[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
GSA: A REVIEW OF AGENCY MISMANAGEMENT
AND WASTEFUL SPENDING--PART 2
=======================================================================
(112-96)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
AUGUST 1, 2012
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Available online at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/
committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation
----------
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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
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania
BILLY LONG, Missouri TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
BOB GIBBS, Ohio HEATH SHULER, North Carolina
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York LAURA RICHARDSON, California
JEFFREY M. LANDRY, Louisiana ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
STEVE SOUTHERLAND II, Florida DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
JEFF DENHAM, California
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,
Tennessee
VACANCY
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ iv
TESTIMONY
Hon. Brian D. Miller, Inspector General, General Services
Administration................................................. 11
Cynthia Metzler, Chief Administrative Services Officer, General
Services Administration........................................ 11
PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson, of Texas............................. 31
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Hon. Brian D. Miller............................................. 33
Cynthia Metzler.................................................. 37
SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
General Services Administration, responses to questions for the
record......................................................... 40
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
GSA: A REVIEW OF AGENCY
MISMANAGEMENT AND
WASTEFUL SPENDING--PART 2
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2012
House of Representatives,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:13 a.m., in Room
2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica
(Chairman of the committee) presiding.
Mr. Mica. Good morning. I would like to call the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to order. This
morning's hearing is entitled, ``General Services
Administration: A Review of Agency Mismanagement and Wasteful
Spending--Part 2.''
I am pleased to have Members join us and I apologize for a
slight delay in the start. I told Ms. Norton someone should do
something about traffic in Washington.
We are pleased to have you here today and also to be
holding this important oversight hearing and investigative
hearing regarding the latest round of GSA spending abuses,
which has seriously called into question GSA's ability to
safeguard taxpayers' money.
And the order of business will be I will start with my
opening statement, and then I will recognize other Members.
Then we will get to our panel of two witnesses. We will proceed
with questions after we hear from those witnesses.
Again, we are focusing on some of the problems that we have
had in waste and abuse of taxpayer funds. The General Services
Administration--it is particularly alarming because the General
Services Administration is a chief procurement agency for the
Federal Government, also responsible for maintaining many of
the public assets--trustees of public assets--and when you have
abuse as an agency with that mission, you have some serious
problems. And we will address them today.
First of all, I think everyone was appalled--and we
appreciate the work of the inspector general, who is with us
today--but they were appalled when we saw an $800 million Las
Vegas conference that, unfortunately, featured clowns and mind
readers and the infamous image that all of us recall of one of
the administers in a hot tub thumbing his nose at both Congress
and the American taxpayer. We are hopeful that this was a
limited occurrence and that that was not indicative of the
behavior, the actions, or the management of the agency.
From the very beginning, I asked Mr. Denham to chair the
Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency
Management Subcommittee that oversees GSA. But from our very
first hearings, we requested information on soaring
administrative costs that had ballooned some 300 percent. So we
knew something was wrong. And I think Mr. Denham and I at
almost every hearing and in communications with the agency have
tried to ascertain why these expenses were so high and what was
going on.
Our focus also from this committee isn't just something
related to what we found with these conferences. One of our
intents, both in the minority, when we published the report
entitled, ``Sitting on Our Assets: The Federal Government's
Misuse of Taxpayer-Owned Assets,'' and that was in October of
2010, the same month that this first conference that was so
abusive was held, but that highlighted the multibillion-dollar
loss of taxpayer revenues and potential utilization of assets.
We found that GSA and the Federal Government have 14,000
properties or buildings across the Nation that are either
vacant or underutilized.
Mr. Denham and I went down--and other Members--Ms. Norton
was there--at the Old Post Office in the annex. The annex had
been vacant for 15 years. And it is 2 blocks from the White
House. I just came from the White House a few minutes ago, and
just within steps of the White House is this property, costing
taxpayers a loss of $8 million a year. It was 32 degrees
outside, and we held a hearing in the annex, which had been
vacant. It was 38 degrees inside.
Most of the people who testified before us or worked with
us, then-GSA administrators, unfortunately, were also involved
in some of the abuses and almost all of them have been removed
or replaced or resigned.
In the meantime, with Ms. Norton's help and in a bipartisan
fashion, we have turned that first property from a money-losing
asset to where a thousand people will be employed and potential
significant revenue for the taxpayers. But that took us over a
year.
Since that, we have done two subsequent hearings in vacant
buildings in our Nation's Capital, one in the annex, Cotton
Annex, a huge swath of land. That building was vacant for 5
years. And then several weeks ago, we conducted another hearing
in the empty power facility behind the Ritz Carlton Georgetown
on 2.08 acres vacant for 11 years.
Just examples of some of the huge waste. These conferences
are significant abuses in waste, but there are even more
dramatic problems with GSA. Next week, we will be doing a
hearing in Miami, and there is Federal courthouse that has been
vacant there for a number of years. We will continue during the
August recess. I think we are going to be in Los Angeles with
Mr. Denham to look at the situation there with underutilized or
excess property sitting idle.
So that sort of sets the stage for today's hearing. We have
been working diligently with the inspector general. We have a
very limited investigative staff on the committee. The
inspector general is doing as good a job as he can.
Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, I am told by some folks
that we have now received information that there may be as many
as 77 conferences and award ceremonies that are now under
review by the inspector general and the investigative committee
of our staff. That is quite disturbing. We, of course, were
told, in addition to the October conference, which was
$800,000, that now there is a 1-day, in excess of a quarter of
a million dollar Virginia conference, and people have already
seen the videos of $20,000 worth of drumsticks that were
purchased; $35,000 in picture frames; and $104,000 for
consulting on a 1-day conference that was paid. All of that is
disturbing. Now we are finding there may be as many as 77.
Mr. Denham I think I will address one particular that we
have heard of in the last--actually, this continues even in the
last 24 hours. Not all of them are in the dollar amounts, but I
must report that we are now examining the cost per attendee,
and some of that is over the top. And it does raise new
concerns. But it is going to take a while to sort through the
good, bad, and the ugly of what has taken place. Not a pretty
picture for taxpayers.
Then I have to raise next before the committee a question
of the bonuses. We were informed by GSA after inquiries about
bonuses, the administration, the President had asked not to
issue bonuses or they be limited. And in our questioning, we
discovered about $10 million in what was reported from GSA in
bonuses. Now it appears--and I have to thank the media,
particularly Fox News and I guess CBS and others who have also
pursued this matter for some time. It is funny. A congressional
panel, when you do an inquiry and you can ask an agency a
question and you get back an answer and they give us back $10
million as the answer as to these bonuses. The media
discovered--what is it--$34 million on top. So we have $44
million in bonuses. Absolutely stunning amount.
Now to put this in context--and again, I thank the media
for also working this. I see also the Washington Times had a
FOIA request. All of these combined, we have now uncovered
about $44 million in bonuses.
Do we have a spreadsheet on that?
This is an absolutely incredible amount of money. To put it
in context, the entire Federal Government paid $439 million in
bonuses to 1.3 million Federal employees last year. Now, GSA
has 1 percent of the employees of the Federal Government. One
percent. And they received 10 percent of the bonuses, to show
you how dramatically out of kilter this is. That is absolutely
outrageous.
Then, furthermore, we went through some of the expenditures
on bonuses and payments to some of the GSA employees and who
got them. A $50,000 bonus went to the regional commissioner,
who is under investigation for the Las Vegas conference. So not
only were they giving out an incredible and inordinate amount
of bonuses, but those who got them, for example, were some of
the abusers. So the regional commissioner under investigation
who got the $50,000 bonus ended up with almost a quarter of a
million dollars in his pocket, $240,000.
An employee with a base salary of $84,000--now listen to
this--got $115,000 in overtime pay. We saw a quarter of a
million dollar distributions to a number of employees that were
also investigated. A $79,000 bonus for one employee with a
total compensation that went as high as $260,000. There is
something wrong in GSA when you have to pay an employee
$115,000 in overtime. And then we found multiple $50,000
bonuses in this agency.
Conferences are one thing. Multimillion-dollar losses--
bonuses, absolutely outrageous. Despite a specific guidance by
the administration in 2011, and let me read it, that bonuses--
or this extra compensation would be awarded in a manner that is
cost-effective for agencies and successfully motivates strong
employee performance.
So this is a little bit long but, again, I want to
highlight some of what we found to date. Unfortunately, this is
only the preliminary results of our investigation. We are
getting this in dribbles and drabs.
I thank, again, the media who was involved in asking for
these FOIA requests. This wasn't a coordinated effort, I might
say. These were independent. But all this has sort of come
together and uncovered an incredible array of waste, abuse,
possible fraudulent activity.
We have to also be a little bit careful today. I respect
the work of the inspector general, and he will besomewhat
limited in some commentary. His responsibility and our
responsibility will be after this investigation to possibly
make criminal referrals or referrals to the Department of
Justice for their review. So we want to make certain that our
investigations comply with, again, proper protocol, and we
respect him. And at any point, with any question, we respect
your position in an ongoing investigation.
