Denham. Is that customary to have interns do a
conference? Are interns employees, or are they like our interns
that are----
Mr. Miller. They are employees. They are hired under an
intern program, where they are probationary employees for, I
believe, 2 years, hired right out of college. So they are full
employees, but on probationary status.
Mr. Denham. Probationary employees right out of college,
interns. Any reason why we would have an intern conference in
Palm Springs, Riviera Resort. Excluding travel and per diem the
conference itself spent $150,000. Is there any reason we should
be spending that on interns?
Mr. Miller. I see no reason.
Mr. Denham. Does it happen in other agencies that you know
of?
Mr. Miller. I don't know that it happens in other agencies.
I don't believe it happens throughout GSA, but I will check on
that.
Mr. Denham. OK, and that IG report you are conducting
currently?
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Mr. Denham. OK, October 2010. This is the Western Regional
Conference that we have heard so much about, almost $1 million
spent, nine different preplanning parties where we had friends,
family, all join in on those. Out of all of those different
preplanning events, how many is customary? I mean, do you
always--do you have preplanning events for each of these
different conferences across the United States, around the
world?
Mr. Miller. It varies, but nine is clearly excessive. And
they had representatives from the region and a central office
representative involved in the preplanning.
Mr. Denham. What is customary? In your work as an IG, what
is customary in GSA? What is customary in other agencies?
Mr. Miller. To have a preplanning conference--in terms of
offsite at the actual location, I am not sure there is anything
that is customary. I can't imagine having, you know, just from
my own perspective, having any more than one, if that, at the
location.
Mr. Denham. I have just never seen it from the business
standpoint where you have businesses, corporations that would
send not only--I wouldn't think a corporation would send
anybody for a preplanning conference, but if you did you would
send, I don't know, one or two people. Is there any reason
why--let's just assume for a second that there was a need for a
preplanning trip. How many people do you think should go on a
trip like that if you were planning?
Mr. Miller. I don't plan conferences. I am not an expert in
this area. I don't know that--how many they should send or not.
I think what they would say is that they would need to hook up
the audio-visual and make sure it all worked right and that
sort of thing.
Mr. Denham. Wait. I thought that that was the planning--
private company that we paid to do that.
Mr. Miller. They did hire a private company for that.
Mr. Denham. So they hired a private company and they took
nine preplanning trips.
Mr. Miller. Indeed, indeed.
Mr. Denham. To check out audio-visual.
Mr. Miller. In my opinion, the preplanning trips were not
justified.
Mr. Denham. Shortly after that, Deputy Administrator Brita,
we talked about her involvement in this. What is customary when
you have an IG investigation? I assume that when a
whistleblower comes forward, you talk to the top administrator,
which would have been Martha Johnson. Is that--walk us through.
How--what happens when you get contacted by a whistleblower?
What starts the investigation, and who do you contact?
Mr. Miller. Well, our office of investigations will assign
a special agent to the allegation. We will check it out. We
will interview people. We will get documents. We will find out
is there anything to this? Is this a meritorious complaint? And
as we look at it, we--and we may find more allegations. We may
find more suspicious activity, which happened in this case. As
I mentioned, you know, we are turning over the--every
proverbial rock, every proverbial stone, we found 50 more. And
so this is how it would work. The whistleblower comes to us. We
assign agents. We may assign auditors. We may assign forensic
auditors. In this case, we also assigned attorneys. I would not
necessarily communicate with the administrator. I chose to do
so on this particular one, in May of 2011, because it was so
egregious. We wanted to stop the spending. We wanted to stop
the waste.
Mr. Denham. How many trips took place between October or
November when the whistleblower contacted you and the
investigation that you turned over in May of 2011?
Mr. Miller. The trips by the Region 9 commissioner that's
separate from the Western Regions Conference report and
investigation. As we looked at the Western Regions Conference
issue, we discovered these additional trips by the regional
commissioner, and we were quite concerned about that.
Mr. Denham. Ongoing investigation on those trips?
Mr. Miller. Yes, we do. And----
Mr. Denham. All of the various trips prior to the October
2010 Vegas trip, and after, subsequent to the Vegas trip you
are doing an investigation on.
Mr. Miller. We are investigating the trips we know of. They
include some trips prior to that.
Mr. Denham. OK, I am not going to dive too much into that.
I have seen some of the emails already, but we will come back
to that. May 2011, you came up with your report. You gave that
to Administrator Johnson, and at that time you wanted to get a
handle on the regional conference's travel.
Mr. Miller. We briefed the--Administrator Johnson in May
about the WRC. We went through the PowerPoint. The idea was to
stop more spending, for her to get control of the conferences.
I personally met with the regional----
Mr. Denham. I am out of time, but did it stop?
Mr. Miller. Not that--not that I could tell.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Miss Norton.
Ms. Norton. I would just like some clarification on the
L.A. Courthouse. I mean, it goes back to my first days in the
Congress. Why was--I think it was $400 million. Why was the
L.A. Courthouse not built then? I mean, it should not have
lived to be an issue today since it wasn't built. Miss Brita.
Ms. Brita. Ms. Norton, the L.A. Courthouse, there was
always an ongoing discussion between the judges, between the
Administrative Office of the Courts and GSA itself, PBS itself,
about what would be built out in Los Angeles; the number of
courtrooms, the size of the buildings. It was back and forth
and back and forth. It spanned commissioners. It spanned
administrations. Even the Bush administration, the Clinton
administration. It went back and forth. And it was very
difficult for the agency to reach resolution with the judges
about what exactly to build out there.
Ms. Norton. So here we have judges who may know something
about the law having a considerable role in what the GSA builds
and even--even deeply enough so that they can stop a building
from being done simply by objecting to the number of rooms,
even how big it is. This is one of the reasons why, of course,
we got a GAO report on shared courthouses, and while the judges
have been the bane of at least my existence ever since I have
been in the Congress, and the committee of course now has a
policy which is very clear about who makes decisions about the
size of courthouses and who should be involved. I will say it
again, the judges have been a major factor in courthouse waste,
and the L.A. Courthouse which was bandied about by them in GSA,
and I am going to say GSA paying disproportionate attention to
them, now leaves us in the position where you have some
appropriators wanting the courthouse because the money is out
there.
Let me ask you, Mr. Peck. Will any additional funds be
necessary--this was at least, what it is 15 years ago, Miss
Brita, that this money was appropriated? How is anybody even
going to build a courthouse at all, or are you expecting that
you will begin to build and you will come back and say, we need
some more money for the L.A. Courthouse, which of course this
committee thinks we don't need in the first place.
Mr. Peck. Ms. Norton, the appropriations I think for this
were made in 2001 and then again in 2004 or 2005.
Ms. Norton. I am sorry, what was made in 2000?
Mr. Peck. The appropriations for the courthouse.
Ms. Norton. You mean they keep reappropriating the same
money?
Mr. Peck. No, ma'am. I am just saying there were two
tranches. There was an appropriation I believe for site and
design in 2001 and then appropriation for construction in 2004.
Ms. Norton. Well, is the total cost $400 million?
Mr. Peck. The total cost is $399 million.
Ms. Norton. So in 2000, a dozen years ago, it was believed
that the courthouse should cost $400 million. Could a
courthouse be built in L.A. for $400 million today?
Mr. Peck. Today the construction budget, if I recall
correctly, is about $335 million. It can be built. It is much
reduced in scope from what the judges wanted. And if GSA
manages----
Ms. Norton. So it is half of your----
Mr. Peck. I would have to go back and look at how many. It
is many fewer courtrooms than were proposed back in 2001 or
2004.
Ms. Norton. Do you think this courthouse should be built at
all now that you are free of the post that you held at GSA? If
you had your--if you had the ability to make an independent
judgment, Mr. Peck, would you believe that there are other ways
to accommodate the needs in L.A. than building even a scaled
down courthouse?
Mr. Peck. I did take a look at alternatives for providing
the kind of security and space that the courts need. I was
convinced that the best thing to do was, in fact, to build a
new courthouse, to fill up the other building, the Roybal
Building, and with respect to the historic courthouse, either
retain it in the GSA inventory and move a lot of expensive
lease space in Los Angeles into that building or sell off the
historic courthouse.
Ms. Norton. Is that what the agency is going to do?
Mr. Peck. Well, that was when I left, those two
alternatives for the use of the historic courthouse was what
were being considered.
Ms. Norton. Could any additional Federal building funds be
used if there were any shortfall in building, assuming it
precedes the L.A. Courthouse, or does the agency feel
constrained by whatever funds have already been appropriated?
Mr. Peck. Well, when I left I said that we would, GSA would
never come back for more money for the Los Angeles courthouse
if the contract were in fact awarded, but that was my
direction.
Ms. Norton. Has construction begun on a new courthouse in
L.A.?
Mr. Peck. No, ma'am. It is, as I understand it, there is a
solicitation on the street for a design-build contract to
design and build a courthouse for $335 or so million.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Doone, when was Mr. Peck fired?
Ms. Doone. I don't know the specific date.
Mr. Denham. Do you have a specific date, Ms. Brita?
Ms. Brita. I don't. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman. It was the
beginning.
Mr. Denham. Do you recall, Mr. Peck?
Mr. Peck. Yes, sir.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Miller.
Mr. Peck. April 2nd.
Mr. Miller. April 2nd.
Mr. Denham. April 2. Mr. Leeds the same day?
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Mr. Denham. And administrative leave for Mr. Neely?
Mr. Miller. I believe it was around the same time.
Mr. Peck. Mr. Chairman, I believe it was a week or two in
advance of that.
Mr. Denham. And who else has been put on administrative
leave?
Ms. Brita. Mr. Chairman, there are four other people who
are on administrative leave, the RCs of the various regions and
one person at headquarters.
Mr. Denham. So which regions?
Ms. Brita. 7, 8 and 10.
Mr. Denham. And 9 is Mr. Neely?
Ms. Brita. That is correct.
Mr. Denham. All four regions have been put on
administrative leave?
Ms. Brita. That is correct.
Mr. Denham. None of them have been fired? And then one
person at headquarters?
Ms. Brita. And one person at headquarters.
Mr. Denham. How about Ms. Daniels?
Ms. Brita. I think Ms. Daniels was put on administrative
leave just recently. I think she mentioned she got her letter.
Mr. Denham. And when did Martha Johnson retire, resign?
Ms. Brita. The 3rd.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Miller, when did you make this committee
aware of the IG report?
Mr. Miller. I believe it was on April 2nd.
Mr. Denham. I would agree. I want to go back to this
timeline. November 2010, Ms. Brita requests the IG report. May
2011, you finalize the first draft of this. You have now
determined there is some fraud, there is some waste, there is
some wrongdoing here. And while you have not completed the
report at this point you have said stop, we have a problem
here.
Mr. Miller. Yes, sir.
Mr. Denham. You took that all the way to the top to Ms.
Johnson?
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Denham. June 2011, GSA Chief of Staff Michael Robertson
informs Kimberly Harris, a White House counsel, about an active
IG investigation regarding fraud and wasteful spending related
to the Western Regions Conference. In June, you would agree
with that timeline, Mr. Miller?
Mr. Miller. I don't know what was said to the White House.
Mr. Denham. August 2011, GSA appoints Ruth Cox regional
administrator for Region 9, GSA OIG briefs Ms. Cox and advises
her to get a handle on Regional Commissioner Neely and his
travel.
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Mr. Denham. October 2011, you have already said let's get a
handle on this, you have made it clear, crystal clear to the
Administrator Martha Johnson.
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Mr. Denham. She has done what she has, at least partially
what she is supposed to do and let the White House Chief of
Staff or GSA Chief of Staff, liaison to the White House, know
that there is a problem. The GSA Chief of Staff, liaison to the
White House, alerts Kimberly Harris, a White House counsel.
Then a new administrator or a new regional administrator comes
in. Is Ms. Cox still employed?
Mr. Miller. Yes, she is.
Mr. Denham. OK. So you had a recommendation, the White
House is alerted, we have a new regional administrator and then
Mr. Neely continues to go on a number of different trips:
October 2011, a 9-day trip to Hawaii for this road show that we
already threw up the email on the party with his wife; November
2011, a 5-day trip to Atlanta to attend a nontraining
conference; December 2011, Ms. Brita, deputy administrator,
warns of the 17 South Pacific junket that Mr. Neely is about to
take in December; several other trips here, Dana Point, Napa, a
number of other ones that I know you are going through on your
investigation. But February of this year, the 17-day trip goes
on. This is after you have told Martha Johnson we had a problem
the previous May, we put a new administrator in charge, the
White House has been alerted, Ms. Brita has come back and said
this trip is not a good idea, you said this trip is not a good
idea, and Mr. Neely continues to go on this trip with his wife
for her birthday and a party.
