Guest Vern Edwards Posted March 14, 2013 Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 The Merit Systems Protection Board has ordered reinstatement and back pay for Paul Prouty, the GSA SES who headed Public Buildings Service and approved the expenses for the now notorious conference. http://www.federalnewsradio.com/pdfs/mspb_prouty_initial_decision.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcarver Posted March 14, 2013 Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 Oh, I can't wait for the public fallout of this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vecchia capra Posted March 14, 2013 Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 Perhaps I read the document incorrectly, but it seems to me that the judge said the impermissive costs of the confernence were the responsibility of Neely in District 9 and not Prouty in District 8. It's kind of hard to be responsible in Denver for what is spent by a separate, non-reporting office in Sacramento. In the end, I think the public should be happy if they fire the guy in the tub drinking a glass of bubbly with Las Vegas in the background. Going after everyone who was associated with the conference is, according to the judge, not appropriate unless they had some very strong role in the malfeasance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woops85 Posted March 14, 2013 Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 Unfortunately the guy in the tub drinking a glass of bubbly (Neely) was allowed to retire. Too bad MSPB could not negatively impact his retirement in some way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
August Posted March 14, 2013 Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 I especially appreciated Judge Miller's notes that "there are evidentiary issues with the OIG deficiency report..." and "the OIG's report constitutes multiple levels of hearsay..." Too many were driven by the "optics" of the situation rather than a reasonable analysis of the facts of the situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoGoldPA Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 I especially appreciated Judge Miller's notes that "there are evidentiary issues with the OIG deficiency report..." and "the OIG's report constitutes multiple levels of hearsay..." Too many were driven by the "optics" of the situation rather than a reasonable analysis of the facts of the situation. Sad, but, too often this is the case when people don't wait for the "facts"! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retreadfed Posted March 18, 2013 Report Share Posted March 18, 2013 IGs are supposed to gather facts to support their conclusions. However, many times their facts are nothing more than rumor, suspicion and innuendo. It seems that the GSA IG suffers from the same lynch mob mentality that the DoD IG did in regard to the Tailhook episode. In that case, a U.S. district judge called the IG report on the incident inherently unreliable and refused to permit it to be admitted into evidence. Despite this, it is amazing that congress seems to give IGs an aura of infallibility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vecchia capra Posted March 18, 2013 Report Share Posted March 18, 2013 IGs are supposed to gather facts to support their conclusions. However, many times their facts are nothing more than rumor, suspicion and innuendo. It seems that the GSA IG suffers from the same lynch mob mentality that the DoD IG did in regard to the Tailhook episode. In that case, a U.S. district judge called the IG report on the incident inherently unreliable and refused to permit it to be admitted into evidence. Despite this, it is amazing that congress seems to give IGs an aura of infallibility. I think that sometimes agencies and Congress treats IG offices like they were attack dogs, with the same amount of intelligence as those K9s. They attack on demand, with little thought to reasonableness or research. They fill documents with, as in the Prouty decision, hearsay and rumors, and do what they are expected to do, and if some judge reverses the decisions, it will be years later and the message will still be sent to all; creating displeasure for the ruling class will have consequences. Our government is acting more like a middle ages kingdom than a representative government these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joel hoffman Posted March 18, 2013 Report Share Posted March 18, 2013 The IG offices certainly aren't the only ones who are fallible. I've seen some very badly botched investigations by the Office of Special Investigations (AF) and the Criminal Investigation Command (Army). In one case, the investigators interfered with and ruined our chances of recovery of over $700,000 under TINA "innacurate" cost or pricing data. In another case, the investigator ruined the career and reputation of a very good and innocent project manager, who was finally vindicated a couple of years later - after having to hire a lawyer and a private investigator to clear his name. The problem is that they often seem to be incompetent in matters of government contract administration or contract law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian Posted April 3, 2013 Report Share Posted April 3, 2013 why is it that the Special IG's appointed to look at contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan only found fault with individuals in small matters of waste, fraud and abuse, and the big cahunas got away ? Oh, yeah. IG's were appointed by a particular political party. As far as this GSA Conference, I can't see what the big deal was. I worked at HQ USAF Space Command in the 1990's, and they wasted at least $800K on unneeded conferences every month. Folks traveled needlessly all the time. The Commanding General would fly his wife and his girlfriend around the world, to the same destinations, on separate Air Mobility Command aircraft, as if they didn't know about each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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