We will continue to work hand-in-hand with the inspector
general and our investigative staff to, one, uncover the
balance of this waste, fraud, and abuse; two, to find out who
was responsible, hold them accountable; and then, three, we are
determined to make certain that this is cleaned up. It does not
happen again. If we need to change administrative procedures or
the law, we will do that. And you have my commitment that we
will continue to pursue this until this mess is cleaned up.
Finally, let me just say this. I do not have witnesses in
any of those other chairs today because what we wanted to do
was hear from the inspector general, from GSA. I had asked
other GSA officials to come here. Most of the first tier has
either been removed, resigned, or left. Now the second tier is
not as cooperative as I had hoped. We had one I guess take a
medical leave last week who possibly was involved. And others
are not coming forward today.
Additionally, in addition to not having GSA here today, I
do not have witnesses which I would like to have from the
private sector because there are people who are professionals
who have management skills and can handle in an expeditious
fashion the management, sale, the better utilization of these
incredible assets. We have thousands of Federal properties,
buildings vacant or underutilized, and I believe we need to
start looking at turning this over to the private sector to
better manage and to get GSA out of some of its current
business.
But what has happened here today because these seats are
vacant is all of those potential participants are so
intimidated by GSA that they have stayed away and are not with
us. Each one we have requested has backed out of participating
in this hearing. And that is unfortunate.
And I am told, again, because GSA has such power; they
control the largest rental market, property market in the
world, that this is taking place. But I intend to find another
way and other witnesses to come in and guide our committee in
trying to reform this whole process.
I know this is a very long opening statement, and I
appreciate your indulgence, Ranking Member Norton and ranking--
Chair Mr. Denham.
With those comments, I would like to yield to Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
today's hearing.
This committee is addressing yet another General Services
Administration conference that has gone, shall we say, off the
rails. Much like the October 2010 Western Regions Conference, a
conference that ran amok near Las Vegas, Nevada, we now have
another conference closer to home that occurred just a month
later. This time in Crystal City, Virginia, where there are
serious allegations of excessive spending and activities of
dubious merit.
The President's appointment of GSA Acting Administrator Dan
Tangherlini, the official who referred this matter to the GSA
inspector general, is already bearing fruit. Administrator
Tangherlini told the subcommittee he would conduct a top-to-
bottom review of the agency when he appeared before us. We will
need a careful inspector general report like the one received
concerning the Western Regions Conference. But Administrator
Tangherlini's actions thus far indicate that he is trying to
get to the root of the issues at GSA. The acting administrator
quickly implemented some commonsense reforms in the wake of the
prior embarrassing GSA scandal, particularly consolidating
conference oversight in the new Office of Administrative
Services, which is now responsible for oversight of contracting
for conferences, related activities and amenities and for
review and approval of proposed conferences for their relation
to GSA's mission.
I am also particularly pleased that GSA has brought all
Public Buildings Service regional budgets under the direct
authority of GSA's chief financial officer, centralizing
authority over these accounts to ensure there are checks and
balances in how GSA prioritizes spending. This structural
change alone might have had the effect of putting a stop to the
overspending on the GSA conferences in Las Vegas and Crystal
City.
I look forward to hearing the testimony this morning about
how we can continue to make improvements at GSA going forward.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Mica. I thank the gentlelady.
I am pleased to recognize the chair of our subcommittee
overseeing this matter, Mr. Denham.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Certainly it is frustrating to have yet one more hearing on
some of the fraud and the waste that is happening in GSA, the
agency that is supposed to be tasked with setting an example,
setting the standard for every other agency.
After the Las Vegas celebration that they had, you would
have thought that things would have changed. But yet we see
conference after conference--and not just conferences. We found
out now that rather than categorizing them as conferences, they
categorize them as celebrations so they can get around the
Executive order of calling it a conference.
We see the outrageous bonuses that aren't just performance
bonuses, which are bad enough, which under an Executive order
were supposed to be stopped. But now we find out there is not
only performance bonuses, but there are tier bonuses. There are
special act bonuses. There are huge overtime payments,
employees, department heads, receiving hundreds of thousands of
dollars in additional pay.
This was supposed to be a hearing focused on yet one more
conference dealing with the celebration at the Key Bridge
Awards Ceremony, where awards were once again passed out--$3.7
million just in one awards ceremony alone. Yet after the
President issued his Executive order, we found out there were
77 more conferences around the Nation.
I think the question the taxpayer wants answered is: Why?
Why are these agencies ignoring the President of the United
States?
And now what is most outrageous is the Administration feels
that they can bypass Congress, breaking three different laws
written in statute. I think there are many members of this
committee and of Congress as a whole that are going to have a
lot of questions about that. If you can get around the
prospectus hear in this committee in this body of Government
that does control the purse strings for the World Trade Center,
then you can do it is in Ms. Norton's district. You can do it
in Ms. Edwards' district. There is a $2 billion lease on the
FBI building coming up. Billions of dollars of taxpayer
dollars. If you can't manage conferences and bonuses, how do
you expect that Congress is going to allow you to handle
billions of dollars worth of leases?
Mr. Mica. Mr. Denham, would you yield for just a second? I
just want to explain to the Members the issue that he is
raising right now because we have leadership of the committee
here--this is a very important issue--and Ms. Norton.
Our committee is responsible basically, under law and
historically for years, any lease that GSA signs over $2.7
million needs to come back for our approval, and then they are
brought before this committee and we approve them. We had
pending a $350 million lease of the World Trade Center. And the
Administration--well, the Administration, GSA, signed that
lease without approval.
How long was the term?
Twenty years, signed a 20-year--I mean, on top of
everything else you have heard today, with the conferences, the
bonuses, the waste and abuse, now they have just stuck their
finger in the eye of the committee.
I want to make sure everybody hears what Mr. Denham is
saying: $350 million lease, subverting this committee. We have
a major crisis. We have talked to the appropriators also. But
they went ahead and signed that without approval of this
committee.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If you can sense my frustration and outrage, it is not
partisan. This is about an agency that is ignoring the
Commander in Chief. Whether it is Republican or Democrat, this
body has a responsibility to make sure that the law is being
upheld.
I want to just conclude: ``At a time when so many American
families are struggling to make ends meet, I am committed to
making sure the Federal Government is spending the taxpayers'
money wisely and carefully and cutting costs wherever possible.
I am committed to ending programs that do not work,
streamlining those that do, and bringing a new responsibility
for stewardship of tax dollars. Like households and businesses
across the country, the Federal Government is tightening its
belt. The effort began during my first days in office when I
froze the salaries of the senior members of my White House
staff. As a next step in this effort, I direct you to suspend
cash awards, quality step increases, bonuses, similar
discretionary payments or salary adjustments to any politically
appointed Federal employee, commencing immediately and
continuing through the end of the fiscal year 2011. I also
direct the Office of Personnel Management to issue guidance in
consultation with the Office of Management and Budget to assist
departments and agencies in implementing this policy.''
That is a Presidential memorandum, August 3, 2010. Yet 77
more conferences went on after that.
Executive Order 13576--Delivering an Efficient, Effective
and Accountable Government: Government operations will be
``curbing uncontrolled growth in contract spending, terminating
poorly performing information technology projects, deploying
state-of-the-art fraud detection tools to crack down on waste,
focusing agency leaders on achieving ambitious improvements in
high priority areas, and opening Government up...''
Transparency. That was June 13, 2011, Executive Order 13576.
September 21, 2011, the Vice President was then tasked with
getting every agency head together to deliver an efficient,
effective, and accountable Government, which launched the
campaign to cut waste. The Vice President convened the heads of
executive departments and agencies to discuss the campaign to
cut waste. At the meeting, the Vice President asked department
agency heads to undertake thorough review of wasteful and
inefficient spending and report back on the measures:
``Therefore, the President has directed me to instruct all
agencies and departments to conduct a thorough review of the
policies and controls associated with conference-related
activities and expenses. Until such time as the deputy
secretary or equivalent can certify that the appropriate
policies and controls are in place to mitigate the risk of
inappropriate spending practices with regard to conferences,
approval of conference-related activities and expenses shall be
cleared through the deputy secretary or equivalent.''
Executive Order 13589 on November 9, 2011. I will save you
the suspense and go to section 7 of that: ``Extraneous
Promotional Items.'' ``Agencies should limit the purchase of
promotional items, e.g., plaques, clothing, commemorative
items, in particular where they are not cost-effective.''
Conference after conference, celebration after celebration,
several layer of bonuses and overtime, and now GSA wants to
have authority over leases in the hundreds of millions of
dollars. It stops here in this committee. I yield back.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Denham. Do others seek
recognition?
Mr. Shuster. Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Mica. I love that title, but I will just settle for
chairman. As nice as you were, Mr. Shuster, I am going to
recognize Mr. Duncan first.
Mr. Duncan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
your calling this hearing.
All the publicity that has been given to these conferences
and these terrible abuses of the taxpayers have shown once
again that the easiest thing in the world is to spend other
people's money, and that it is far too easy. In fact, Governor
Ed Rendell, when he was Mayor of Philadelphia and was having a
problem with some of the city unions, testified in front of one
of our congressional committees many years ago, and he said,
the problem with Government is there is no incentive for people
to work hard, so many do not. There is no incentive for people
to save money, so much of it is squandered.