Mr. Miller. Right.
Mr. Denham. Did it stop there, did he take any more trips
after that? February of this year, was that his last trip?
Mr. Miller. I believe they had a Napa Valley conference.
Mr. Denham. Just one was that?
Mr. Miller. Yeah, I believe just one.
Mr. Denham. How about the March trip, the 4-day visit to
Hawaii?
Mr. Miller. The March trip, March of this year, I think
that was the last one we have knowledge of.
Mr. Denham. In March of 2012, I have got a 4-day site visit
to Hawaii for Mr. Neely, also in March 2012 a 4-day offsite
trip to Napa for the executive team meeting, $40,000 for that
conference not including travel expenses.
Mr. Miller. He had four trips after the Saipan 3-week trip.
Mr. Denham. I have been asking for information about this
budget since day 1. We have requested as a bipartisan fashion
to get a handle on this budget. An IG report comes out,
internal recommendations, the White House is alerted. We go so
far as to replace Neely. You recommend no more trips, Ms. Brita
recommends no more trips. Martha Johnson is aware of all of
these trips and they continue to go on for the next several
months. We are talking a year-and-a-half now. Was anybody fired
during that year-and-a-half that you know of? Was anybody put
on administrative leave?
Mr. Miller. Not that I know of.
Mr. Denham. Anybody resign?
Mr. Miller. Not that I know of.
Mr. Denham. So on April 2nd, we still don't have a budget,
a year-and-a-half later we still don't have all of the expenses
that have been spent out of this fund. There is no
justification for the amount of money that continues to
increase every single year, a budget that is outside of
Congress because it uses all the rent money from all of the
public buildings, and then not until April 3rd does anybody get
fired, does anybody resign or is anybody put on administrative
leave and held accountable.
I think the American public can see why this committee is
so frustrated. I hope the administration, I hope the new GSA
administration is seeing how frustrated the American public is.
A lot has been talked about in the media about this lavish
expense of Las Vegas, and it is inexcusable. But this culture
of fraud, waste, corruption, coverups, while we can't prove it
yet there certainly has the perception that there is an inside
deal on some of these things. We certainly are going to
investigate more into the L.A. Courthouse and other issues like
it. But this certainly is not only a dark day for GSA but it is
a dark day for the United States Government. We wonder why
there is so much distrust in Government.
Mr. Walz.
Mr. Walz. Well, I would--I think the chairman's
frustration, Ms. Norton's frustration and all the Members' is
apparent. Again, I would like to thank the IG's office for
continuing to do the work that is necessary and to prove that
there are checks and balances. This hearing is one of those.
And I would echo what Mr. Cummings said, the emotions and
frustrations need to translate into changes, systemic changes
to make sure it doesn't happen again. That is the real goal. So
this is probably only the beginning. And again I don't think
words adequately describe our frustration, because as I said,
this is money that could have been targeted towards veterans,
targeted towards Head Start, targeted towards limited
resources, and it wasn't.
So with that I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Just one final comment. Mr. Chairman, when the
chairman goes through all the trips made after a new
administrator was appointed and suggests that there may have
been nefarious dealings here, I go back to whether appointing a
regional administrator makes any difference in the structure
you have. It seems to me that if these trips were going on, the
only line, straight line I see is to the commissioner in
Washington because these were, he was then a PBS commissioner
only. As the commissioner in Washington says, he wasn't the one
who was supposed to keep track of these trips even after these
issues had become known inside the agency. So I am not sure
whether one needed to do anything nefarious if you have--if you
appoint a regional administrator and it really doesn't make any
difference. Because it looks like her control is either so
bifurcated or so attenuated that it doesn't matter unless she
is a very strong person, and remember she is only at the
regional level.
So I have great problems with how this could have
continued. I think that appearance problems are raised. I see
no evidence that there was any corruption going on. I think all
you had to do was take a trip. And since no one was in charge
when you were acting administrator of your trips or when you
were PBS and acting administrator of your trips, when you went
back to being PBS nobody was in charge, because this agency
apparently is structured so that people in Washington don't
have accountability even though the line runs straight up to
them.
That is very, very troubling. I do want to say for the
record that the employees who were put on administrative leave,
even people who carried the title of commissioner, were civil
servants. And in our law and in Federal regulations you cannot
simply fire them without some due process. So I think that is
going on now. What has happened at the top of the agency is
that all of the political appointees, so far as I can tell,
have in fact been taken out of the agency. That is not going to
cure the problems, as testimony here I think today makes clear.
And the chairman and I have an obligation to proceed to see
just what is going to happen. It is going to be a new regime,
but it is going to involve some of the same actors who are at
the table this afternoon, and I want to thank you for your
testimony.
Mr. Denham. We are going to move into the second panel. I
would ask Mr. Peck, Ms. Doone, and Ms. Brita to remain within
the committee room. There may be further questions that we have
for you as the second panel comes on. Mr. Miller, we invite you
to stay here on the panel. The second panel of witnesses will
not only include Mr. Miller but the Honorable Daniel
Tangherlini, acting administrator, U.S. GSA, the Honorable
Martha Johnson, former GSA administrator, and Mr. David Foley,
Public Buildings Service deputy commissioner.
Mr. Tangherlini, you are the new guy?
Mr. Tangherlini. Yes, sir.
Mr. Denham. I see no reason that you will not tell us the
truth, therefore we will forego the swearing in.
I would ask unanimous consent that our witnesses' full
statement be included in the record. Without objection, so
ordered. Since your written testimony has been made part of the
record, the subcommittee would request that you limit your oral
testimony to 5 minutes. Mr. Miller, since we have already
received your statement, unless you have anything further you
would like to add at this time, we will ask Mr. Tangherlini to
begin.
Mr. Tangherlini.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE BRIAN D. MILLER, INSPECTOR GENERAL,
U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION; THE HONORABLE DANIEL
TANGHERLINI, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. GENERAL SERVICES
ADMINISTRATION; MARTHA N. JOHNSON, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, U.S.
GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION; AND DAVID FOLEY, PUBLIC
BUILDINGS SERVICE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, U.S. GENERAL SERVICES
ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Tangherlini. Good morning, Chairman Denham, Ranking
Member Norton, members of the subcommittee. My name is Dan
Tangherlini, and I am the acting administrator of the U.S.
General Services Administration. I appreciate the opportunity
to come before the committee today.
First and foremost, I want to state that the waste and
abuse outlined in the inspector general's report is an outrage
and completely antithetical to the goals of the Administration.
The report details violations of travel rules, acquisition
rules, and good conduct. Just as importantly, those responsible
violated rules of common sense, the spirit of public service
and the trust that America's taxpayers have placed in us. I
speak for the overwhelming majority of GSA staff when I say
that we are as shocked, appalled and deeply disappointed by
these indefensible actions as you are.
We have taken strong action against those officials who are
responsible and will continue to do so where appropriate. I
intend to uphold the highest ethical standards at this agency,
including referring any criminal activity to appropriate law
enforcement officials and taking any action that is necessary
and appropriate. If we find any irregularities, I will
immediately engage the GSA's inspector general. As indicated in
the joint letter that Inspector General Brian Miller and I sent
to all GSA staff, we expect any employee who sees waste, fraud
or abuse to report it. We want to build a partnership with the
IG while respecting their independence that will ensure that
nothing like this ever happens again. There will be no
tolerance for employees who violate or in any way disregard
these rules. I believe this is critical not only because we owe
it to the American taxpayers, but also because we owe it to the
many GSA employees that work hard, follow the rules and deserve
to be proud of the agency for which they work.
We have also taken steps to improve internal controls and
oversight to ensure this never happens again. Already I have
canceled all future Western Regions Conferences. I have also
canceled 35 previously planned conferences, saving nearly $1
million. I have suspended the Hats Off stores and have already
demanded reimbursement from Mr. Peck, Mr. Shepard and Mr. Neely
for private in-room parties. I have canceled most travel
through the end of the fiscal year agencywide, and I am
centralizing budget authority and have already centralized
procurement oversight for regional offices to make them more
directly accountable.
I look forward to working in partnership with this
committee to ensure that there is full accountability for these
activities so that we can begin to restore the trust of the
American people. I hope that in so doing GSA can refocus on its
core mission, saving taxpayers' money by efficiently procuring
supplies, services and real estate, as well as effectively
disposing of unneeded Government property. We believe that
there is a great need for these services and the savings they
bring to the Government and the taxpayer.
There is a powerful value proposition to a single agency
dedicated to this work, especially in these austere fiscal
times. We need to ensure we get back to basics and conduct this
work better than ever. At GSA our commitment is to our service,
our duty and our Nation and not to conferences, awards or
parties.
The unacceptable, inappropriate and possibly illegal
activities at the Western Regions Conference stand in direct
contradiction to the express goals of this agency and the
Administration, and I am committed to ensuring that we take
whatever steps are necessary to hold responsible parties
accountable and to make sure that this never happens again. We
need to focus this agency on the basics, streamlining the
administrative work of the Federal Government to save
taxpayers' money.
I look forward to working with the committee moving
forward, and I welcome the opportunity to take any questions.
Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson. Chairman Denham, Ranking Member Norton, and
members of the committee, on April 2, 2012, I resigned as
administrator of the General Services Administration and left
my cherished career as a public servant. I stepped aside to
allow a new team to rebuild GSA from the major missteps of the
Western Regions Conference in October 2010.
I previously served GSA in the Clinton administration,
leaving in 2001. At that time the leadership team was strong,
the schedules, design excellence and other programs were
producing much value for their customers.
When I returned to GSA in 2010, the agency was not the
same. A quarter of the executive positions were empty,
customers viewed our partnership askance, labor relations were
acrimonious, the leasing portfolio had ballooned and more.
Nearly 2 years had elapsed without a confirmed administrator.
My confirmation was delayed 9 months. By the time I was sworn
in, a sequence of four acting administrators had overseen the
agency.
I did not know there was yet another problem. The Western
Regions Conference had evolved into a raucous, extravagant,
self-congratulatory event that ultimately belittled Federal
workers. The expense of planning for the conference was well
underway when I entered GSA and I was unaware of the scope.
Thus, I began my tenure as administrator. I take this
opportunity to thank the overwhelming majority of GSA's 13,000
employees who rose to the task of renewal. Their record is
extraordinary. Energy efficient buildings, competent management
of the fleet, IT acquisition, the innovative challenges .gov
Web site and much more.
For my part I set about reconstituting GSA's executive team
after much work. Customers now praise GSA publicly, the labor
partnership is fruitful, GSA has email in the cloud and GSA
will relinquish leases and save millions with its renovated
headquarters.
However, GSA's performance tragically does not compensate
for the mistakes of the Western Regions Conference. I greeted
the IG report of the conference without hesitation agreeing
with all the recommendations. I am extremely aggrieved by the
gall of a handful of people to misuse Federal tax dollars,
twist contracting rules, and defile the great name of GSA.
This is how that chapter unfolded. Deputy Administrator
Susan Brita requested an investigation into the conference. The
IG subsequently shared with us a PowerPoint deck in May 2011. I
realized this was a very serious matter. We needed all the
facts, all of them, however painful and disruptive. While the
investigation continued we appointed a regional administrator
for Region 9, relieving Mr. Neely of that role, established a
chief administrative services office reporting to me with
responsibility for GSA's acquisition, oversight of travel and
conferences and the like, continued streamlining and shortening
Government training conferences. We also catalogued our own
conferences, and Ms. Brita reviewed expenditures until she was
satisfied that controls were in place. Upon receiving the IG's
draft report in February 2012, we began disciplinary action,
revised internal controls and adjusted budgets to penalize
regions for the wasted money.
The egregious and coarse nature of the evidence and the
waste of resources assured a loss of confidence in GSA
leadership. Therefore, I terminated two appointees in the chain
of command and submitted my own resignation. I personally
apologize to the American people. As the agency head, I am
responsible. I will mourn for the rest of my life the loss of
my appointment.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Foley
Mr. Foley. Thank you. Chairman Denham, Ranking Member
Norton, members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me
here to testify today. My name is David Foley, and I am the
deputy commissioner for the Public Buildings Service.
I sincerely apologize for my remarks at the awards ceremony
for the Western Regions Conference. At the time of my remarks I
was not aware of the significant spending irregularities. I did
not intend to condone any wasteful spending or minimize the
role of congressional oversight. As I said yesterday, I
especially want to apologize to this committee in particular
and Congresswoman Norton. I have the utmost respect for her and
this committee. You have always been strong advocates for GSA
and its programs while holding us accountable as an agency.
