Another in a string of top officials at the General Services Administration was placed on administrative leave Monday, four days after a video that features him joking about the lavish spending at a Las Vegas conference became public.
David Foley, deputy commissioner of the agency’s Public Buildings Service, was placed on leave pending disciplinary review for his conduct at the Western Regions Conference in 2010, the Washington Post reported. Foley appears prominently in the six-minute video clip (pictured right in screen shot above) released last week, which won top prize in a talent contest among employees who attended the four-day event in October 2010. Foley rewarded the employee who stars in the video, 28-year-old Hank Terlaje (pictured left in screen shot above). Terlaje raps in sunglasses about the government tab – $823,000 – to entertain 300 employees at the luxury M Resort Spa Casino. He brags that he will “never be under investigation” for the excess.
The House committee on Oversight and Government Reform circulated the video, which was uncovered by in an investigation by GSA’s Inspector General.
Foley is the eighth GSA leader to be disciplined or fired, or forced to resign since last Monday’s release of a scathing report by Inspector General Brian Miller, whose staff spent a year reviewing spending abuses at the conference. The report forced the resignation of Administrator Martha N. Johnson and the firing of Peck and another Johnson deputy. Four regional commissioners who planned the conference are on administrative leave.
Linda Chero, a former regional commissioner with GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, was appointed acting buildings service commissioner; her acting deputy is Desa Sealy, a former Building Service associate commissioner.
Despite the year-long investigation that culminated in the report and administrative actions last week, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee suggested the administration “knew about this 11 months ago and they didn’t act until the press got wind of it. This is typically what has been happening in this administration. They are only transparent when they are discovered.” He also said the scandal reflected “the waste that exists in a bloated federal government.”
The original press report, however, was in fact spurred by the release of the IG report and leadership collapse.
And on Friday, Politico reported that the big jump in GSA conference spending came under the Bush administration. The cost of similar GSA conferences rocketed from $93,000 in 2004 to $323,855 in 2006, a 248 percent increase. In addition, the previous Bush administration didn’t fire Lurita Doan, a former GSA administrator, until 11 months after the Office of Special Counsel called for her ouster for “engaging in the most pernicious of political activity.”
Many federal workers have weighed in since the GSA scandal, indicating that conferences such as the now-infamous GSA Western states one was well out of the norm of what happens at most government conferences.
“I can honestly say that the type of activity depicted in the Western Region Conference is far, far from what I have ever experienced working with any agency, including GSA,” wrote Peg Hosky, president of Hosky Communications, on Breaking Gov’s Linked In group discussion page. “It is a shame that Federal workers are all being painted with the same brush. That being said, the number of planning trips to Las Vegas alone makes the story of this conference unbelievable. I can think of no justifiable reason to make more than 1 planning trip for a small, 300 person conference, not to mention eliminating those hotels not offering per diem is a simple phone conversation that doesn’t require a site visit.”