And certainly those words were true many years ago, and
they are true today, maybe even more so as all of the abuses of
the taxpayers that we are talking about here today show. So I
appreciate you having this hearing and looking into these
matters, and I yield back.
Mr. Mica. Thank you. Mr. Coble, I tried to do it in
seniority, but I didn't see you first. I apologize, sir.
Mr. Coble. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this
hearing. I have two other hearings, Mr. Chairman, so I will be
in and out for most of the morning. I appreciate the witnesses
being here. It does appear that sound fiscal management has
been cast aside and replaced by wasteful mismanagement and
recklessness. And perhaps we will hear more about that today.
Again, I thank you for having called the hearing, Mr. Chairman,
and yield back.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Coble.
Mr. Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I am not
going to be able to stay for the testimony, but I have a
question--actually a couple of questions I would like to submit
for the record. But it has been brought to my attention by some
of my colleagues that there is a situation in San Antonio,
Texas, involving the GSA that has recently made headlines. From
what I have been told, the local Social Security office was
asked to move to a new office, and while a new location will
provide additional space, I understand also double the cost of
the lease. From the information I have received, the cost of
the lease will be more than $1 million per year in addition. I
understand that the Social Security Administration has spent
$1.7 million in reservations, a commission for the new lease
totaling $482,000, and additional security costs will total
$78,000. This does not take into account the cost of the actual
move.
I recognize this is just one lease in one part of the
country, but I am interested in understanding why this
situation has occurred, in light of all the other things that
has been happening to GSA.
But I have a series of questions I would like to submit to
you, Mr. Miller, and get back in writing to me, if you would,
some of the answers to my questions.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Mica. Do others seek recognition?
Mr. Barletta?
Mr. Barletta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I want to thank you for providing the therapy
for the Members here to get this off our chest.
You know, before I came to Congress I was a mayor of a
small town in Pennsylvania, and the city was broke. We actually
didn't have money to hire the police that we needed. Now I come
to Congress and the country is broke. I am beginning to believe
that it is me.
I have to ask the simple question. When we deal with so
many issues like we don't have money to fix our roads and
bridges, but yet we are giving out hundreds of millions of
dollars in bonuses, it is hard for me to conceive who the
real--where the real problem lies. And I have come to this
conclusion that yes, there is horrible abuses of GSA. But you
are not the only agency. This is not the only agency I have
seen waste and abuse. We can go agency by agency and find it
over and over again. And I have come to the conclusion that we
are the problem. We in Congress have failed.
Yes, it is great to get this off our chest and point out to
the American people how you have wasted their tax dollars, but
who are the enablers? It is Congress that is the enablers. We
have allowed these agencies to do this.
If anybody understands zero-based budgeting, you would
understand that if we implemented a fundamental practice that
most businesses use rather than allowing agencies to simply
budget by what they spent last year and this is what we are
requesting this year, zero-based budgeting would eliminate all
this. We wouldn't be having this hearing today. Because you
see, every agency would start out with the same amount, zero.
Zero. And you would have to justify every line item, why you
need what you need. And they would never be able to budget
millions of dollars for bonuses. This would never happen.
This Congress can't even pass a budget. The Senate hasn't
voted for a budget in 3 years. This is like parents who are
going away on vacation, and they load their house up, and they
are going to leave their teenage children at home. But before
they leave, they load their house up with booze, and they leave
the credit card on the table. And they go away, and when they
come home, they act surprised that there are beer bottles all
over the house and the house is a wreck, and they ask, what the
heck happened?
We have allowed this to happen. We have allowed this to
happen. So I am going to ask the American people who are
watching these hearings to take this matter into their hands.
Before this next election, ask everyone who is running for this
office if they support zero-based budgeting and ask everyone
who is running for the United States Senate if they promise the
American people that they will pass a budget. And if the answer
to those questions are, no, then I would suggest that they hire
new babysitters.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mica. Do others seek recognition?
Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
want to ask unanimous consent to place my entire statement in
the record.
Mr. Mica. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. What I would like to say very quickly
is we are in dire straits for dollars and we have some
excellent Federal employees. And I know that in this very
partisan environment, it seems like you are all bad, but that
is not the case. But it appears to me that there was no
attention given to clearing the problems when they were called
to your attention. And I think that for that reason it is very
difficult to try to justify the ill decisions that were made.
This makes it very hard for law enforcement officials, air
traffic controllers, educators that are all Federal employees
that work very hard and make a lot less money and get tainted
with this kind of behavior with this agency. I think it is
unfortunate.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back and put my entire
statement in the record.
Mr. Mica. I thank the gentlelady. Ms. Napolitano, you are
recognized.
Ms. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In listening to my colleagues, I can't agree with them
more. I, too, come as a past mayor of a small city. And the
budget is something that we look over very carefully. But that
is at a smaller level.
I know you have tremendous responsibilities, and the
oversight is probably a little harder. However, every single
agency is expected to do their best and act prudently. And I am
hoping that the American people that are listening will
understand that they have a right to be antiGovernment when
they hear these stories and they are borne out by facts that
are brought out to the general public's view. I think it is
important for us to support that and continue to go after any
agency that is mismanaging, that is not following the intent of
the law, and that the people, the supervisors, their
leadership, is understanding that they have a right to be able
to carry out the intent of the charge that they are given and
understand that we will be able to follow through.
I hope there will be lots of inquiries and discipline to
those that have thought that they could just move ahead without
any punitive action or any repercussions. We are all facing the
same budgets in our cities. They are going bankrupt. Even in
our staff, we don't give bonuses. We can't. We don't have the
funds. And to have the American public see these outrageous
expenses--the taxpayer dollar. It is their money.
So I am totally looking forward to listening and hopefully
finding some solutions that are going to be effective in
dealing with the future of our employees, that is the American
public's employees.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. Mica. Do other Members seek recognition?
If no other Members seek recognition, we do have our panel
that we will turn to. Today we have two witnesses. The first is
the Honorable Brian Miller, who is the inspector general of the
General Services Administration; and then we have Ms. Cynthia
Metzler. She is chief administrative services officer of the
General Services Administration. We will, of course, welcome
your testimony. We will start with 5 minutes or so. There are
only two of you, so we won't hold you to that. If you have
additional information, documentation that you would like to be
made part of the record, we will be glad to do that, or
testimony.
I particularly want to thank Mr. Miller for his willingness
to work with us. This, as I said in my opening statement, is a
delicate situation. We have what started out as a small scandal
now turning into a massive scandal with a number of people who
have been involved. In fact, it is getting hard to find someone
who isn't involved who we can even get to testify without
having them put into some jeopardy because of the judicial
process that probably will unfold here.
With that, again, I just thank Mr. Miller for his working
so diligently with our investigative staff to uncover what is
going on and also bring it to light.
So, Mr. Miller, you are recognized. Welcome.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE BRIAN D. MILLER, INSPECTOR GENERAL,
GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION; AND CYNTHIA METZLER, CHIEF
ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES OFFICER, GENERAL SERVICES
ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Mica, Chairman Denham, Ranking Member Norton,
members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here to
testify this morning. I appreciate this committee's support of
inspectors general and of my office's mission to weed out
instances of fraud, waste, and abuse at the General Services
Administration.
It was with that mission in mind and pursuant to our
congressional reporting requirements that I wrote my July 19
letter to our committees of jurisdiction, some of which had
requested that IGs bring matters to their attention earlier in
an investigation. In my letter, I informed Congress about an
incident that had been brought to my attention by Acting
Administrator Dan Tangherlini, who advised me that GSA planned
to release similar information in response to a Freedom of
Information Act request.
On November 17, 2010, the Federal Acquisition Service, FAS,
held a 1-day performance award ceremony in the Washington, DC,
metropolitan area. The ceremony featured a team-building drum
band exercise conducted by a third-party vendor and speeches by
current and former GSA officials. Our findings, though subject
to further investigation and change, show costs of over
$200,000 for the 1-day ceremony, including over $34,000 for the
venue, $28,000 for picture frames, and $140,000 for
coordination and logistical management to a third-party vendor.
The vendor costs included over $20,000 for drumsticks and
$10,000 for management of a presentation called, ``Mission
Possible, Agent X.''
As I stated in my letter, we have begun a preliminary
analysis of the information we received from GSA and have
opened an administrative investigation. Since our investigation
has begun just a few weeks ago, we have already uncovered some
changes in cost figures and new facts.
This may be a good opportunity to explain how an OIG
investigation is conducted. OIG investigations originate
through any number of sources. Our hotline affords GSA
employees, GSA senior management, other Government employees,
contractors and concerned citizens a mechanism to report
instances of fraud, waste and abuse throughout GSA. My Office
of Investigation receives between 2,000 and 3,000 hotline tips
annually and will assess each complaint or tip for credibility
and open up an investigation if appropriate.