I did not mean to belittle you or your role in any way. I
attempted to make a joke in the context of a talent celebration
that I perceived as being similar to a comedic roast. As the
deputy commissioner, I should have taken the stage to stress
that we have a serious job and responsibility as stewards of
taxpayer funds. I realize I missed a real opportunity to
address the nearly 300 people in my organization and stress the
importance of the work we do.
During my presentation at the award ceremony I told the
award recipient I was making his dreams come true by making him
commissioner for the day. Obviously that was a joke. I was not
seriously delegating any authority to the awardee. I also joked
about some of the obligations of being commissioner. My
understanding at the time was that the commissioner was paying
for the charges associated with the after-hours party on
Tuesday evening, so I tried to use that in a humorous way and
suggested the awardee would have to pay for the party and the
hotel.
Finally, I said the acting commissioner would have to
answer for his proposed pay increases in the video. My intent
was to point out the commissioner has a lot of responsibilities
and has to answer to a lot of people in the Administration and
Congress, not to mock the various oversight roles. My remarks
were wrong and I take full responsibility for what I said.
I understand the outrage about this conference, my comments
and how they have inflamed all of the issues surrounding this
event.
I preface the rest of my statement by saying I have only
seen a draft of the IG report that appears to be the same as
what has been released publicly. I have not seen any of the
supporting documents and was not questioned or briefed by the
IG during the investigation so I do not know all of the
details. This represents my understanding based upon what I
remember from almost 2 years ago.
Concerning my role in the Western Regions Conference, again
I want to start by personally apologizing. While I was not
directly involved in the planning for the conference or any of
the financial and contracting irregularities identified in the
inspector general's report, I did attend 2\1/2\ days of the
conference. There were things that seemed over the top, but I
believed they were not being paid for with Government funds.
In past conferences items like the tuxedos and the after-
hour parties were paid for by individuals, not the taxpayer.
Had I known what has since been revealed I would have been
concerned and reported it. Because of the regional reporting
structure in our agency I did not have supervisory control or
authority over how the regional budget was spent, procurement
activities or any of the employees in the Western regions. The
regional commissioners and their staff reported directly to
their regional administrators with input from the commissioner
who report in turn to the administrator's office. My primary
role as the deputy commissioner is dealing with the Office of
Management and Budget, Congress and other Federal agencies on
critical projects and policy issues. I am not a contracting
officer, and I do not have a warrant to approve expenditures.
I have spent the last 15 years of my career working for
GSA, and I believe strongly in the agency's mission and the
value it provides to other agencies and our country. I am truly
sorry for my comments and apologize to this committee, the
Administration, my fellow GSA employees and, most importantly,
the American taxpayers.
At this point I am willing to take any questions you may
have.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Let me start with Mr. Tangherlini. I
know there is going to be a number of questions about what you
are implementing today and the reassurances you can give to the
American public that you have put the safeguards in place to
address this.
I want to just touch on before we get started with the
questions what is being done on transparency. You have heard--I
have been asking, this committee has been asking for quite some
time for a budget for the last 5 years. I assume that that is
something that you have readily available today. How long will
it take you to get that to this committee?
Mr. Tangherlini. I have your letter of April 13th. You have
given us an April 25th deadline. I intend to meet that
deadline.
Mr. Denham. Five-year budget, full details, full
disclosure?
Mr. Tangherlini. We will provide you all the information
that we can get. As you heard today, there are serious concerns
about the way the data has been managed within the regional
structure, but I will get you everything I can.
Mr. Denham. You are also doing an internal audit right now.
The IG is still doing an audit or an investigation. What will
the audit, what do you anticipate, what are you looking for in
the audit that you are not going to get for me in the IG
report?
Mr. Tangherlini. Well, I want to do a top-to-bottom review
of the organization, how it is set up, how it spends its money.
I want to see what I get out of that. I want to see if there
are issues of how we can better structure it. Already we have
taken a move to bring the financial offices, the regional
financial offices, and the service financial officers under our
CFO. We have done--taken some action to centralize oversight of
procurement authority. And that is just the start.
Mr. Denham. When do you expect to be done with the audit?
Mr. Tangherlini. Well, I want to take as much time as
necessary to get a great picture of the status of the
organization. That having been said, if there are ideas that
come out of our review, we are going to implement them
immediately.
Mr. Denham. Will the audit take months, weeks, years?
Mr. Tangherlini. We would like to do it as part of the
budget development process, which culminates in submitting the
2014 budget in September. That having been said, if there is
anything that needs to be changed immediately we are going to
change it.
Mr. Denham. Well, this committee would request not only the
immediate changes that are being done in detail but we would
also request a copy of that audit. Do you think it will take as
long as September to receive a copy of the audit?
Mr. Tangherlini. I would call it more of a top-to-bottom
review than an audit. An audit is a very specific activity. But
that having been said, any details that we develop we will be
happy to share with the committee.
Mr. Denham. Thank you.
Mr. Miller, you have referred a number of things to the
Department of Justice, criminal action, some sweetheart deals.
Can you--what can you share with this committee on the
reference to DOJ?
Mr. Miller. Very little, unfortunately. I can state that we
made the referral and that is about it.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Johnson, the timeline that I went through--
well, first of all, let me start with the first timeline that I
discussed with Mr. Peck. Ultimately I hold him accountable for
not sharing or ignoring or stonewalling this committee on the
budget. Obviously there was a great deal to hide. But in over a
dozen requests to have a copy of that budget over the last
year-and-a-half, we also requested and submitted a letter to
you, is there any reason why you failed to permit us or failed
to give us a copy of the budget?
Ms. Johnson. I am sorry if there was a request in to me to
supply you information that I did not acknowledge or respond
to. I do not have a memory of this at this time.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Let me go into the timeline of the
different travels we have seen here. I would assume that when
we see the further investigation that it is going to result in
a number of other trips. I think this committee, I think the
American public at this point is probably prepared for the
worst after seeing what we have. But nevertheless let me start
with May of 2010, where we had the nine trips for the
preplanning. A lot has been talked about Las Vegas. You endured
a lot of that yesterday with $1 million being spent on the
Vegas trip. My concern is the pattern here and what happened
after the fact.
Ms. Brita went to the IG in November. In May the IG came
back with the recommendation to you, advised you to get a
handle on the regional conference's travel. This is May of last
year. In June, the Chief of Staff, your Chief of Staff Michael
Robertson informed the White House, he was formerly the liaison
to the White House, he let Kimberly Harris, a White House
counsel, know about an active IG investigation regarding fraud
and wasteful spending related to the Western Regions
Conference. In August you felt it was important enough to put
Ruth Cox, regional administrator for Region 9--let me stop
there. Did you put Ruth Cox in as the new regional
administrator?
Ms. Johnson. Yes, we appointed Ruth Cox as the regional
administrator.
Mr. Denham. Why?
Ms. Johnson. We needed to fill the administrator, the
regional administrator's position. It had been double filled by
Jeff Neely for quite a while. While I had been working hard to
get regional administrators in all the regions, this is the one
that was still outstanding and I was eager to get it filled.
For a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the
regional administrator is an important person in the line of,
in the chain of command, in the line of authority over the
regions and I am the administrator of the whole organization,
the regional administrators are in the regions, and it is
important to have that presence there.
Mr. Denham. You advised the new regional administrator,
Ruth Cox, to get a handle on the Regional Commissioner Neely's
travel?
Ms. Johnson. I did not personally advise her to get a
handle on his regional travel.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. My time is expired. I will come back
to that.
Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. Mr. Foley, I heard your
testimony yesterday as I was of course in the cloakroom, and as
I said yesterday, even members of the Oversight Committee know
the difference between a joke and corruption. So I recognize
that that was a joke. The problem with the joke is that what
nobody knew at the time was that there was some honest to
goodness, perhaps not as the joke had indicated, but some
honest to goodness nefarious dealings that have come out since.
And as I reported to you, unless you feel that I took umbrage
at the joke, I took just the opposite since the joke had you,
or somebody had me already on the phone with a conference call
questioning some of the excesses. That really wasn't the
problem. The problem was that it turned out that this whole
affair was no joke.
I must say I don't understand your title. You have the
title of deputy Public Buildings Service commissioner.
Mr. Foley. Deputy commissioner, yes.
Ms. Norton. Does--do the commissioners report, in the
regions do the commissioners, the building service
commissioners report to you?
Mr. Foley. No.
Ms. Norton. So what is your function?
Mr. Foley. As I said in my opening statement, my primary
function is dealing with the Office of Management and Budget,
congressional committees and other agencies on critical
projects, policy issues and initiatives.
Ms. Norton. So you are basically a policy person, not a
person in the line, in the chain of command for the public
service commissioners?
Mr. Foley. Correct. I have one direct report.
Ms. Norton. Why did you go to Nevada?
Mr. Foley. I gave a presentation on the afternoon of my
arrival on Tuesday on our performance results, key initiatives,
and outlook on the capital budget for fiscal year 2011. I also
stayed until the end for the award ceremony.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Miller, the notion of Hats Off will have no
meaning to the general public, has no meaning to me. As I
understand it, it is supposed to reward employees for
meritorious work. Would you please describe the Hats Off
program?
Mr. Miller. The Hats Off program was one of many programs
at GSA. Each program had a different name. In Region 9 it was
known as Hats Off.
Ms. Norton. Was it only in Region 9?
Mr. Miller. No, it was in other regions except for Region
2. All the other regions had a similar program. The idea was if
an employee performed well they would get a certain number of
points.
Ms. Norton. Well, who would give the points, Mr. Miller?
Mr. Miller. They could be given by a coworker, they could
be given by a supervisor.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Miller, just a second. They could be given
by a coworker?
Mr. Miller. Correct. So one coworker could give points to
another coworker and the other coworker could give them back.
Ms. Norton. Based on what, Mr. Miller? Is Hats Off for the
purpose of awarding something at the end after a number of
points have been reached?
Mr. Miller. Yes. You collect the points and you can trade
the points in for a prize. Under GSA regulation the prizes
could not exceed $99. In Region 9 they did exceed $99. They
included iPods, digital cameras, and similar electronic items.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Miller, what is to keep--I don't understand
the point system. I have a friend, I need some points. How does
one have to justify giving points if you are a coworker or for
that matter if you are a supervisor?
Mr. Miller. We found a rampant abuse of the point system
and of the program, and we recommended shutting it down. So I
believe that Administrator Johnson had a review by the CFO
Alison Doone, who was on the first panel. She did a review of
all the programs across the country. We were told that in
September of 2011 that Region 9 was shutting down its Hats Off
program.
Ms. Norton. I am going to have to come back to this, but I
have got to understand how a coworker could help you get
points, but go ahead.
Mr. Miller. Well, that is part of the problem that we
identified.
Ms. Norton. Because it is supposed to be for work related
matters?
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Ms. Norton. And normally work is judged by a supervisor of
some kind?
Mr. Miller. Correct. And supervisors technically were not
supposed to receive rewards on the basis of this.
Ms. Norton. Supervisors themselves could not receive?
Mr. Miller. Correct. But in Region 9 I believe there were
some supervisors receiving some awards.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Johnson, what restrictions were on the
regions to confine their spending to approved budget levels?
Ms. Johnson. Restrictions by the regions. The regions are
made up of the two divisions, the Federal Acquisition Service
and the Federal--the Public Buildings Service. The Public
Buildings Service budgets were allocated out of the central
Public Buildings Service office to the regions, and so that
portion of the regional budget was managed by the region and
reported back up into the Federal, the central office of the
Public Buildings Service. The Federal Acquisition Service has a
different process. They have a different fund that they work
from and their reporting structures are highly centralized
and--are highly centralized.
Mr. Denham. So how do you approve the budgets?
Ms. Johnson. I approved the budgets. I met with the
commissioners weekly and on a quarterly basis we reviewed their
financial performance. In terms of approving their budgets as
we went through the budget cycle every year thinking about what
was--well, in the Public Buildings Service what was going to be
a budget request. All of that was related to me and we met and
discussed it. On the acquisition side it was a different kind
of conversation because it was based on the acquisition fund
that yielded their essential revenue and then how they spent
it. They reviewed that with me quite carefully.
Mr. Denham. So how did the budget triple, PBS
commissioner's budget triple from 2009 to 2011?
Ms. Johnson. Congressman, I am sorry, I don't know about
those numbers and I am not able to research them.
Mr. Denham. How did it go up by $50 million for the PBS
headquarters?
Ms. Johnson. I don't understand that and I don't know.
Mr. Denham. How did it go up by $80 million, $83 million
for the regional offices?
