I wrote back in June that I was relieved about a bureaucrat from the National Weather Service getting elected to the Bureaucrat Hall of Fame.
I realize I was being jingoistic, but after selecting bureaucrats from France and India, I had been worried that foreigners were beginning to dominate the award.
But now Americans are on a roll. We have a new honoree, and she hails from one of those bureaucracies that shouldn’t exist – the Commerce Department in Washington.
Here are some remarkable excerpts from a report in the Washington Post.
A high-ranking official at the Commerce Department took at least seven government computers home, an IT smorgasbord from iPads to Dell desktops that she rarely used for work. And if that wasn’t enough, she allowed her kids to download pornography and “racially offensive materials,” an investigation found.
My main reaction is to ask why she was given seven computers. I realize that government bureaucracies waste money and have a callous disregard for taxpayer-provided equipment, but what possible rationale could there be for that many devices?
And my secondary thought is to wonder whether she “allowed” her kids to download inappropriate material or they did it behind her back.
If it’s the latter, then I’m not really sure why it matters. And I’m not even upset that she then tried to erase the info. I can understand why a parent would want to get rid of evidence that their kids were looking at porn.
When investigators started asking questions, they said, she tampered with evidence by erasing the offending material on some of the computers.
Though it’s far less excusable that she tried to penalize lower-level bureaucrats as part of her efforts to hide her misbehavior.
…and in retaliation moved to discipline a woman on her staff who cooperated with the probe.
If the information we’ve looked at was the extent of the matter, this bureaucrat wouldn’t be eligible for the Hall of Fame. However, she also engaged in other behaviors that make her a stellar candidate.
Including lavish trips with taxpayers picking up a big chunk of the cost.
This accumulation of misdeeds described by the Commerce Department watchdog in an investigative report released last week also included a layover in Paris en route to a European conference, partly funded by taxpayers. The official told colleagues her primary reason for going to the conference was to shop, the report said.
And she apparently didn’t think goofing off at her desk was a valuable use of her time, so she played hooky so she could goof off elsewhere.
Investigators said they also found a suspicious pattern of inconsistencies in when the official said she was working and what the swipe records on her security badge showed, including one day when she said she was on the clock for eight hours — but really worked just 20 minutes.
But here’s the clincher, the final piece of evidence that she belongs in the Bureaucrat Hall of Fame.
The statement doesn’t say whether the employee, a GS-15 on the federal pay scale, faces misconduct charges. She now works in another job at Commerce.
Isn’t that wonderful. Based on the GS-15 pay rules, she’s getting paid at least $125,000 per year (and perhaps as much as $158,000) and so far gets to keep her job notwithstanding serial misconduct.
A truly deserving candidate for the Hall of Fame!