Additionally, some matters warranting an investigation are
brought to our attention by GSA senior management, as was the
case with the FAS ceremony. In other scenarios, our auditors
may bring a matter discovered during an audit to our Office of
Investigations or special agents may be tipped off by an
informant. No matter what the source, our special agents
conduct their investigations with professionalism, objectivity,
and diligence. They interview witnesses and collect available
evidence and documents. Our agents compile the evidence in a
written report of investigation, commonly known as an ROI,
Report of Investigation, with relevant evidence attached.
In the last semiannual reporting period, our Office of
Investigations made 486 referrals for criminal prosecution,
civil litigation, and administrative action. Civil settlements
and court-ordered and investigative recoveries for the same 6-
month period totaled $218, 496,507. Because of the impact an IG
investigation can have, accuracy is of the utmost importance.
Inaccurate reports can threaten the integrity of an OIG
investigation and damage the OIG's reputation as a mechanism
for dependable oversight.
Because our investigation into the FAS ceremony is ongoing,
the preliminary figures in the confines of my letter to
congressional committees are the extent to which I can discuss
this incident. Those numbers were based on information provided
by the agency; information that I understood was going to be
released publicly. My office will continue to look into this
ceremony and will update the committee when our investigation
concludes.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony. I would
be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Miller.
Mr. Mica. We will now turn to Cynthia Metzler, chief
administrative officer of the GSA. You are recognized.
Ms. Metzler. Good morning, Chairman Mica and Ranking Member
Norton.
My name is Cynthia Metzler. I am the chief administrative
services officer of the General Services Administration. In
that capacity, I coordinate internal management and support
services to promote efficiency within the agency, covering a
wide variety of issues, including travel and conferences.
As you are aware, Acting Administrator Dan Tangherlini was
not able to appear today due to a longstanding family
commitment. Mr. Tangherlini reached out to the committee to
request that this hearing be rescheduled at a mutually
convenient date so that he could personally appear but was
informed that the committee was electing to proceed with
today's hearing with the awareness that he was unavailable.
Mr. Tangherlini looks forward to continuing to work with
the committee to improve the efficiency of GSA and to refocus
the agency on its core mission of streamlining the
administrative work of the Government to save money for the
American taxpayer.
Given that the genesis of this hearing was the acting
administrator's recent referral to the inspector general of a
2010 award ceremony for the Federal Acquisition Service, I have
come here today to outline the steps that we have taken to
reform our conference and travel policies to prevent waste from
happening again. As of April 2012, all travel for events,
including internal GSA meetings, training, conferences,
seminars, and leadership or management events, among others,
was suspended. We have consolidated oversight of travel and
conference expenses into the Office of Administrative Services,
which I lead. My office now reviews each and every planned
future conference to make sure that these events and any
related travel are justified.
For example, a conference requires a business
justification, the submission of a budget, and must be approved
by the head of the office pursuing the conference, and myself.
Conferences with anticipated costs over $100,000 require the
approval of the deputy administrator. Any travel must be
essential to the mission of the agency, such as conducting
litigation or performing building inspections. Any travel for a
routine internal meeting at GSA requires a waiver from the
administrator or the deputy administrator.
We have canceled 37 previously scheduled conferences. These
are a few of the many reforms the acting administrator has
taken to improve oversight, strengthen controls, and help
refocus the agency on its core mission. His top-to-bottom
review of all agency operations continues. And I know he looks
forward to discussing these with you in the future.
The 2010 FAS awards ceremony is another example of what the
acting administrator has already recognized, a pattern of
misjudgment which spans several years and administrations. It
must stop. And that is why Acting Administrator Tangherlini has
instituted several stringent new policies on spending to put an
end to waste. The new leadership at GSA is committed to
investing any misuse of taxpayer dollars. When we find
questionable occurrences, we refer them to the Office of the
inspector general, as we did in this case.
GSA has already taken a number of important steps to reform
conference and travel policy within the agency. As part of the
acting administrator's top-to-bottom review, more steps will be
taken to improve efficiency and save the taxpayer dollars.
I appreciate the opportunity to come before you today to
discuss this aspect of reform at GSA, and I welcome any
questions you may have.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
I appreciate your coming.
We had requested, of course, Mr. Tangherlini. He, as you
said, had a family obligation. We requested the deputy
administrator, and I guess she was involved in this conference
that is under question and investigation. So she is not coming.
We had invited the chief of staff. He is not coming. And then
we invited--what is his last name--Kempf, Federal Acquisition
Service. I guess he was pretty heavily involved in the Virginia
conference, and I believe he took a leave of absence.
Did he take a leave of absence last week, Ms. Metzler?
Ms. Metzler. I believe he is on medical leave.
Mr. Mica. OK. And then we got further down, the public
buildings administrator, she couldn't come. So we got down to
you. We appreciate your being here. It is getting difficult to
find anyone who hasn't been involved in these scandals to now
come and testify.
I know, Mr. Miller, you have got ongoing investigations. We
have identified 77 conferences with at least 25 attendees and
$10,000 cost. Is that correct? Are you aware of this?
Mr. Miller. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mica. Well, many of them are smaller amounts, but we
have got some smaller amounts with very significant
expenditures. I see some as high as almost $2,200 a person;
some that raise some questions.
I wish you would give particular attention to the National
Congressional Support Conference in Henderson, Nevada. Were we
able to find out if that was the same hotel Mr. Neely was in?
But they had 44 congressional--ma'am, is that your legislative
office, 44 persons?
Ms. Metzler. It is the Office of Congressional Affairs.
Mr. Mica. Yes. I am not sure if they were at the same
resort with the same hot tub that Mr. Neely was in, but they
were there for 5 days for an intergovernmental relations
conference. And that is September of 2011. I would like
particular attention if you could get back with the committee.
I think our initial inquiries were thwarted on that. But I have
particular interest in that.
Again, the committee and you have some work to do, Mr.
Miller. I appreciate your work. I won't get into specifics
because I don't want to tie it to individuals in yourongoing
investigation.
Is the agency cooperating with you now, Mr. Miller?
Mr. Miller. Yes, it is, Mr. Chairman. It is cooperating. We
are getting a lot of information from the agency, and we work
with them. We, obviously, get information in waves sometimes.
We don't get complete information all the time. And so we go
back, and we get additional information. So I think the
committee understands the process.
Mr. Mica. OK. Further, I don't think we have a referral yet
on the bonuses. Were you doing anything on the bonuses?
Mr. Miller. We have an audit of the executive
compensation----
Mr. Mica. On the way.
Mr. Miller. Well, on its way.
Mr. Mica. We will turn over to you what we have been
provided with. I think there are two or three FOIA requests
that were instituted by the media. It is amazing. I am not an
attorney, Mr. Miller, but the way you ask the question and the
response you get from the agency is when they tell us and we
ask a question, how much in bonuses, I guess you can skew or
respond in a different fashion. We were told $10 million. Now
the media, it appears this could be up to $44 million; another
$34 million.
Ms. Metzler, do you know anything about the total number of
bonuses, dollars that were expended?
Ms. Metzler. Chairman Mica, unfortunately, I do not. I am
not in charge of the human capital part.
Mr. Mica. Could you ask GSA to provide the committee with
that information, the correct total information, bonuses?
Again, it is just--when you have 1 percent of the employees,
and they have 13,000 GSA employees and you get 10 percent of
all the bonuses, it seems something is not right.
Ms. Metzler, are you familiar with the issue that is
brought up by Mr. Denham on signing the GSA contracts, in
particular, the World Trade Center? It was a $350 million
contract which was signed before it was authorized by the
committee.
Ms. Metzler. My responsibilities have to do with the
internal operations of GSA and not with the public building
services or leasing.
Mr. Mica. Can you also request that the agency provide us
that information? We are expecting some sort of reply. We have
already requested it, and we do not have it, when the law
states that anything over $2.7 million needs approval from this
committee.
I might say, too, you have 13,000 employees, and I chaired
the Civil Service Subcommittee and there are thousands of
Federal employees who go to work every day in this city and
around the Nation who do an absolutely outstanding job. They
help people, they are wonderful. And I have nothing against
going to conferences. I come from central Florida. We welcome,
we welcome people to central Florida. Unfortunately, several of
the higher spending visits were to central Florida, and many of
these may be legitimate expenses. But obviously some of them
are over the top and they are expenditures.
Ma'am, are you aware Mr. Denham cited that the agencies
were not to give exorbitant gifts and recognition items in a
Presidential or a standing order? Are you familiar with that
requirement, or directive?
Ms. Metzler. I am familiar with the Presidential directive.
My office only took on responsibility for approving conferences
and award ceremonies and related expenses in April of 2012. So
we have been reviewing conferences from April of 2012.
Mr. Mica. And we can't get the people who were responsible
before us, but now you would not approve $20,000 in drumsticks,
$35,000 in picture frames. Would that, would those expenditures
comply?
Ms. Metzler. We would not approve those now.
Mr. Mica. And then the inspector general cited $140,000 in
cost for organizing the conference. I went back and looked at
the figures, and I think that there was some transportation and
other things included in that. I saw the consulting fee of
$104,000 to organize a 1-day conference. I took the 140 and
then subtracted what I thought were legitimate expenses. Is
$104,000 the typical fee for a 1-day conference?