Ms. Johnson. I don't understand that and I have no
knowledge about that that is useful right now.
Mr. Denham. So then you certainly wouldn't know how a
budget for these conferences would balloon from $250,000 if
they had it budgeted to more than $800,000, almost $1 million?
Ms. Johnson. Congressman, when I received the final report
from the IG delineating these expenses and these abuses, I was
appalled and I pulled the disciplinary levers that I could pull
immediately. I then removed the two senior officials in the
chain of command and I resigned.
Mr. Denham. I want to come back to that. But let me finish
with this understanding of how your operation worked.
Ms. Johnson. OK.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Neely and the other Public Buildings
Service regional commissioners, who are they accountable to?
Was it Mr. Peck?
Ms. Johnson. GSA is a matrix organization. I know
Congresswoman Norton is also concerned with this. It is a
matrix organization in that the regional commissioners, both
the FAS acquisition service and PBS service, reported in two
ways. They reported to their regional administrator who was the
immediate representative of me in the region, and then they
reported functionally to the central office commissioners
because that is where they received their budgets and their
strategic direction. It is a matrix, like a corporation, it is
not an easy one. It is not command and control like military
services, it is a matrix. And so----
Mr. Denham. Mr. Tangherlini, I assume you think that is a
problem?
Ms. Johnson. It was difficult to manage, it is always
difficult to manage a matrix.
Mr. Denham. Or changing the matrix, Mr. Tangherlini?
Mr. Tangherlini. We are going to look at the matrix.
Clearly this form of structure created some issues associated
with this conference and we are concerned about what it could
create going forward.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Johnson, you were briefed by the IG last
May. Why did you allow Mr. Neely and others to continue their
trips and offsite meetings up until just a couple of weeks ago?
Ms. Johnson. Congressman, the conversation that we had with
the IG in May alerted me to how serious this investigation was.
I have a lot of respect for the IG and what an investigation
entails. I immediately began some activities with respect to
the controls and the immediate leadership in the region. But I
have to say I respected the investigation and I did not want to
act on inconclusive material. It was not the final report. And
until I got the completed final report I did not feel I would
be doing anything but interrupting what was an investigation,
which my deputy had requested. So the fact that it took an
additional 9 months was not what I was expecting at that point.
That was a wrinkle in this problem that was very difficult to
manage around. I did----
Mr. Denham. The IG--an investigation is a very serious
thing, is it not?
Ms. Johnson. It is a very serious thing. And the initial
report indicated a number of things that were very concerning.
It was an inconclusive report. It was not----
Mr. Denham. Yeah, inconclusive. But you have the inspector
general here. Mr. Miller, did you inform Ms. Johnson about this
potential fraud, waste and abuse and did you tell her to get a
handle on Mr. Neely's travel, on the entire regional
conference's travel?
Mr. Miller. We went through the PowerPoint very clearly.
Mr. Denham. Did you tell her to get a handle on it? We went
through a lot of this already. I just wanted to know whether
you told her to get a handle on it or not?
Mr. Miller. I told the regional administrator in August to
get a handle on Mr. Neely's travel. When I talked to
Administrator Johnson, I told her directly that I thought that
Mr. Neely needed to be candid with our special agents because
in the interview he said some things that we thought were less
than candid and I thought that was not appropriate for a Senior
Executive Service official.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Johnson, you said you took immediate
action. You took immediate action 2 days ago. This is a pretty
scary report.
Ms. Johnson. I agree.
Mr. Denham. I mean yes, certainly you want to see the
overall findings. But to see that they spent $1 million in Las
Vegas is right here. To see what they spent it on, to see the
pictures of the 2200-square-foot rooms, to see that they went
well over their budget. We have a completely separate
investigation going on now because you failed to take action.
It has in here in this initial report of May of last year that
they had nine different trips. It certainly has, while
inconclusive, at least the initial appearance that laws have
been broken, criminal acts have been committed. I guess the
very simple question is if you took this serious why did you
not act, why didn't you stop all travel, why didn't you make
serious adjustments, why didn't you make the budget--bring the
budget out then and allow this committee at the very minimum to
see what was happening in the budget?
Ms. Johnson. At the time, as I said, I highly respected
that the IG was undertaking a very serious investigation. To
preclude what would be the conclusions of that investigation I
was concerned would in some way taint the ability we would have
to discipline.
I took it very seriously, Congressman. I can only say that
I took it so seriously I gave up my public service career.
Mr. Denham. A year-and-a-half later. And during this time
nobody was fired, nobody was put on administrative leave. You
had a report back last May that showed all of these trips, that
showed how much over budget they went. Now, you may not have
very good controls over your budget, which I find appalling,
but that report last May shows you the numbers. So if you
didn't have control over your own budget, the inspector general
is now telling you what is in your budget, how much over budget
they went, some of the egregious acts and some of the criminal
action, and you took no action during that time.
Ms. Johnson. I did take some action.
Mr. Denham. Was anybody fired?
Ms. Johnson. I appointed a regional administrator, I set up
a centralized office to oversee GSA travel, conferences and
procurement, and we continued what had been a very strenuous
effort around disciplining and streamlining conferences that I
can go into detail about.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. I want to make sure we draw a line between what
might have been mixed in the chairman's questions. On the one
hand he talks about people fired and administrative leave, on
the other hand he raises a serious question about expenditures
and what could have been done. Now, the reason I raise that is
because of an email I have from Mr. Miller's deputy which--this
is on May 3, 2011--I am sorry, on July 25, 2011, indicating
that the May 3rd report was an interim report and, and I am
quoting the email, our purpose in issuing the interim report
was to alert GSA to potential waste and abuse so GSA could take
steps to avoid future issues.
So that speaks to the first part of the chairman's question
about reining in spending. The second part warns, please be
advised that the investigation is ongoing and no personnel
action should be taken until you have received the final
report. I view that to read that you could not have put people
on administrative leave and you could not have fired people
until the final report.
Is that true, Mr. Miller?
Mr. Miller. I think the point of the last part is adverse
personnel action and that is firing someone. If they wanted to
restrict travel that was fine, if they wanted to restrict
conference planning that was fine. They also had the final Hats
Off report that implicated misconduct on the part of the
regional commissioner. If they wanted to take action on that
report that was fine; if they wanted to fire or put on
administrative leave, all that would have been fine.
Ms. Norton. So I think the chairman's question, if we can
leave aside what Mr. Miller's deputy had warned you about,
which is taking personnel actions, and that would have meant
putting people on administrative leave, that would have been
firing people, the deputy does seem to say, indeed almost seems
to encourage, because he uses the word ``alert,'' alert GSA to
potential waste and abuse so GSA could take steps to avoid
future issues. That is why I want to give you every opportunity
to outline whether or not you took that as a warning that you
should move ahead on the spending and expenditure issues even
though you could not take the action you ultimately took with
respect to administrative leave and discharging employees?
Ms. Johnson. I believed upon hearing the report and knowing
about the Hats Off situation that we had a number of issues
around----
Ms. Norton. Did you do anything about the Hats Off at that
point?
Ms. Johnson. Deputy Administrator Susan Brita and Steve
Leeds were briefing me on it. I do believe, the best of my
remembrance, and again I do not have any of my material, so
bear with me on that and I can try to check it out if I need
to, but they were updating me on the status of the Hats Off
investigation. The CFO was doing a report about the various
regional----
Ms. Norton. Did you ultimately--before you left did you
ultimately eliminate Hats Off in that region?
Ms. Johnson. I understood that we had, yes. The----
Ms. Norton. You understood that we had. I mean, whose job
was it?
Ms. Johnson. I was being briefed by Steve Leeds and Susan
Brita, my deputy administrator and my senior counsel, both who
had been in those activities and both of whom had met more
often with the IG than I was able to meet. Susan, Ms. Brita,
was the deputy administrator and she was the chief operating
officer, and we have processes by which we are formally
interacting with the IG.
Ms. Norton. Ms. Johnson, in retrospect if you had to do it
all over again, would you have taken more affirmative steps to
rein in the spending and to get a foothold on the excesses in
spending and in conduct that were reported that you might have
done something about?
Ms. Johnson. Hindsight is always much better than current
vision. I believe I was working from the best understanding I
could make of what my--of what the situation was. There were a
number of levers that I was pulling, putting leadership into
the region. As I believe Alison Doone mentioned, she and--or
maybe it was Bob Peck--she and Bob Peck and I had met----
Ms. Norton. You don't believe other actions, given what you
knew at the time, should have been taken?
Ms. Johnson. I believe action should have been taken. I
believe that--I believe other actions were being taken. I was--
I dealt--I tasked my commissioners and my senior staff with
various issues and responsibilities. I assumed that they were
managing accordingly. They were part of this. My deputy, my
senior staff, my senior counsel, and the commissioner and I
were hearing that things were moving. So I was assuming it was
going on. I did not review in a line item way all of these
things with each one of them all the time.
I do want to go to the point about the financial controls.
The CFO, Bob Peck, and I had met and were beginning to move in
the direction of consolidating the financial reporting
structure that you asked about earlier. And I am heartily in
agreement with the need to pull much more, much more of that
reporting structure into the central office of the Public
Buildings Service.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. We will get back to this timeline here in a
minute, but you are an administrative appointee. You are
appointed by the President.
Ms. Johnson. Yes, I was and approved by the Senate, uh-huh.
Mr. Denham. You were approved by the Senate when?
Ms. Johnson. I think in February----
Mr. Denham. When did your confirmation----
Ms. Johnson. In February 2010.
Mr. Denham. The Commander in Chief appoints you to a
position. I assume that you follow his directive?
Ms. Johnson. I certainly tried to.
Mr. Denham. December 22nd, 2010, Executive Order 13561,
Adjustment of Certain Rates of Pay. The Executive order was
given by the President in December of 2010, prior to you being
confirmed as an appointee. Why would you not follow that
directive by the President?
Ms. Johnson. I am not sure I can speak to that
substantively. I assumed that directives from the President
about salaries and so on flowed through OPM and we received
them in our human resources office and responded.
Mr. Denham. Were you giving raises?
Ms. Johnson. I believe that there are--I believe the raises
that were allowed were within a grade. But I don't have a lot
of detailed knowledge about that nor substantive memory of it
right now.
Mr. Denham. Did you give bonuses?
Ms. Johnson. We did give bonuses to the senior executives,
yes.
Mr. Denham. Did you give a bonus to Mr. Neely?
Ms. Johnson. We did give a bonus to Mr. Neely.
Mr. Denham. Why?
Ms. Johnson. The recommendation from the Performance Review
Board chaired by Ms. Brita was to give him a 3. I asked Ms.
Brita if they had discussed in the review the IG report and
where it was. She said there was virtually no mention of it in
the meeting. I can't remember her exact words, but she said
that they did not consider that in their deliberations of
recommending a 3.
The buildings commissioner recommended a 4. He said that
based on Mr. Neely's performance with respect to the leasing
portfolio, was the strongest across the country, and that fit
with a 4 recommendation.
I appreciate the issues between conduct and performance,
but both recommendations given to me were based on these
performance measures, and I accepted the commissioner's
recommendation.
Mr. Denham. You have a report that has been issued by the
IG. I got to say, if the IG called my office, I think everybody
in our office would snap to attention. I mean, the FBI comes
into your business? You bet people pay attention. Now, if the
FBI came back to a business and issued a preliminary report, do
you think that--let me back up.
Mr. Miller, when you go into somebody's office and you
issue a preliminary report, what happens?
Mr. Miller. People pay attention to the report. They read
it. They try and----
Mr. Denham. They pay attention. They take the
recommendations you give serious?
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Denham. OK. And you gave some recommendations in this
case?
Mr. Miller. Well, it was an interim report. So we went
through the interim report, and----
Mr. Denham. You gave the top execs a heads-up?
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Denham. ``There is a problem here. We have identified
there is a problem. I just want to let you know that we are
going to dig deeper.''
Mr. Miller. Yes. And there is a big problem.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Neely is mentioned several times by name
all over this report.
Mr. Miller. Yes, sir.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Brita comes back and says that--part of
this commission--he should not be approved for a bonus. The
President issues an Executive order on December 22nd of 2010.
So between the President's Executive order to his appointed
secretary and Ms. Brita coming back and saying he should not be
recommended for a bonus, and your IG report that shows, at a
minimum, egregious behavior, but probably some criminal
action--obviously, the DOJ--we are not going to name names, but
the DOJ has been alerted to criminal action. We have dismissed
people from this committee because of that.
Mr. Miller. Yes. And she also had a final Hats Off report
that identified bad behavior on the part of the regional
commissioner.
Mr. Denham. So if you are taking the Commander in Chief,
the President who appointed you serious, and you follow his
direction, and he issued an Executive order, and your own
committee staff said that this is not a good idea, why did you
move forward?
Ms. Johnson. The President--the Performance Review Board
was recommending bonuses. I don't believe they were covered by
the President's Executive order. We were encouraged to and we
were reducing the amount of the bonuses substantially.
The Performance Review Board made a recommendation to me of
a 3, which could have carried a bonus. They recommended the 3,
the commissioner recommended a 4, and I accepted the 4.
Mr. Denham. If the FBI came to my business and said that
they were investigating several individuals, I can tell you,
those individuals would not be traveling, those individuals
would not be getting raises or bonuses. And you had the
equivalent of that, the inspector general coming to you and
saying that there is an issue. Not only saying that there is an
issue, ``Heads-up, we have an investigation going on,'' but
they gave you documentation back that you then shared with
other people in your agency.
Is that customary, to share that information?
Ms. Johnson. I did not share that information with anyone
else.
Mr. Denham. You didn't give it to anybody?
Ms. Johnson. No, I did not.
Mr. Denham. How did Bob Peck get it? How did Mr. Neely get
it?
Ms. Johnson. Ms. Brita and Mr. Leeds and Bob Peck and
Michael Robertson and I discussed the entire matter together in
a meeting. It was a meeting in which we reviewed what was
happening. We agreed it was egregious, it was of high concern.
And we----
Mr. Denham. Who was at the meeting?
Ms. Johnson. The deputy administrator, the Chief of Staff,
the commissioner, the senior counselor, and myself.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Robertson, Mr. Peck, Ms. Brita----
Ms. Johnson. Mr. Leeds and myself. And we discussed this
report, and we agreed it was egregious. And we were eager--we
were eager to get the final report so we could act. It took 9
months before we were able to receive a final report. I will
say that, had I had that report earlier, I felt I could have
moved much more strongly with respect to----
Mr. Denham. We will come in deeper into those details.
Mr. Walz?
Mr. Walz. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Ms. Johnson, I want to make sure I avoid gross
generalizations, and due process. And I, myself, and I know
this committee as a whole, the interest is not for
grandstanding. And while the loss of your career is personally
tragic to you, I will have to tell you, if you will excuse me,
my concern lies with the taxpayers today. And regardless of
what happened here, I don't doubt your sincerity that you are
sorry this happened, but I hope you recognize the magnitude of
how far this reaches.
And it is just incredibly difficult for me to imagine that
this happened, having worked in different organizations and
seen it. I think your analysis was very honest about the
organizational, your matrix design, or whatever. But, I mean,
first-year graduate students can do a GAAP analysis and see
there were problems here. And it doesn't appear like that was
done. And waiting for--I am not going to pass judgment other
than what we have seen here. There are certainly some problems.
I want to turn here a little bit here, Mr. Tangherlini, to
you. How did you get this job?
Mr. Tangherlini. I was asked by the White House to step in.
Mr. Walz. What were you doing prior to this?
Mr. Tangherlini. I was the assistant secretary for
management and chief financial officer of the United States
Department of Treasury.
Mr. Walz. And do things at Treasury work the same as you
see working at GSA?
Mr. Tangherlini. Based on what I have seen just through
this report and the little I have seen, no, they do not.
Mr. Walz. I have a question on this. Now, you came in, you
made a command decision, you canceled 34 conferences. What was
your criteria to determine that those were wasteful?
The reason I ask this is, professional development and
conferences for personnel and for professional employees isn't
necessarily a bad thing if they are done correctly. And that
internal personnel development--I see it in myself as a
teacher. The professional development communities we put
together, while we didn't go offsite and while we had coffee
that someone made in the back room, that gathering together was
certainly valuable. And I would make, in the long run, our
outcomes for student achievement were improved by those.
How did you determine these 34 weren't going to live up to
the standards of professional development?
Mr. Tangherlini. We cancelled those actions pending the
outcome of people providing us with some explanation as to the
value of those. There was no centralized program by which
people would explain in detail the value of the activity they
are undertaking. And I am not saying that there isn't value to
these activities----
Mr. Walz. There was no outcome-based approach to this that
said this is what it was. We had standards that said this is
what our professional learning community was going to do during
the 9-month school year. Here was our July meeting, our August
meeting, these outcomes. And then they were measurable by
performance reviews and outcomes that were metrics.
Were any of those available for these professional
developments?
Mr. Tangherlini. I am not sure about these in particular,
but I will tell you, there is a combination of both
conferencing and the formal training. The formal training
actually does have those kind of metrics, and we are doing
whatever we can to preserve those trainings. However, we are
also asking the employees of the agency to see if there are
non-travel-based approaches that we can use to get that
training, to get that activity.
Mr. Walz. I would assume in-house that your trainers are
following best practices and all that. That is why I am still
amazed by this. There had to be professional trainers at this
thing. What a waste of time.
It is like pulling teeth to get money for professional
development in any organization, let alone governmental
organizations. Didn't somebody say, this is going to kill our
opportunity? Because you know this, Ms. Johnson. When is the
next time we are going to get meaningful professional
development conferences in GSA? Not in our lifetime. That is
the destructive outcome of this, and that is going to be
detrimental for the services that need to be provided.
So I ask you, Mr. Tangherlini, the SES folks, this Mr.
Neely, I wish he was here today, too, because I am kind of like
Ms. Norton. This guy set up a fiefdom. Not since Jack Abramoff
has anybody walked in with such swagger and ability as what it
appears like this guy was able to do.
Here is what I would tell you. These SES folks, I have seen
some of the most dedicated professional public servants that I
have ever come across in both private and public sector in my
life, and I have also seen some of the worst obstructionists.
How are you going to deal with SES?
These folks simply--many of them have an attitude that they
will outlive you. The next President will come, and you will be
gone, and they will continue. Apparently, that is what Mr.
Neely did. This guy has been around forever. He outlasted Ms.
Johnson. Whether he outlasts you or not will be seen what comes
out of this.
How are you going to address that with SES?
Mr. Tangherlini. I think that is a great question,
Congressman, and I think that that is part of what we have to
look at in our top-to-bottom review, is what kind of
performance system do we have in the General Services
Administration? How do we create a system that measures conduct
as well as performance? And then, how do we hold people
accountable to it? So I am committed to doing that, and I look
forward to working with you on that.
Mr. Walz. Because there is the taxpayer in this, the
services we could be providing. But, you know, there are
comparable people out there that serve in the position that Mr.
Neely did, and I would assume some of them are performing
absolutely admirably. Could probably take their talents and go
into the private sector and make more money; they have chosen
not to because they are trying to serve. Every one of those is
painted with the same brush now.
We have to, and what the chairman has been asking for is,
is I just encourage you, Mr. Tangherlini, in this, is
transparency and sunshine is the best disinfectant for
everything. Err on the side of over-giving, just as my advice.
And I yield back.
Mr. Tangherlini. Thank you.
Mr. Denham. I want to go back to this timeline. So this
big, extravagant trip takes place in October 2010. There have
already been nine different trips, pre-planning trips,
associated with it. Ms. Brita gets hired; she blows the whistle
in November. The IG comes in. IG alerts you he is coming in. IG
comes back with an initial document, says, ``We have a problem
here.'' He advises you to get a handle on the travel.
Then your Chief of Staff goes to the White House, let's
them know there is an IG investigation going on regarding fraud
and wasteful spending related to the Western Regions
Conference. Then we have a new appointee, Ruth Cox, regional
administrator for Region 9. She is advised, ``Get a handle on
the regional commissioner.''
Then in October of last year--and there are a number of
other trips. I have looked at all the different trips that he
has taken. And we are going to continue to investigate that as
a separate issue because you didn't take care of it. But in
October, a 9-day trip to Hawaii. In November, a 5-day trip to
Atlanta for a non-training conference.
In December, Ms. Brita is alerted to this 17-day junket to
the South Pacific. She alerts Mr. Miller, and Mr. Miller alerts
you. And yet he is still allowed to go on it? And his wife?
Their birthday trip? You don't see a pattern here? A pattern
that you have been aware of for the last year-and-a-half. But
you took immediate action. That doesn't sound like immediate
action to me. They went on a 17-day trip to Hawaii, Guam,
Saipan.
And then in March, this year, last month, a 4-day visit to
Hawaii again, 4-day offsite trip to Napa for an executive team
meeting, $40,000, excluding travel expenses.
You took immediate action? You got a recommendation from
the IG, ``Get a handle on it.'' You got a new administrator,
``Get a handle on it.'' What immediate action did you take?
Ms. Johnson. First of all, Congressman, I did not know
about those trips. I knew that the IG, as he has said----
Mr. Denham. You knew about the nine pre-planning trips and
the Vegas trip, did you not?
Ms. Johnson. I learned about those last May, yes.
Mr. Denham. You heard--no, no, no. You are under oath. You
heard about them when?
Ms. Johnson. I learned about the Vegas trip in--well, I
learned about the Vegas conference in September 2010 when I
understood that my senior counselor was going to attend a
conference in the Western Regions. That is when I learned about
the conference.
Mr. Denham. So you knew about the conference and the pre-
planning trips before the IG came in. The IG came in----
Ms. Johnson. No, I did not. No, I did not. I did not know
about the pre-planning conferences. The IG informed me of the
pre-planning conferences. It was through the IG's office and
our investigation, which my deputy requested, that we learned
the extent of the expenditures, the frivolity, the contracting
violations.
Mr. Denham. On May 3rd of last year, you were made aware.
And you had a meeting with Mr. Peck, Ms. Brita, several other
people----
Ms. Johnson. Yes, my senior staff.
Mr. Denham [continuing]. To discuss this.
Ms. Johnson. We discussed this.
Mr. Denham. And the immediate action that you say you took
was what?
Ms. Johnson. The----
Mr. Denham. Did Mr. Neely go on any more trips?
Ms. Johnson. I do not know about Mr. Neely's travel.
Mr. Denham. Yes, he did, a lot. You didn't know about any
of his travel?
Ms. Johnson. I did not know--I did not track his travel,
no.
Mr. Denham. Did you know about any of his travel? Did
anybody ever tell you he had upcoming trips?
Ms. Johnson. I believe that summer, in August, there was a
meeting of all of the regional commissioners in Austin. I
believe he was there, so I knew he had traveled to Austin. I
was not monitoring his trips personally. I had had----
Mr. Denham. The IG said, get a handle on it. Why wouldn't
you----
Ms. Johnson. He gave that instruction to the regional
administrator.
Mr. Denham. The President had an Executive order. We are
cutting Government.
Ms. Johnson. Right.
Mr. Denham. We are seeing cuts to the military, to
veterans. The President sure sees it is a big issue. There are
seniors being cut. And the inspector general comes to you----
Ms. Johnson. To the regional administrator. He said that--
he said that himself. In August, he informed the regional
administrator she needed to get a handle on his travel. I had
just put her into office.
Mr. Denham. ``OIG also advised Administrator Johnson to get
a handle on the RC's travel.'' Did the IG get it wrong?
Mr. Miller. If I could clarify, I did speak to the regional
administrator in August of 2011, and I told her to get a
handle, to get control of Mr. Neely's travel, and to perhaps
get her CFO to look at his travel.
In May, when I met with Administrator Johnson, I went
through the interim report that has the eight pre-planning
trips to Las Vegas and exactly who was at these trips, which
includes Mr. Neely at many of them.
Mr. Denham. I will ask you one last time. What was the
immediate action you took when you received this report from
the IG?
Ms. Johnson. There were a number of things I did. One is I
appointed Ruth Cox into the regional administrator's office,
the job in Region 9. I also began the process of creating a
centralized office with chief administrative services offices
pulling in a lot of the oversight across the agency for travel
conferences, FOIA, a number of other things.
And we continued to work on an agenda that we had had
undergoing to streamline and shorten conferences GSA runs, and
we were quite focused on reducing their size and their scope. I
can give you more detail on that if you would like.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Norton?
Ms. Norton. Ms. Johnson, you are very experienced in
Government. This is why the President appointed you to be
administrator of GSA. In fact, that was, if anything, a
promotion, because you had been at GSA before, had done such an
incredible job. And I think everyone recognizes that, up until
this point, you had had a very distinguished career.
One thing that those of us who have been in the Federal
Government are used to are GAO reports. I am not here talking
about IG reports. The GAO reports can be particularly deadly.
And what agency heads and supervisors do when they see the GAO
on the job is to rush to get in front of the GAO report so
that, by the time it comes out, they are able to say, we have
already done XYZ. It is almost a given if you run an agency.