Ms. Metzler. Chairman, we look at the organizing fee, the
overall purpose of the conference.
Mr. Mica. But come on, $104,000 for a 1-day conference. I
mean, I am in the wrong--there are a lot of people in the wrong
business out there.
Ms. Metzler. We would not have approved that conference
under today's standards.
Mr. Mica. OK. Well, just these things just pop out. You
know I have got people in my district losing their homes, their
jobs, they are struggling to make ends meet and we have got an
agency that is spending money like there is no tomorrow, and it
has got to be brought to a halt. So you are telling me again
you are new in this position and we couldn't get the
responsible parties in here.
Would you convey also to Mr. Tangherlini that I have tried
for three times to convene this hearing, and one of the reasons
that we are not waiving further delay in holding this hearing
is because of that. So we will have him back in when he returns
from his family obligations, and I hope to also have some of
the missing people who are involved in some of this before the
committee, too. They will not be let off the hook.
Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller, you say in your testimony at page 3 that the
administrator has begun a top to bottom review of the agency,
and then you list or you name an example. Do you believe that
the steps--are you satisfied, I should say, with the steps the
Administration is taking to prevent abuses of the kind that
came before us in Las Vegas that now we find were in Crystal
City and other abuses in the agency?
Mr. Miller. Well, Representative Norton, it is encouraging
that GSA is taking steps to correct abuses in putting controls
in. They strengthened the financial accountability, which was a
recommendation of ours originally. In terms of whether these
are effective or whether or not it is enough, I think it is too
early to tell.
Ms. Norton. Thank you. Now, could I ask a question about
the Crystal City matter that the chairman just raised? Because
as I look at that, even if the $140,000 plus, Ms. Metzler, does
not--can be, you take out some of it, transportation and the
rest, you are still left with $104,000, and it is by far the
largest expenditure. Could I ask you if there are agency
personnel that could perform the function that is called
coordination and logistical management, or must such a matter
be contracted out because I see that almost all of these
conferences are contracted out to some private event planner,
and they have their profit margin and all that goes with it. So
is there anybody in the agency that can do conferences?
Ms. Metzler. Congresswoman, yes, there are people in the
agency and under the new standards of the acting administrator,
we have a new requirement that before one of these new party
event planners can be used in the future, that the head of the
service has to approve it and then it has to come through my
office and other appropriations.
Ms. Norton. You do have event planners and people who do
event planning in the agency?
Ms. Metzler. It is not the mission of GSA, but there are
people who do have----
Ms. Norton. Well, you know, conferences aren't the mission
either.
Ms. Metzler. Yes.
Ms. Norton. If everything that isn't the mission has to be
contracted out, then work in the profit margin. And the real
question, and I would ask Mr. Miller this. Wouldn't it be less
expensive to have a few people knowledgeable about conference
planning in the agency rather than to contract out to some
private event planner every time you want to do a conference?
Mr. Miller. Yes. I would add that the GSA has event
planners on staff.
Ms. Norton. Ms. Metzler, I would strongly recommend against
contracting out to an event planner. Event planners do their
work. They are very good. My hat is off to them. I don't think,
I think they try to do the fanciest job they can. I think
somebody who works for the Federal Government would have a
better understanding of what the agency wants and I very much
recommend it there, that these matters not be contracted out
but the Federal employees be given the task of designing and
developing conferences for Federal employees.
Mr. Miller, I have got to ask you about this, it sounds
strange, and I would want to look behind it, but this figure
about 10 percent of the bonuses in the Federal Government come
from GSA which has 1 percent of the employees. That will catch
anybody's eye. Do you think that that figure is a figure, and I
don't know what the word ``bonus'' means, that fairly
represents the proportion of bonuses at GSA relative to other
Federal employees or agencies?
Mr. Miller. Representative Norton, I heard that figure this
morning from the chairman. I have not had a chance to evaluate
it.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Miller, I would ask that among your
priorities you look at that matter because it, I don't know how
this, what the characterization is. Frankly, I find it a little
difficult to believe. It is very difficult for me to believe
that agencies which have hundreds of thousands of employees
don't have a larger percentage. So I don't accept that at face
value, and I won't accept anything at face value until you have
had the opportunity to look into it.
During this recession the President has essentially asked
that certainly his appointees lead by example. I would not
begrudge Federal employees bonuses, but I must say on a
rationed basis when you consider that for most Americans a
salary would be considered a bonus. So I don't, without knowing
more about bonuses I certainly don't want to decry bonuses, but
during a recession and a recovery, it seems to me they ought to
be given and I can only say it on a rationed basis which would
mean some people who might otherwise deserve them wouldn't get
them, but what I ask you to do is to look at bonuses now so
that we can see what that was about and what it and what can be
done with it.
I am very curious about page 2 of your testimony. Because
you say in the last semi-annual, that would mean in the last 6
months, reporting period your office of investigation made 486
referrals for criminal prosecution, civil litigation, and
administrative action. Would you break that down? That sounds
like a large number. Would you compare that to what might have
happened in the past?
Mr. Denham. [presiding.] And I would ask you to break that
down quickly.
Mr. Miller. OK. Well, it is, we make referrals obviously
for criminal prosecution for civil action.
Ms. Norton. Yeah, but what proportion are of each. I know
you may not have all of the figures before you.
Mr. Miller. Well, I can get the figures and send them up to
you. I would be happy to do that. They should be in our semi-
annual report as well broken down.
Ms. Norton. And would you characterize them so when you say
civil litigation or administrative action it would be helpful
to know what that means as well.
Mr. Miller. Well, that is usually a civil fraud case under
the False Claims Act. So when a vendor or contractor has
inflated billings to the GSA.
Ms. Norton. So it may not be Federal employees.
Mr. Miller. Correct. And again if a contractor is giving a
bribe or a contractor, it may be a criminal referral against
the contractor depending on the circumstances and not against
the Government employees.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Miller, if you could provide a full detail
to this committee, we would appreciate it.
Mr. Miller. Sure. I would be happy to.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Miller, are you familiar with the August 3,
2010, memo from the President, the Presidential memorandum to
freeze discretionary awards, bonuses, and similar payments?
Mr. Miller. Only in a general way.
Mr. Denham. Well, let me just ask you since 2010 and in
August have all discretionary awards been frozen?
Mr. Miller. I understand the President has capped awards.
Mr. Denham. Are there awards that you know of to date
between August of 2010 to today, discretionary awards or
bonuses or similar payments?
Mr. Miller. I believe that they are either capped or
frozen, or actually Ms. Metzler may be in a better position to
answer that.
Mr. Denham. There have been a number--you sent a report to
this committee that there have been a number of bonuses that
have gone out in the last 2 years?
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Are you familiar with the memorandum
to the heads of the executive departments and agencies that
says that approval of conference-related activities and
expenses shall be cleared through deputy secretary or
equivalent?
Mr. Miller. Yes, in a general way.
Mr. Denham. Have they all been--all of the conferences, the
77 that you have seen in the last year and a half, have those
77 conferences been cleared by deputy secretaries or
equivalent?
Mr. Miller. I do not believe that they have.
Mr. Denham. You do not believe they have?
Mr. Miller. Correct.
Mr. Denham. Are you familiar with the Presidential
document, the Executive Order 13589 promoting efficient
spending, where in section 7 it says ``Extraneous Promotional
Items.'' ``Agencies should limit the purchase of promotional
items, e.g., plaques, clothing, commemorative items.'' Are you
familiar with that?
Mr. Miller. Yes, in a general way.
Mr. Denham. Have there been any commemorative items,
plaques, or clothing that has been given out in the last 2
years?
Mr. Miller. Well, Mr. Chairman, we are conducting an
ongoing investigation.
Mr. Denham. Were there drumsticks at the Crystal Palace
that were given out?
Mr. Miller. They were given out in connection with the
celebration.
Mr. Denham. Were there commemorative frames?
Mr. Miller. They were given out in connection with the
celebration.
Mr. Denham. Would you consider those commemorative items
that should have been covered under Executive Order 13589?
Mr. Miller. I think we are getting very close to our
ongoing investigation with that matter. So I would decline to
answer that.
Mr. Denham. In your report, I will read from your report,
$28,364.45 for 4,000 time temperature picture frames. I would
consider those picture frames commemorative items. $7,810 for
68 shadowbox frames provided by award crafters. I would
consider that commemorative items. $20,578 for 4,000 drumsticks
given to attendees. I would also consider that in that same
category.
So my question to you is if you have a memorandum from the
President, if you have a memorandum to department heads saying
that deputy secretaries or equivalent will approve all
conferences and if you have two Executive orders by the
President, how could this go on for the last 2 years?
Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, we are looking into that. Our
investigation is ongoing.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Miller, you have been doing these
investigations for quite some time now. Have you ever seen a
period of time where Executive orders are just flat out
ignored?
Mr. Miller. It is----
Mr. Denham. When the Commander in Chief issues an Executive
order, do you ever find that agencies just ignore it? As a CEO
of a company if I had a department head ignore my order, they
would be fired.
Mr. Miller. Right.
Mr. Denham. So the question is why aren't these people
being fired if they are ignoring the Commander in Chief?