Here you had virtually run an agency before, and now you ran an
agency, which is why I think you are getting these questions.
You are not a novice. You had a storied career. And it is hard
to understand why you would not have treated--and let me go to
the bonus.
The bonus, much like I treat someone or I am sure most
people do, when you were asked to do a recommendation to
someone, the first thing I think about is, ``Wait a minute,
this is on me now. If I recommend that person and that person
messes up, my reputation is attached to that person.'' That is
what has happened to you with the bonus.
You had a specific recommendation after the interim report,
after the report, that Mr. Peck--or no, Neely--excuse me--was
to receive a 3. Apparently, Mr. Peck lobbied and he got a 4. I
understand Mr. Peck can be persuasive. Your own committee,
though, had looked at all of the circumstances and come out
with a 3. And you had knowledge of, you knew, or, as it goes in
the law, you knew or should have known about the interim report
and that much of that involved a commissioner, a PBS
commissioner.
It is hard to understand why you didn't understand that you
would be implicated, personally, after you knew the interim
report was out and what it said, if you actually raised this
man beyond what your own committee had said. That is why it is
difficult to understand how you, in light of your knowledge of
the interim report, would have felt it necessary to give Mr.
Neely a bonus. That is what it is, a bonus, and a bonus
recommended by you, overruling your own committee.
And I wish you would--I wish you would make us understand.
Was it that Mr. Peck offered factors that overcame the
committee, overcame the interim report? Make us understand why
you would have raised that from a 3 to a 4.
Ms. Johnson. Congresswoman, there are two responses I can
give.
The first is, as I have said, I treated the interim report
as inconclusive. It was not the final report. Had I had----
Ms. Norton. In other words, you thought that the----
Ms. Johnson [continuing]. The final IG report----
Ms. Norton. Well, wait a minute.
Mr. Miller, weren't the allegations in the interim report
substantiated? And wasn't the point of the interim report to
say that there were other things that were going to come out,
not that what was in the interim report should not be given
value? In fact, didn't your deputies say, ``You should give it
value''?
Mr. Miller. Right.
Ms. Norton. ``That is why we are bringing it to your
attention.''
Mr. Miller. Right. What is in the interim report is that
there is a problem. We may not have the precise numbers, you
know, we may adjust the numbers from the interim report to the
final, but this was basically it.
She also had the final Hats Off report that was final at
the end of June. And she also had my----
Ms. Norton. Now, Hats Off was under Mr. Neely?
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Ms. Norton. And there were accusations that went to Neely's
conduct.
Mr. Miller. Conduct, yes, identified in that report. When I
briefed Administrator Johnson, I also mentioned that he was
less than candid, in our opinion, to our special agents when
interviewed.
Ms. Johnson. Congresswoman, if it was just short of a final
report, why did it take 9 months to get it to me? As the time
went on----
Ms. Norton. Just a moment, Ms. Johnson. Are you
criticizing----
Ms. Johnson [continuing]. I was concerned----
Ms. Norton [continuing]. The IG for not having rushed
through to the report? He provides you with an interim report,
knowing full well that it is taking him longer than he
expected. He was finding far more problems than he expected. So
he says, why don't I do something here to alert the top people
so that they know to proceed now before my final report.
So how can you criticize Mr. Miller in this for not having
gone faster? I am glad he didn't go faster because he
uncovered----
Ms. Johnson. Yes.
Ms. Norton [continuing]. Much by not going faster. And, by
the way, he is still at it.
Ms. Johnson. Yes. And I am--and we asked for the
investigation, and it was clearly quite serious because it was
taking the kind of time and attention it did.
And so I was--were I to have had the final report when I
made the bonus decision, I would not be here explaining about a
bonus. I would not have made that bonus decision.
Mr. Denham. This is a good point for us to transition back
to me again and follow up on that same question.
Let me go through what you did know. You knew that they
spent four times what they were budgeted, because it says that
right here. You had this report, you discussed it with your
staff, you discussed it with Mr. Peck. You knew that they had
300 people that went to Las Vegas. You knew that they had spent
$250,000 on a variety of different trinkets. You knew about the
Hats Off Program and all of the money that they spent there.
You knew about the pre-planning meetings and the dry run,
meetings where 31 people went to a planning conference, 20
people, 8, 15, 65. Nine different planning trips. You knew
about the comped rooms in Caesars Palace. You new about the
comped rooms at the Ritz Carlton. You knew that there were many
different individuals that were taking these trips. You knew
about the vendors and the possibility of improprieties and
kickbacks.
You knew about the team-building exercise. You knew about
the clowns. You knew about the videos. You knew about the
$75,000 for the bicycles. You knew that there was a legal
question that was brought up and then swept under the table
because they didn't want it in writing. You knew about the
coins that were printed up for this, the $6,000 stimulus coins.
You knew about the spending, nearly $3,000 per attendee just
for the one conference in Vegas alone. You knew that they
didn't follow legal requirements. Again, several laws being
broken.
You knew that this went well beyond Neely. But I think that
Neely provides the best example of why this goes to the level
of fraud, waste, corruption. And had he been here today, we
would have a lot more questions for him as well. But he has a
good reason to have a lawyer.
I have looked at both this original, a year-and-a-half ago,
as well as the final draft. But I can tell you one thing that
is very clear to me, one thing that I think is very clear to
Ms. Norton and the entire committee. I mean, it doesn't take a
whole lot to take a look at all of these various picture,
parties, see the birthday parties, see the families and friends
that are traveling--and understand that there is an IG--the
first IG investigation going on.
May of last year, you had all of this information that I am
holding in my hand right now that I just went through on a top
line. I can tell you, I wouldn't have had anybody traveling. I
can tell you, I wouldn't have given anybody bonuses, especially
when the President that appointed you had a directive.
And your Chief of Staff, Michael Robertson, lets the White
House know last June. And you still allowed Neely to take all
these trips and you knew about it? How is that immediate
action? I am surprised that the administration, that the
President didn't take immediate action. I am assuming that
somebody in the White House, somebody in the administration
said, ``Hey, how is that IG report coming? That investigator
come up with anything else? We saw a copy of this; it is pretty
bad.''
If he is giving you regular meetings, I would assume the
White House would have somebody going, ``Oh, boy, this is
really going to look bad. Maybe we ought to get some regular
meetings too. And if Martha Johnson is not doing something
about it, maybe we need to replace her. And if Bob Peck is not
doing something about it, maybe we need to replace him. Maybe
we need to put Mr. Neely on administrative leave in May of last
year rather than waiting until the American public finds out
about it.''
Nothing happened for a year? And you allowed all of these
trips to continue on? Multiple conferences? I mean, I can
appreciate Mr. Tangherlini coming in and suspending the 35
conferences that are scheduled. How were they even scheduled?
How didn't you stop those conferences? I am amazed that, with
the recommendation from Mr. Miller, that more wasn't done to
stop this over the last year.
Mr. Miller, I want to go back to something you said. You
are going to be exhausted by the end of this week. In fact, I
assume all of you will be. I don't know that--you know, I am a
freshman, I have only been here for a year-and-a-half, but I
have not seen four committee hearings on any topic yet.
But in yesterday's testimony, Mr. Cummings, Congressman
Cummings, asked you a question. It took 9 months to
investigate. Ms. Johnson indicated that she was surprised it
took that long. Were you communicating with her regularly about
the progress in the investigation, and you replied back, ``Yes,
we provided information. The briefing--and I asked her to get a
handle on the RC's travel.'' You testified to that yesterday.
Did you misspeak yesterday? Are you misspeaking today?
Mr. Miller. Well, I must have misspoken yesterday. I
specifically told the regional administrator in Region 9 to get
ahold of his travel in August of 2011. I did brief
Administrator Johnson in May of 2011 on the interim report. And
we went through the interim report. She saw the pre-planning
travel. I did tell her about the less-than-candid comments.
And, of course, we also had the Hats Off report that she was
fully briefed on.
Mr. Denham. How often were you meeting with Ms. Johnson?
Mr. Miller. We met in May, May 17th I think. And then we
met again in August. I don't think we met before that.
Mr. Denham. I can't imagine that you had any of these
meetings where you didn't say, ``We have a big issue here.''
Mr. Miller. Yeah. We met in August, I think maybe twice in
August.
Mr. Denham. And during that same period of time, were you
also meeting with other people that worked within GSA?
Mr. Miller. Indeed. And my senior staff is in constant
touch with senior staff throughout GSA. And----
Mr. Denham. How often do you think you communicated,
whether it is between staff to staff or you with Ms. Johnson?
No matter what level, how often is it?
Mr. Miller. Oh, I think we communicate several times a week
between our staff and staff at GSA. And I know that my deputy
communicates regularly with the deputy administrator, and I
believe they did so about this investigation. And I
communicated with Steve Leeds, as well, about this
investigation.
Mr. Denham. Did anybody from the administration ever
contact you?
Mr. Miller. No one from the White House has ever contacted
me. I have never spoken to them about this report.
Mr. Denham. So several times a week the OIG contacted GSA
and let them know----
Mr. Miller. Well, we contacted----
Mr. Denham. As you found new stuff, did you let them know?
Mr. Miller. No, because it is an investigation, and we need
to keep the investigation confidential in order to do the
investigation.
And when we contact people throughout GSA, it is about many
matters. We are involved in audits, we are involved in many
things. So the contacts between my office and GSA are on many
topics.
Regarding this----
Mr. Denham. Let me understand the OIG's--you know what? My
time has expired. I will come back to this.
Ms. Norton?
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Now, occasionally, the distress of the committee comes out.
I think one of the Members said, you know, we ought to just get
rid of--perhaps we ought to just get rid of GSA. Well, it is
precisely because GSA serves an indispensable function in the
Government that this is such a serious matter. So we have to do
it the hard way.
And I am looking--I am trying to be as remedy-oriented as I
can. On the one hand, there are issues of misconduct. Either
the law enforcement system, our hearings will bring out some,
or the system within GSA now under Mr. Tangherlini are going to
ferret those out.
But we are still going to be left with the existing
structure. I believe in good personnel, but I don't believe
that the Government or any other agency or private business can
always assure that there will be precisely the people in charge
who will keep things going. So I am therefore looking very
carefully at the structure.
And, Ms. Johnson, the structure you found in place had been
put in place by an acting GSA administrator. He is now on
administrative leave because he was in real life a PBS
commissioner. His name is Paul Prouty, I understand it. He is
apparently responsible for the present structure of the region
at GSA.
Now, the regional administrator is a political appointee.
But under Mr. Prouty, that administrator apparently was made no
more than a figurehead. You say you appointed Ms.--I forget her
name.
Ms. Johnson. Ruth Cox.
Ms. Norton. Yes, the new administrator. But as it appears
from his organization of the GSA, before his organization, or
shall I say reorganization, the regional administrator
apparently had direct control over the two commissioners--the
PBS commissioner, the FAS commissioner.
Under his reorganization, that was no longer the case, and
you have the reporting straight up that we have talked about
today. It looks as though this person you appointed was
something like a figurehead, just the way the CFO, also called
the GSA CFO, was a figurehead. And yet, you kept this
structure, this structure put in place by an acting GSA
administrator, when you could have looked at it and seen, it
seems to me, that your own, it seems to me, your own position
had been weakened.
Remember, he is a PBS commissioner. He makes sure that
these people report around the regional administrator and
straight up to the commissioners, the respective commissioners.
That means, if I am coming in, that I am looking at less
authority for me, because my own person there no longer has the
authority that she had before.
Why did you accept this organization, this form of
organization that was not put in by a Presidential appointee
but was put in by someone who acted for a very long period of
time when there was no Presidential appointee--in fact, he may
have gone over into two administrations--and left in place this
structure that we have now with a series of figureheads,
including at the regional level, where Mr. Neely was able to do
his work when he was both regional administrator, of course--
and PBS commissioner didn't much matter, because Prouty, before
him, had reorganized the place so that the regional
administrator wasn't left with much authority anyway. And now
Prouty is on administrative leave because he is implicated in
what happened in Region 9.
Could you tell us whether you were satisfied with the
structure you found in place and why you left it in place?
Ms. Johnson. The structure that I found in place was one in
which the regional administrators did the performance reviews
of the regional commissioners. So, in that sense, they were not
toothless. They were not--I can't remember the word you used.
They weren't just figureheads.
Ms. Norton. They did the what? I am sorry.
Ms. Johnson. They gave performance reviews to the regional
commissioners. The regional administrator had to review the
regional commissioners. They signed off on it. They got input
from the commissioners, but they signed off----
Ms. Norton. So what did they have to do with budget? What
did they have to do with function? You know, this is where you
understand line authority.