Mr. Miller. I understand that and we have an ongoing
investigation.
Mr. Denham. Thank you.
Ms. Metzler, I understand that Mr. Tangherlini couldn't be
here today. I appreciate that. This committee had a
responsibility to continue on its investigation and make sure
that the law is actually being upheld, but we would like to
continue to offer an invitation to Mr. Tangherlini and give him
plenty of heads up. I assume he doesn't have a vacation planned
on August 6, when we have our hearing in Miami. I would hope
that he also does not have a family vacation planned August 17.
I understand, I have got a family too. I understand how
important family vacations are. We are going to give him two
more opportunities in the next few weeks to testify before this
committee. We hope that he doesn't have previous engagements.
But let me ask you, in your testimony you say as of April
2012, all events for--all travel for events, including internal
GSA meetings, trainings, conferences, seminars and leadership
or management events, among others, were suspended. Were they
suspended?
Ms. Metzler. They were suspended and any event subsequent
to April had to go through the new approval process.
Mr. Denham. Conferences and celebrations?
Ms. Metzler. Yes.
Mr. Denham. Award ceremonies?
Ms. Metzler. Yes. Award ceremonies with food, yes.
Mr. Denham. So all GSA travel went through you on these
types of conferences, celebrations, or award ceremonies?
Ms. Metzler. After April.
Mr. Denham. You consolidated oversight of conference and
travel expenses in the Office of Administrative Services which
you lead?
Ms. Metzler. That is correct.
Mr. Denham. Why is there is a conference going on today in
Nashville?
Ms. Metzler. That conference was subject, it is called the
SmartPay Conference. It was previously scheduled, long
scheduled before the acting administrator. Those responsible
came in with their proposal for the conference, why it was
being held, who was going to be attending it, what the purpose
was.
Mr. Denham. Let me just ask. My time is brief here. Over
6,000 rooms at the Gaylord in Nashville, I understand the
Presidential suite is occupied today. Is there a GSA employee
in the Presidential suite?
Ms. Metzler. I do not know.
Mr. Denham. It is over $3,000 a night. You don't know?
Ms. Metzler. I don't know. I would hope not.
Mr. Denham. I would hope not, too. How about the junior
suites? Those are all booked up today, too.
Ms. Metzler. Under our policies those rooms are not to be
occupied by GSA employees.
Mr. Denham. And since you oversee the oversight and the
travel expense of these, what is the travel necessity of the
General Jackson steamboat that is taking a party out tonight?
Is there a travel, are they going to a destination, is that the
reason for travel expense of the General Jackson steamboat?
Ms. Metzler. There is no such travel associated with
anything that the General Services Administration is involved
in. That may be some other third party.
Mr. Denham. So there is no expense to the Federal
Government for the General Jackson steamboat that is having a
party tonight?
Ms. Metzler. That is correct, to the best of my knowledge.
Mr. Denham. Great. We look forward to looking into that
further.
Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for my
delay. I had a Judiciary hearing. Good to have you all with us,
by the way.
Mr. Miller, who brought your--strike that. Mr. Miller, who
brought the FAS, the Federal Acquisition Service, conference to
your attention?
Mr. Miller. Acting Administrator Dan Tangherlini brought it
to my personal attention. There was a, we did receive a hotline
complaint in May of this year. It was an anonymous complaint of
about five single-spaced pages with about four lines of general
information about this conference.
Mr. Coble. That was after you had heard about it initially?
Mr. Miller. I'm sorry, sir? I didn't hear you.
Mr. Coble. Were you familiar with it prior to having
received that notice or----
Mr. Miller. No, I was not.
Mr. Coble. OK. It appears that--I hope that I am not being
duplicative of what questions may have been put to you in my
absence but it seems that the conference took place in two
locations, the Marriott in Crystal City and then a reception
that I am told costing over $7,000 at the Key Bridge Marriott.
The reception I am furthermore told was complete with a
violinist and guitarist, apparently music provided, and it
appears that a bus was hired at more than $5,000 presumably to
shuttle attendees between the two different hotels. I guess my
question is why were two locations needed for a 1-day
conference, A, and who was invited to the reception?
Mr. Miller. Well, those are questions that we are looking
for the answer to as well. We have an ongoing investigation
into this matter.
Mr. Coble. You want to weigh in on that, Ms. Metzler?
Ms. Metzler. When the acting administrator found out about
this conference, we referred the matter to the inspector
general for inquiry and so we are waiting for the results of
his survey, of his investigation.
Mr. Coble. Well, as I said in my opening statement it does
appear that sound fiscal practices have been cast aside, if not
abandoned, for mismanagement and waste and recklessness, and I
am hoping that this hearing will at least expose the
wrongdoing, and I think it has been wrongdoing, and again,
thank you all for being here. Anything either of you want to
add before I yield back?
Mr. Miller. No, thank you.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Coble.
Ms. Napolitano.
Ms. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of
questions. How many conferences a year do you normally have
scheduled roughly? I don't need an exact number.
Ms. Metzler. The numbers that were scheduled prior to April
11, 2012, we have been trying to uncover for the last several
months. Right now for this year in 2012, we have only five
conferences scheduled.
Ms. Napolitano. But those conferences were, pre-April you
are continuing to have the conference. Is there any call to
have any of the people who scheduled conference go to whoever
is in charge to find out whether they are meeting the
requirement to hold the budget to be able to be transparent, to
be able to have information?
Ms. Metzler. Congresswoman, yes, there is. We have very
strict policies now.
Ms. Napolitano. Now but before that.
Ms. Metzler. Before that we did not have central controls
of conferences, how many there were or who went or the nature
of them.
Ms. Napolitano. But apparently you still have conferences
that were pre-approved prior to April?
Ms. Metzler. Actually not. Any conference that was
scheduled after April.
Ms. Napolitano. No. I am talking pre-April.
Ms. Metzler. Even if it was scheduled before April, it was
deemed to be canceled, and they had to come back to--through my
office to the deputy administrator, to the administrator to
hold the conference.
Ms. Napolitano. So you do have oversight over anything
regardless of whether it is pre or post?
Ms. Metzler. Yes, that is correct.
Ms. Napolitano. OK. Then the concern that now raises its
ugly head with me is the cost is going to be inherently on the
taxpayer, if you will, for the investigation of those 77
conferences, am I correct, sir?
Mr. Miller. We are currently investigating those. Yes, it
comes out of our appropriations.
Ms. Napolitano. Right. But that is, again that is money
that should not have been--had to be spent in other words.
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Ms. Napolitano. But you are having to go back and review
and ensure that the law has been followed that compliance has
been made?
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Ms. Napolitano. OK. Is there any way to quantify how much
time you are going to spend on these? I am talking about in
terms of dollars?
Mr. Miller. That would be difficult. We are trying to do
this in the most efficient way possible. We use parameters.
Ms. Napolitano. Understood. I am trying to get to the point
that it is going to cost the taxpayer a lot of money because of
the decades, if you will, of doing whatever it is that they did
without having any oversight or any control over the conference
of the event, the expenditures, the bonuses, et cetera. And you
say you have cut all bonuses, ma'am?
Ms. Metzler. Bonuses are not within my lane of
responsibility. I am aware that the acting administrator has
issued a serious curtailment on senior executive bonuses and
other bonuses are being looked at as being part of the top to
bottom review.
Ms. Napolitano. That is curtailment but not necessarily
ending bonuses until clarification is made of whether they have
been earned?
Ms. Metzler. Are you asking me a question there?
Ms. Napolitano. Well, yeah, certainly. I know senior
management normally will get bonuses. The American public
doesn't get bonuses. We are trying to figure out how can we
justify that when we have such a tight budget, when we are
looking for money regardless of whether--you are paid to do a
job, for goodness sakes.
Ms. Metzler. I will be happy to get back to you with the
information from the right officials at GSA regarding bonuses.
Ms. Napolitano. Would you? I don't sit on the committee of
jurisdiction, so I am kind of wondering about some of the
questions that kind of fall through the cracks for me.
You talk about misjudgment from several administrations.
But why has it taken so long that it took maybe a whistleblower
or somebody to raise the issue with the Office of Inspector
General?
Ms. Metzler. The acting administrator came to GSA in April.
On April 15 and 16, he issued a series of new policies
regarding conferences and training. So it didn't take him but a
minute, or less than a week to issue the policies that we have
now that provide oversight, central control, and put fiscal
responsibility back into the spending.
Ms. Napolitano. And what brought that to a head?
Ms. Metzler. Well, him coming to GSA, which was prompted by
the resignation of the previous administrator.
Ms. Napolitano. I see. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. I would
like to submit some questions for the record.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Miller, I had
intended to ask about these 486 referrals that Mrs. Norton got
into, and I am still curious about those. That does seem like
an awfully high number because that, over a 6-month period that
comes to over 80 referrals a month. Is that much higher than
has been done in the past, or has it always run about that, and
I know you said many of these or most of these were not
referrals about GSA employees but more fraud cases toward GSA
contractors or something. Would you tell me a little bit more
about that?
Mr. Miller. It is a mix of referrals. My point was that a
referral can either be against someone doing business with GSA
or it can be about a GSA official. So I wouldn't want to
quantify it off the top of my head as to which one is more,
whether there are more referrals regarding contractors or more
referrals regarding GSA employees.
I would be happy to furnish the committee with the precise
breakdown of the employees, of the referrals. We do a lot of
referrals with credit cards that go with the leased vehicles,
GSA leases vehicles, it is called the fleet, to other agencies
and any time another agency uses one of these cards, a credit
card goes along with it. And unfortunately, Federal employees
misuse the credit card, and they will charge gas for friends
and family, for example, and that is a crime which is referred.
So it is not a large case, but it is a referral and we do have
it prosecuted by U.S. attorneys when we can or by State
prosecutors when we can. So we do have a number of those which
may contribute to the higher number of referrals. I don't know
if that helps explain it but I am happy to give you a
breakdown, precise breakdown of the referrals.
Mr. Duncan. Do you know whether that was a much higher
figure than in the preceding semi-annual period or----
Mr. Miller. I think we have been increasing our referrals
over the years, and I take that as an accomplishment of the
office.
Mr. Duncan. I would like to see a breakdown at some point
of how many of those were GSA employees and also whether one of
these GSA contractors was a repeat violator of some sort
because if there is a small number of companies, for instance,
that are just repeat violators, something needs to be done
about that also.
Mr. Miller. Right. Well, I will give you an example. We
recovered almost $200 million from Oracle recently under a
settlement of a False Claims Act case, a civil fraud case. So
that is an example of one of the cases. So it can range from
$200 million to someone misusing a credit card for a leased car
for gas in the amount of a hundred to $500. So it is a large
range of damages.
Mr. Duncan. On another topic, I am told by staff that CBS
had a report that said that over 13,000 GSA employees received
bonuses or extra pay, incentive pay, whatever you want to call
it, different types of bonuses or extra pay. Yet on the GSA Web
site it says the number of GSA employees is 12,635. Have you
looked into that? Was it just a common accepted practice that
every GSA employee got a bonus or some type of extra pay?
Mr. Miller. We have an audit on its way of executive
compensation. It is an audit that we started some time ago. It
was prompted because we saw, we suspected multiple awards to
GSA officials involved in the Western Regions Conference,
multiple awards for the same work that they have done.
Mr. Duncan. Ms. Metzler, on this conference where it says
$10,000 was paid for a presentation by somebody called Mission
Possible Agent X, do you know what that, what they got for that
$10,000 or what that presentation was about?
Ms. Metzler. Congressman, I do not. That conference was in
2010. It predated our current review processes and, as I have
indicated, we would not be approving that conference at this
time.
Mr. Duncan. Well, all right. I will just close by saying
this. I will repeat what I said in my opening statement.
Unfortunately it is just far too easy to spend other people's
money and when people--or the problem with the Government is
when it is not coming out of your own pocket, we have got too
many people at the Federal level who are just abusing the
taxpayers.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. And I would remind the committee
that we do have a hard deadline of 11:00 for a markup on
committee bills so any questions that you feel comfortable with
providing the chair that we can enter into the record and get
answered for you would help to move the committee along better.
With that, Mr. Walz.
Mr. Walz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
committee, and Mr. Miller, thank you for being back again and
for the work you have done. There are a couple of things my
colleagues have said. The one thing, it is very hard not to
feel the frustration here. I think Mr. Barletta was right
though. At some point in time, expressing frustrations about
getting anything out of it is simply not good enough. I am glad
Mr. Mica commented on the great number of Federal employees who
do their job and Mr. Duncan pointed out the issue. I would
argue there is an incentive other than pay. It is called
ethics. I would like to think as I taught school starting out
for $17,000 a year, I worked just as hard as I did when I
reached the stratospheric top at $47,000, that I was working
just as hard as in that classroom in trying to save money for
the taxpayers. But when we get a situation like this, it
absolutely, as Ms. Johnson said too, it destroys all
credibility amongst all Members.
And Ms. Metzler, my friend, Mr. Denham, I know is very
thorough. I think you and I both know there is not going to be
good news out of this conference. Somebody is staying in that
damn suite tonight, I would almost guarantee you, and that is--
I understand that you don't have that, but I think you know
that, don't you. So my question is, next is what happens when
you come back and the questions that are getting asked today I
don't have any answers for these, and I am as frustrated as
anybody else. I am trying to get a grasp on what Mr. Barletta
said, how do we make sure this stops? It appears to me there
was clear cut directives put out, there were Executive orders
put out. Mr. Miller has been to this committee and testified.
Many of us sit here appalled at $45 breakfasts and everything
else and here we are again.
So are you confident that the changes that have been
implemented or are in place are going to say for example to
make sure none of the things that were forbidden are going to
happen today in Nashville? Are you comfortable with that as an
administrator?
Ms. Metzler. I am comfortable that we reviewed all of the
expenses for this proposed conference along with all the others
that have been held, that the administrator has, we have looked
at the expenses that were in the budget. We have made very
clear the ethical responsibilities of every employee that is
attending this conference and ethical responsibilities on the
private sector companies that are also attending. So I am
comfortable that we have conducted a thorough review of this
conference.
Mr. Walz. For the American public then, and I am
speculating, I want to be very clear, I am speculating what is
happening there but everything, my spider spin tells me there
is something very bad going to come out of that and if that
does, can you give me a buck stops here assessment? If there is
a GSA employee in a $3,000 a night suite in Nashville, what is
going to happen? That is what Mr. Barletta is asking. Who is
accountable? I think it is. I don't want to put words in his
mouth. Who is going to be accountable if that happens? We will
find out. I mean, this is going to come out so in a week or so,
there is going to be a story, no, there was not, and I will say
goodness, they put some good checks in place or not, if it
comes out someone is in there. What will happen then?
Ms. Metzler. Well, as with all things with Acting
administrator Tangherlini, once we discover that there is
something that has violated our policy or the law or something
or another, we have been referring those matters to the
inspector general. If we find that there is anything about this
conference that does not comport with what it was proposed to
be to the acting administrator and to me, then we will be
referring that matter to the inspector general.
Mr. Walz. When you leave this room is somebody going to be
on a cell phone calling Nashville?
Ms. Metzler. I think someone is probably on a cell phone
already while we are in this hearing because we were very clear
about the limitations on any preexisting conference that
received approval that there were not to be questions of
riverboats, there were not to be questions of Presidential
suites. So that was the guidance that was given, the direction
that was given, and the conditions under which this conference
was approved, and I am hopeful that by the time I leave here we
will have answers.
Mr. Walz. And I do appreciate that. And I want to be very
clear. I know you are in an uncomfortable position. That is
what comes with leadership, but I can't stress the corrosive
factor that happens to so many dedicated, hardworking, ethical
employees across this country, and whatever you say about it's
unfair with gross generalizations, I certainly know it here
that we are painted by our colleagues in this body, and we each
get associated with one another and it is all of our
responsibility, especially leadership, to fix that. And with
that I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Walz. I would just remind
committee members we have got about 10 minutes. I am going to
ask each of you if you could keep it to 2 minutes so that we
make sure we finish on time and get to everybody.
But Ms. Metzler, I just want to clarify, Mr. Walz was very,
very clear on his question. And you did say we consolidated
oversight of conference and travel expenses in the Office of
Administrative Services, which I lead, you lead, you sign off
on, and as you said, there are probably people on cell phones
right now just contacting the Gaylord Opryland who confirms
that GSA has rented out the General Jackson for a private event
this evening. Did you authorize GSA to rent out the General
Jackson for a private evening tonight, the steamboat?
Ms. Metzler. We did not. This conference, I just might
add----
Mr. Denham. Thank you. I need to yield to the next Member,
Mr. Barletta, for 2 minutes.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you. Ms. Metzler, I had asked if I
could see GSA's budget. I was interested in how much they
budgeted for these types of conferences and meetings, and the
response I got is that the answer is complicated, that they
budget a top line for building operations but they have not
budgeted down to line item like conferences and meetings. Now I
know you talked about some of the reforms that are in place.
Could you tell me what they have budgeted right now for
conferences, meetings, travel, bonuses?
Ms. Metzler. Congressman, the budgeting of the agency is
within the purview of the Chief Financial Officer, and the
entire budgeting along with every other aspect of GSA is part
of the acting administrator----
Mr. Barletta. But I am asking do they have line items
specifically for conferences, for bonuses. Is it itemized like
that that you could tell me or somebody--I couldn't even get a
budget, I couldn't even get a copy of the budget. I am a Member
of Congress. Is it down to line items?
Ms. Metzler. The proposals for conferences that after April
are very much line item by line item so that we saw, for
example, for the SmartPay Conference----
Mr. Barletta. If I could because my time, I want to get to
the point. Could you then send me a list of what, how much
money is budgeted for conferences, bonuses, travel and also
what GSA's budget is. And the answer here is how do we fix
this, how do we fix this problem? We could go on and on and on.