Ms. Johnson. This is the matrix, yes, this is a matrix,
because they would receive their budgets from their
commissioners, but their performance review would come from
their regional administrators, who had the ultimate signoff
with input from the commissioners.
And the shift, as I understand it, the shift that happened
was that the contracting authority, the head of contracting
authority was moved from the RA to the regional commissioners,
and that was the change under Paul Prouty.
Should I have changed that back? I believe it is something
we should have reviewed thoroughly. It had been in place for a
couple of years. Frankly, there were so many other things that
we were undertaking, it wasn't at the top of my list. Perhaps
it should have been.
Ms. Norton. Look what Mr. Prouty did. As acting
administrator, he changed the agency so that he went back to
his old position as PBS commissioner in the region with
enhanced authority that he himself had made, and your regional
administrator had diminished authority, and you, yourself,
therefore, had diminished authority because of it. I have to
say, Ms. Johnson, I think you were snookered by your own PBS
commissioner.
Ms. Johnson. There is one piece to that that makes it a
little bit difficult. I believe that the way to think about
that contracting authority is either it came up to me through
the regional administrator or it came up through the
commissioner. It was still coming to me. So I don't know if it
is six, one-half dozen, or seven to five, but it was a shift,
and it still devolved up to me in terms of contracting
authority.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Denham. It was still coming up to you, but you were
doing nothing about it. That is the issue here. That is why we
continue to come back around on this issue.
Mr. Miller, when you do an investigation and you come back
with this preliminary report, what normally happens?
Mr. Miller. Well, this was an unusual report. We did the
interim report so that we could stop some of the waste in the
future. So it is unusual. Usually when we do an investigation,
we will complete the investigation, make a referral to the
Department of Justice, and there is a criminal prosecution or
perhaps a civil case that is brought.
Mr. Denham. So, as of May 3rd, you did a preliminary
report, ongoing investigation, a couple of investigations now,
but you did a preliminary report----
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Mr. Denham [continuing]. So that you could stop the abuses
right there.
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Mr. Denham. And so, after May 3rd, you started having
multiple conversations per week with GSA, either through you or
through your staff, from everybody from Ms. Johnson to Ms. Cox
when she was appointed.
Mr. Miller. Well----
Mr. Denham. How was it that the spending did not stop? How
was it that the trips did not stop?
Mr. Miller. I do want to clarify that when I said we have
multiple contacts, and we have contacts throughout my office,
my senior staff contacts senior staff throughout GSA, it is on
many different issues. On this particular issue, because it is
an investigation and because of the nature of it, we wouldn't
be going out of our way to tell GSA people about this, because
it is an investigation.
Mr. Denham. But you went out of your way in this case.
Mr. Miller. Well, we went out of----
Mr. Denham. You gave them a heads-up. You let them know
that there was a big problem here.
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Denham. And you told them to get a handle on RC's
travel.
Mr. Miller. I told the regional administrator that in
August. And we did the preliminary--the interim report in May
to alert the administrator.
Mr. Denham. You came back in December of last year. Ms.
Brita alerted you to Mr. Neely's 17-day trip which he was
taking his wife on. You got the emails of the party that they
were going to have and the----
Mr. Miller. It is the other way around.
Mr. Denham [continuing]. The different places they were
going to travel to.
Mr. Miller. It is the other way around. We contacted Ms.
Brita, the deputy administrator, about the travel and said,
``Do you know about this travel? Is it really necessary?'' And
Ms. Brita contacted the regional administrator, and----
Mr. Denham. Ms. Cox.
Mr. Miller. Yes. And I believe----
Mr. Denham. Did Ms. Cox let you know that this 17-day trip
was going to happen?
Ms. Johnson. I did not know about the trip from either Ms.
Brita or the inspector general or Ms. Cox.
Mr. Denham. Has Ms. Cox been fired?
Ms. Johnson. I did not fire her.
Mr. Denham. Has she been put on administrative leave?
Ms. Johnson. I do not know. I am not at the agency anymore.
Mr. Denham. Has she resigned?
Ms. Johnson. I do not know.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Tangherlini, Ms. Cox, who was aware of this
17-day trip, who was made aware of the ongoing OIG
investigation, has she been fired?
Mr. Tangherlini. No, she has not.
Mr. Denham. Put on administrative leave?
Mr. Tangherlini. No, she has not.
Mr. Denham. She hasn't resigned?
Mr. Tangherlini. No, she hasn't.
Mr. Denham. Any reason to believe that she was not aware of
the May 3rd report?
Mr. Tangherlini. I am still reviewing all of the outcomes
of the analysis of the inspector general, all of the outcomes
of this hearing, and we are still conducting--still undertaking
personnel actions.
Mr. Denham. Do you dispute whether Ms. Brita alerted Ms.
Cox to this 17-day trip that was coming up?
Mr. Tangherlini. I have no reason to dispute that.
Mr. Denham. Is she irreplaceable?
Mr. Tangherlini. I haven't been there long enough to know
who on the staff is replaceable or irreplaceable, so that is
part of the review I want to do--understand who we have, what
role they play, and how they can continue to serve.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Johnson testifies that she took immediate
action. April 3rd, Mr. Peck is fired. April 3rd, Steve Leeds is
fired. Mr. Neely and four others that represent the different
regions are put on administrative leave on the 3rd. And I
believe that is the same day that you resigned, Ms. Johnson.
This committee gets the information on April 2nd--or we
called our hearing on April 2nd. And it wasn't until we called
a hearing and prepared subpoenas before any action was taken. A
year-and-a-half prior to that was when you had the May 3rd
report. What immediate action was taken?
Ms. Johnson. When we received the final draft of the report
from the IG, we spent some--we absorbed it, we met with the IG
further to deepen our understanding of the background evidence.
I called Ruth Cox in to begin some disciplinary activities. I
placed the regional commissioners--I placed Jeff Neely on
administrative leave. I placed the regional commissioners on--
all four regional commissioners on administrative leave,
ultimately. I had gone----
Mr. Denham. Were you directed to do so?
Ms. Johnson. No. No. These were my decisions.
Mr. Denham. Why didn't you make the decision on Ms. Cox?
What was different with her?
Ms. Johnson. I admonished all of the regional
administrators. I then removed the two people in the chain of
command who were the political appointees. Ruth Cox reported to
Steve Leeds. I removed Steve Leeds, and I resigned. So I took
out the senior people.
Mr. Denham. Ms. Norton?
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, I only have one more question.
I do want to welcome the seniors from Cardozo High School
who have come into the room. It is rare for visitors to see a
hearing in progress. I can't say this has much to do with the
District of Columbia, but Mr. Tangherlini is here.
And I do want to say for the record that the President took
action without hesitation. And the action was not simply to
discharge some or indeed all of the high officers of the
agency. The President also brought in Dan Tangherlini. And I
can say from my own personal experience that it was an
appointment made for this situation. Mr. Tangherlini has been
the administrator of the District of Columbia, a very big and
complicated city; done the same thing at Metro. So here as an
administrator not only with impeccable management skills but
also impeccable ethics.
But you see what you have laid out for you to do.
I have one question about these conferences. In one of my
other committees, we are focusing on teleworking, and we are
having, finally, some progress in getting teleworking. I don't
know about teleconferencing. And I do want to say this also for
the record: As somebody who manages people right now in the
Congress and managed much more people in prior positions in my
life, I value what face-to-face meetings can do. My own staff
is in the same city. But the district office staff--and there
are two district offices--and the congressional office staff
don't have face-to-face meetings that often, but they have
telephone meetings--now, of course, it is a much smaller staff
than you would have in an agency--they have telephone meetings
every Monday morning.
I would like to ask, because I don't know enough about the
value of these face-to-face conferences, but I would like to
ask you, Mr. Tangherlini, since the conference is the vortex of
this problem, what criteria you will use--I know you don't know
what you are going to do now--in determining whether these
face-to-face conferences serve a legitimate need. And how much
of the work that is now being done in face-to-face conferences
do you think, in light of the priority the Federal Government
and the administration is putting on teleworking, could be done
with more teleconferencing?
Mr. Tangherlini. Well, I have to say that GSA is already a
leader in teleconferencing, telepresence, moving out on ideas
such as webinars. That is one of the things we are asking
ourselves to be, is more like GSA for GSA, and ask ourselves,
can we challenge ourselves to use some of the technology we
have developed, challenge ourselves to use some of the
innovations that have come out of GSA over the last several
years and use this to overcome the costs associated with some
of the travel for conferences and training.
I will say that we believe that there is huge value in
high-quality training, interaction between Federal employees
who are working on the same areas and ideas. When you are
dealing with things like the Federal acquisition system, you
need to have skilled, trained people managing those resources,
because literally billions of dollars go through those folks.
And so we want to make sure that they have the highest quality
training.
So our chief administrative officer office, which has been
set up under the former administrator, we have given extra
powers to oversee these conferences, to oversee the training,
to oversee the travel. And, in fact, I issued on April 15th
guidelines on conferences and travel that ask those questions
first: Does this have to happen by actually having people come
together? Can we use Federal facilities instead of renting a
conference facility to do this kind of training? And what is
the value we are going to get out of these activities?
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Johnson. Mr. Chairman, could I correct a couple of
dates here? I just want to be really clear about the record.
We put Mr. Neely on administrative leave on March 19th. I
removed Steve Leeds and Bob Peck and resigned on April 2nd. I
just wanted to be sure that is in the record correctly.
Mr. Denham. Thank you.
In June of last year, your Chief of Staff--Michael
Robertson is your Chief of Staff, correct?
Ms. Johnson. He was my Chief of Staff, yes.
Mr. Denham. He was the liaison to the White House prior to
that?
Ms. Johnson. Before that he was--well, he was in the policy
shop for a while, and before that he was the White House
liaison, yes.
Mr. Denham. He did work on Senator Obama's staff before
Senator Obama became President Obama?
Ms. Johnson. Yes.
Mr. Denham. In June of last year, he informed Kimberly
Harris, White House counsel, about this report. Did you ever
have subsequent meetings with the administration?
Ms. Johnson. First of all, I learned that yesterday in the
testimony. I did not realize he had informed anyone at the
White House.
Mr. Denham. Did you ever inform anybody at the White House?
Ms. Johnson. We held meetings with the White House after we
received the draft report in----
Mr. Denham. After May 3rd?
Ms. Johnson. After--sorry?
Mr. Denham. After May 3rd, when the draft--when the report
came out last year.
Ms. Johnson. No. I did not talk to the White House until
after the final draft report was delivered to us in late
February.
Mr. Denham. Which was when?
Ms. Johnson. When the----
Mr. Denham. The final.
Ms. Johnson. The draft report came to us at the end of
February. February--I don't have----
Mr. Miller. In terms of terminology, Mr. Chairman, we
termed the May 3rd report the interim report.
Mr. Denham. Uh-huh.
Mr. Miller. And our practice, when we have a final report,
we give the agency 30 days to respond. At the end of 30 days,
we will publish everything. We technically call that a draft.
And that draft report was delivered on February 17th with the
30-day notice, which Administrator Johnson asked us to extend
it by another 30 days, which we did.
Ms. Johnson. So after that draft report was delivered to
me, I was in some discussions with the White House, but not
before.
Mr. Denham. You had no discussions with the White House
last year.
Ms. Johnson. No, I did not.
Mr. Denham. Anybody in the administration above you? I am
just trying to figure out what the pattern here is and how deep
this goes.
Ms. Johnson. I did not talk to the White House. I
understand from yesterday's hearing that my Chief of Staff
spoke to someone in June.
Mr. Denham. March 17th you received the draft.
Ms. Johnson. February.
Mr. Denham. I am sorry, February 17th you received the
draft?
Ms. Johnson. Right.
Mr. Denham. So what we have up here is the May 3rd
preliminary?
Mr. Miller. Interim report.
Mr. Denham. Interim report. I want to make sure I use the
correct terminology. So almost a year passes by. Nine months
passes by. You continue your report, you finalize your
investigation, you put that in a nice package, you give that
over to Ms. Johnson on February 17th, that is the draft?
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Mr. Denham. Your immediate action was what?
Ms. Johnson. We reviewed the report. He gives us the draft
report so that we can review it and respond to him, and then he
will publish the final report with our response. We immediately
realized that we agreed with all the recommendations in the
report. I then contacted our chief human resources officer and
our general counsel so that I could begin to frame up the
disciplinary actions that we needed to take. We did that work.
We met more with the IG. We put Jeff Neely on administrative
leave.
Mr. Denham. Wait a minute. You put Jeff Neely on
administrative leave March 19th?
Ms. Johnson. Yes.