This is not the only agency. So this is my take away from this
meeting. There is number one. We need to force the Senate and
Congress should pass and the President should sign a budget for
the American people; two, Congress should require that every
department utilize zero base budgeting. Every department
require. Three, we should not ask to take more hardworking
taxpayers' money so that Washington could spend it. And four,
we should not let this Government run our health care system.
Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Ms. Metzler, if you could provide
that back to the committee, the entire committee would be
anxious to see how many conferences you have approved as well
as the expenses and the line items moving forward.
I now recognize Mr. Sires for 2 minutes. I am sorry, Ms.
Edwards for 2 minutes.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
witnesses. Just a couple of questions if we could just run down
them because time is short. How many employees are at GSA?
Ms. Metzler. Over 12,000.
Ms. Edwards. And what is your estimate of the number of
them that have participated in these conferences in the last
year?
Ms. Metzler. Congresswoman, I would have to get back to you
about the numbers of people that have participated in these
conferences.
Ms. Edwards. But it would be fair to say that it is
probably not 80 percent of the agency that has participated in
these conferences or 90 percent of the agency, right?
Ms. Metzler. It would be fair to say it is less than half
and much less than that I would estimate, but I would have to
get that to you.
Ms. Edwards. Now, over the last 3 years the regular general
service workers at GSA haven't received a pay raise at all,
isn't that right.
Ms. Metzler. I have just rejoined the Government in August
of 2011, so I am not familiar with what pay situation was
before that period.
Ms. Edwards. Pretty much guaranteeing that Federal workers
haven't received a pay raise in 3 years. And what is the
percentage of the employees at GSA who have received bonuses?
Ms. Metzler. Congresswoman, I will have to have someone get
back to you with that information. I don't have it since it is
not part of my responsibilities.
Ms. Edwards. Would you also get back to me about the
numbers of those employees in the GS-3 and 5 and 7 range who
weren't the recipients of those bonuses at the senior executive
level, employees who haven't received a pay raise over the last
3 years?
Ms. Metzler. We will get that information to you.
Ms. Edwards. And how many annual conferences have there
been that aren't related to boosting morale but are serving the
core mission of the agency?
Ms. Metzler. The vast majority of the conferences of GSA
are serving the core mission of the agency. The conference that
we are holding right now is called the SmartPay Conference. It
is to provide credit card holders with required training so
that they know how to manage their credit card. The last
conference we had was to provide conferences on contracting
and----
Ms. Edwards. We are out of time so I can't--and I
appreciate that but I can't run through all of these. Let me
just say in closing that I think in addition to strengthening
the accountability in the conference arena that it is important
for the IG to look deeply into questions that I have had
longstanding about the transparency accountability, fairness
and parity in every area of the General Services
Administration. And this is not about the good employees of
GSA. A lot of them live in my congressional district. But when
I walked up to a woman who works at GSA who works hard every
day who hasn't got a raise, who shows up and does her job and
she is in tears because this agency is in the newspaper every
single day, it is disgusting. It is not worthy of the
taxpayers. It is not worthy of the citizens of this country,
and GSA needs to get its house in order. And the director,
Acting administrator Tangherlini, I am glad that he rooted out
the problem, but he needs to be in front of this committee
because there are a lot of questions that need to be answered
and here you have somebody who is ostensibly a friend of the
Administration totally disgusted with the Administration,
totally disgusted with the GSA and with its operation at every
single level, every single time that we have a hearing in front
of this committee, and we just can't take it any more. You
know, let us defend the employees who are good and hard workers
at the General Services Administration, but not to defend this
kind of garbage that is a waste of taxpayer money and that
makes all of us in the public not have any confidence at all
that the good workers at GSA can do their job.
And with that I yield.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Ms. Edwards. And Ms. Metzler, this
committee would also request the analysis on the training per
individual. As Ms. Edwards said, there is a lot of money going
into this. We want to make sure the good training that they are
receiving is a definite benefit to each of those that are
getting trained. If they are spending a million dollars at a
conference, we want to see the benefits that those that are
getting trained are getting out of that and I would like to see
the cost-benefit behind that.
I now recognize Mr. Ribble, the final questioner, for 2
minutes.
Mr. Ribble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Miller, were the
current heads of FAS and PBS at the Virginia conference?
Mr. Miller. The current head of FAS was at the conference.
I am not sure about PBS. We would have to look, I would have to
look into that.
Mr. Ribble. Ms. Metzler, do you know if the head of PBS was
at the Virginia conference?
Ms. Metzler. I do not.
Mr. Ribble. OK. Could you get back to me with that
information, please?
Ms. Metzler, in your testimony on page 2, you said Mr.
Tangherlini looks forward to continuing to work with the
committee to refocus the agency on its core mission of
streamlining the administrative work of the Federal Government
to save money for the American taxpayer. What in the world were
they doing before?
Ms. Metzler. The acting administrator has committed to
conducting a thorough top to bottom review of this agency so
that every single aspect of the agency is being looked at right
now so that we can ensure that it is carrying out its mission
in the most cost effective way.
Mr. Ribble. You say in your testimony also on page 2 that
your office reviews each and every planned future conference to
make sure that these events and any related travel are
justified, and then you say, for example, conferences require a
business justification and the submission of a budget. That
wasn't going on before? This is pretty basic?
Ms. Metzler. Before April of 2012, there was no central
oversight of conferences to require that the proposal for what
the conference was about, how it was related to the agency's
mission, that may have happened, but it was not done in a
centralized fashion.
Mr. Ribble. This is just unbelievable. This is shocking.
The American people watching this must just be stunned by this
that they weren't required to submit a budget to have a
conference approved?
Ms. Metzler. After April 11, April 2012, we have been
requiring much more diligence in what the justification for the
conference is, and I am sure there were budgets beforehand, but
we have been looking at these in a different fashion to ensure
that the American taxpayers' dollars are well utilized.
Mr. Ribble. I can tell you and I can say this, Mr.
Chairman, as I yield back. My son is a professional drummer in
Nashville, ironically sometimes plays on the General Jackson.
However, he pays about $7 a pair for drumsticks. The GSA whose
core mission is to save money for the American taxpayer bought
4,000 drumsticks and paid $10.28 a pair. And you can pay them
retail, just search the Internet, you can buy them retail for
under $7 a pair. So about 35 to 40 percent more. I am wondering
how in the world they can claim they are trying to save money
for the American taxpayer, and I yield back.
Mr. Mica. [presiding.] Thank you. Our last one will be Mr.
Sires.
Mr. Sires. We thought you were talking about food over here
when you were talking about drumsticks.
You know, I would just like to associate myself with the
comments of my colleague. And let us talk a little bit about
leasing. Did you just, did the GSA just lease or sign a lease
with the World Trade Center?
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Sires. Why would you go to the World Trade Center?
Besides the fact that the lease was usually it is approved by
this committee and it was never brought before this committee.
That is the reason I am----
Mr. Miller. I was not involved in that in any way. It is
not the role of the inspector general.
Mr. Sires. It is a longstanding history that it comes
before the committee and we approved it.
Mr. Miller. I was providing a fact for you. It was signed.
Mr. Sires. OK. But why the World Trade Center? I mean, I
would think you would get something cheaper if we are looking
to save money. Can anybody tell me why the World Trade Center?
Ms. Metzler. My responsibilities at GSA include the
internal operation of the agency, not leases like the World
Trade Center. I am sure we will be happy to provide that
information to the committee.
Mr. Sires. Why wasn't it, Mr. Miller, brought before the
committee? Usually it is the history that the leases are
brought before the committee for approval.
Mr. Miller. I understand that. I cannot answer that
question. Certainly that is something that Acting administrator
Tangherlini or someone at GSA who controls the functions of GSA
can answer and should answer.
Mr. Sires. Well, you know, I don't have much time but it is
just outrageous. It really is. You know, here we are trying to
defend the good workers and then we have the situation with the
bonuses. Who sets the standards for these bonuses? How do they
arrive at giving somebody a bonus? Is it a committee or is it
just a person just says Mr. Miller, you are going to have this
bonus?
Mr. Miller. No. I believe there are policies and
performance criteria involved, but again that is a function
within GSA. We have an audit ongoing of executive compensation,
so we are looking at that and we are looking at how awards are
being given out and how bonuses are given out.
Mr. Sires. All right. I yield back. Thank you very much.
Mr. Mica. Thank you so much, and I thank Members. If other
Members have questions or other additional inquiries that they
would like to submit to our witnesses, I welcome them, and I
ask unanimous consent that today's record be kept open for a
period of 15 days for the witnesses to respond or for Members
to provide additional commentary to the record.
Without any further business, I want to thank the two
witnesses for coming today, particularly Mr. Miller, for your
cooperation as the inspector general. Ms. Metzler, we are
expecting additional answers and commentary. I am sorry you got
the short straw today and you are down the totem pole and
fairly new and the others have ducked and either hidden for
cover, but we will convene additional hearings here when we
come back in September, and I invite Members to participate in
the field hearings that are scheduled, Mr. Denham and I will be
conducting in the interim.
There being no further business on this particular hearing,
I excuse and thank again the witnesses. And this will conclude
the GSA portion of our proceedings today, and I will call that
portion of our hearing adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:00 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]