Mr. Denham. You received the draft report on February 17th.
You said you took immediate action?
Ms. Johnson. Yes. I received the report. As I said, I
consulted with our HR staff, with our general counsel.
Mr. Denham. Before you went back to Mr. Miller and
requested an additional 30 days did you think--did you find
some things in the report that you thought that were false?
Ms. Johnson. That were false? No, I had no reason to think
that anything was false.
Mr. Denham. Anything misleading?
Ms. Johnson. No. As I said, I accepted the entire report.
Mr. Denham. So you accepted--you didn't have any concerns
about the report itself when you received it on February 17th.
You asked for an additional 30 days. Why did you ask for an
additional 30 days if you didn't have any problem with the
report?
Ms. Johnson. The amount of material that the IG had as
underlying evidence which he had gathered over something like
15 months was fairly substantial. Our human resource officer
and general counsel needed to dig into some of that to be sure
to be able to frame up the letters that we needed to be sending
in order to put people on various, on the various disciplinary
actions that we were beginning to take. It was a phenomenal
amount of material. And so we----
Mr. Denham. A lot of material. But did you have any reason
to believe that Mr. Neely did or did not go on these trips? Did
you believe that all the trips that were detailed in this
report were factual?
Ms. Johnson. Yes, I accepted the report.
Mr. Denham. OK. So if you accepted the report and you
didn't put Mr. Neely on administrative leave until March 19th,
why would you let him go on a 17-day trip that you have got
emails on that show that it is a party for he and his wife?
That happened in February. And then in March another trip to
Hawaii and then another trip to Napa. So the immediate action--
I understand. I don't agree with you on why it took so long to
put Mr. Neely on administrative leave. I think it is absurd. I
think it is a disjustice to the taxpayer. But how did it go on
for 2 more months after you had the report, the final report?
Decisions should have been made easily May 3rd of last year,
but February 17th of this year you said you received the
report, you agreed with the report and then you took immediate
action, yet Mr. Neely still went on a 17-day trip which he took
his wife on, which they had a party and a birthday present. You
have the emails to that. And then he went on another trip to
Hawaii for 4 days and another trip to Napa where the entire
executive team went and spent over $40,000 without even the
travel expenses on there.
Do you see how I have a hard time understanding how you
took immediate action.
Ms. Johnson. Congressman, upon receiving the report, I
recognized that although I had tasked senior leaders with
various responsibilities and oversight, clearly management
controls had been breached. I fired the two people most
immediately in the chain of command and I resigned.
Mr. Denham. On February 17th you received a report, you had
no problems with the report, you knew that it was factual. Did
you meet with the White House then?
Ms. Johnson. Not immediately.
Mr. Denham. Have you ever met with the President over this
topic?
Ms. Johnson. No.
Mr. Denham. Any other administrative--anybody else within
the administration over the last 45 days?
Ms. Johnson. We briefed people in the White House, yes.
Mr. Denham. At what point?
Ms. Johnson. I can dig out my calendar to help me remember.
It was in the week of--as we were putting--it was in the week
of, I believe, and I don't have access to my schedule anymore
so this is as well as I can recollect, the week of March 18th
and the week of March 25th. They were information meetings. We
needed them to know what we were doing.
Mr. Denham. And who did you meet with?
Ms. Johnson. I met with people in the White House counsel's
office, people at the Office of Management and Budget, I met
with people in the communications staff. These are people in
the meetings I held in the White House counsel's office. I also
met with people in the Chief of Staff's office. Oh, and
Presidential Personnel, since we were taking action on
political appointees.
Mr. Denham. Who within general counsel did you meet with?
Ms. Johnson. I met with--hang on a sec. To the best of my
memory we met with the general counsel, the White House
counsel, Kathy Ruemmler.
Mr. Denham. Anybody else within counsel?
Ms. Johnson. There might have been one or two more staff
there but I didn't--I don't remember and I don't know their
names.
Mr. Denham. How about within budget?
Ms. Johnson. We--in one of the meetings Jeff Zients came
through, stopped in briefly. He is the head of Office of
Management and Budget. And also met with Danny Werfel, Dana
Hyde and Boris Bershteyn, who is at OMB. Those meetings were
about policy. We wanted to talk with them about possible
conference policy, travel policy because they are clearly
interested in how we can move forward from this kind of event
and create ever better policies to try to prevent this thing,
the same question----
Mr. Denham. Who did you meet within communications?
Ms. Johnson. I was in a meeting in the general--in the
White House counsel's office. There were communications people
there. Jennifer Palmieri I believe was there. And I think there
might have been others, but I didn't know their names. She
might have been the only one.
Mr. Denham. Chief of Staff's office?
Ms. Johnson. I met with--in the meetings there was
representation from the Chief of Staff's office. I believe Mark
Childress is in the Chief of Staff's office and Alyssa
Mastromonaco. She was there briefly. Ultimately I met with Jack
Lew as well.
Mr. Denham. And in Personnel?
Ms. Johnson. Nancy Hogan, the head of Presidential
Personnel.
Mr. Denham. Just the two of you?
Ms. Johnson. No. She was in one of the other meetings.
Mr. Denham. So you had meetings the week of March 18th, you
made the decision to put Mr. Neely on administrative leave on
the 19th?
Ms. Johnson. To the best of my recollection, that is the
right date, yes.
Mr. Denham. You went back to the White House or the
administration March 25th. Why did it take all the way up until
April 3rd or April 2nd to fire Mr. Peck, to fire Mr. Leeds and
to put all of the other administrators on leave?
Ms. Johnson. Well, there are----
Mr. Denham. I am trying to understand what you found out
between those.
Ms. Johnson. What we were doing was we were working, I was
working particularly with our HR senior executive and a person
from the general--senior executive in the general counsel's
office to understand what were the particular, what was the
particular evidence that the IG had uncovered and how we could
fit that into letters of admonishment and what kind of
disciplinary actions they fit against. This required some
understanding because it needed to be documented and we needed
to create documents in order to execute those activities.
Mr. Denham. You had all those documents.
Ms. Johnson. No. We had to write letters, we had to
create--and there are two officials involved in a dismissal so
you need to get the person in, get them to go through the
evidence and have them understand it and so on. It is not--it
is not something you get done quickly. There is a process,
there is a due process here that we needed to follow.
Mr. Denham. Each of those different meetings, I assume you
met with White House general counsel to let them know that you
were going to be firing people and putting people on
administrative leave, so you were seeking counsel from them.
Ms. Johnson. No, I was informing them. And the meetings
were about helping them understand what Ms. Norton is so
concerned about, helping them understand the structure, who the
people were in the reports, what was going on. They don't know
the internal workings of GSA. So I needed to explain who and
where and how, how this all sorted out. And I also needed to
explain to them the various disciplinary options that we had
and that we were working through them, yes.
Mr. Denham. And budget, the reason to meet with them?
Ms. Johnson. I met with them predominantly to talk about
policy. They were eager to understand what we might suggest
around the kinds of policies they could create so that this
wouldn't happen again.
Mr. Denham. Communications?
Ms. Johnson. She attended the meeting in the White House
counsel's office. Basically it was largely a meeting with the
White House counsel and she was there in the room.
Mr. Denham. Dan Pfeiffer was not in any of those meetings?
Ms. Johnson. Who?
Mr. Denham. Dan Pfeiffer.
Ms. Johnson. Dan Pfeiffer. Not that I am aware of.
Mr. Denham. Jack Lew.
Ms. Johnson. I met with Jack Lew in a separate meeting,
yes.
Mr. Denham. Which? In the Chief of Staff's meeting?
Ms. Johnson. I met with him in his office with Nancy Hogan
of Presidential Personnel.
Mr. Denham. That was the week of March 18th?
Ms. Johnson. I think that was the next week.
Mr. Denham. So the purpose of all of these various meetings
with all of these different individuals within the
administration was to inform them what had come out of the IG's
report. Did you give them each a copy of the IG report? Did the
IG--did you give them----
Ms. Johnson. I did not. I believe--I did not.
Mr. Miller. I had no contact with the White House about
this report.
Ms. Johnson. However--right, I did not either.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Tangherlini, when did you get a copy of
this report?
Mr. Tangherlini. I got a copy of this report on Monday,
April 2nd.
Mr. Denham. So the purpose of all these different meetings
with the White House was to let them know the decisions that
you were about to make over the next couple of weeks?
Ms. Johnson. Including my resignation.
Mr. Denham. When did you let them know that you were
planning on resigning?
Ms. Johnson. I had that meeting with Jack Lew the Friday
before, so it must have been March 31st--30th, March 30th, in
which we discussed that I was planning on resigning and I was
planning on terminating, removing the other two political
appointees.
Mr. Denham. Ongoing investigation. We are still going to
follow up with you, Mr. Tangherlini, on finding out how deep
this goes. I appreciate the fact that you are doing an internal
audit and going to share that with this committee. And I assume
over the next couple of days or the next couple of hearings,
especially with this investigation going on, when somebody does
get fired I am sure that we will hear about it. I would like to
hear about it from you before I hear about it from the media.
I assume that when somebody goes to jail that will come
through the DOJ. We will probably hear that from the press
before we hear it from you. And I think a bigger issue here is
what gets paid back, what do the taxpayers own? I would like to
know who you are going after and what you are asking them to
pay, and when they actually pay the money I would like to know
that, too.
Mr. Tangherlini, we are drafting legislation to require GSA
to obtain approval specifically for its administrative budget
each year. We want to ensure that there is transparency. We
should have had this information a long time ago. But there is
no reason the taxpayers should not know where these
expenditures are going forward. I know you haven't seen that
legislation yet, but at least the idea, the concept of this do
you support?
Mr. Tangherlini. I would be happy to work with the
committee on any such language.
Mr. Denham. Do you have any issue with providing greater
transparency to this committee?
Mr. Tangherlini. We have no issue with providing greater
transparency.
Mr. Denham. Do you have any issue sharing the annual budget
with the Public Buildings Fund with this committee?
Mr. Tangherlini. I can't see why we would have any problem
with that.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. As we talked about here--well, let
me just confirm, the Hats Off program is done?
Mr. Tangherlini. Yes, it is.
Mr. Denham. We talked about the L.A. Courthouse. We have
great concern as a committee on that issue. Not only that it is
moving forward but that a new prospectus wasn't done. Are you
planning on doing a new prospectus on that project?
Mr. Tangherlini. Mr. Chairman, at this time I don't know
enough about that project to be able to do that.
Mr. Denham. I would request that you take a look at that
issue and provide this committee with your recommendation on
how you plan on proceeding forward on that issue.
A much smaller issue. I am also planning on putting through
a bill on banning all coins. It sounds like Mr. Walz will be
more than happy to cosponsor that issue with me. Any reason in
the future why we need to be spending taxpayer dollars on
coins, commemorative coins?
Mr. Tangherlini. I can't think of any reason as it pertains
to GSA, but again I don't know enough to know how these have
been used.
Mr. Denham. Do you--you don't know of any reason why we
would need to?
Mr. Tangherlini. I can't think of any reason, no.
Mr. Denham. To say I am disappointed would be an
understatement. I have been outraged in my district, angry. Mr.
Walz knows that because we work on a lot of veterans issues
together, and what we see our veterans going through is very
personal. To see this type of abuse is, it goes beyond
irresponsible.
I have had a good relationship with Mr. Peck, we really
have. As a freshman coming in I had a lot to learn. We have
communicated quite often on cell phone and discussed how we
could get the Civilian Property Realignment Act, how we can
change the way of doing business here. I am disappointed that a
lot more of this didn't come into light during those
conversations. I would just say I hope that you and I have a
better relationship so that you feel comfortable that we can
have an off-the-record conversation if something does arise,
whether it is in this investigation or whether future
investigations need to happen.
I am very proud of the fact that this committee most often
works as a bipartisan committee. I mean, I think Republicans
and Democrats probably agree on this committee more than most
here in Washington. So it is really disheartening when we see
things being hidden from the taxpayer, that there aren't better
decisions being made.
So in closing, I would just say I look forward to having a
better relationship, a more open relationship, that we can
share some of this information and work together not only in a
bipartisan level but on a bicameral level and making sure that
we can address this stuff together.
I would like to thank each of our witnesses for their
testimony today, some of their very frank and difficult
testimony. And if there are no further questions, I ask
unanimous consent that the record of today's hearing remain
open until such time as our witnesses have provided answers to
any questions that may be submitted to them in writing, and
unanimous consent that during such time as the record remains
open for additional comments offered. Without objection, so
ordered.
I would also like to thank our witnesses again for their
testimony, and again if no other questions, this committee
stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]