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Remember they are "public servants", not "party animals".
All that stuff in Las Vegas was hard work!
Well at least that's what the "public servants" at the GSA tell us!!!!!
Man all I can say is those government employees that work for Uncle Sam at the GSA are some fantastic party animals who can our tax dollars on themselves like drunken sailors. Here is a link to the UTube video: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CL-fZKxINdA
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And here is the article: Video plays up GSA revelry in Vegas By Lisa Rein, Published: April 5 The General Services Administration came under new scrutiny Thursday with the release of a video of an employee rapping in sunglasses about extravagant spending at a Las Vegas conference, boasting that he’ll “never be under investigation” for the excess. The six-minute clip was entered in a talent contest among 300 employees who flew to the four-day training and team-building event at the luxury M Resort Spa Casino in October 2010. It won top prize — and was showcased at a red-carpet awards ceremony during the conference’s closing dinner. In another clip, a top official with the GSA’s Public Buildings Service rewards 28-year-old Hank Terlaje by making him honorary commissioner for a day. Deputy Commissioner David Foley then jokes about an after-hours party the night before in the loft suite of Commissioner Robert Peck, who was fired Monday. “The hotel would like to talk to you about paying for the party that was held in the commissioner’s suite last night,” Foley jokes. The crowd breaks into laughs and applause. The clips, released Thursday by the office of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), provided a bookend to a week of salacious revelations of government excess: $823,000 in taxpayer money for a junket at the height of the recession that involved little training and plenty of poolside revelry. The clips were provided to Issa — among the Obama administration’s biggest critics on Capitol Hill — by the GSA inspector general’s office, which on Monday released a year-long investigation of the Western Regions conference. Hours before Brian Miller’s report went online, GSA Administrator Martha Johnson had resigned, two of her top deputies who attended the conference were fired and four regional commissioners had been escorted from their offices, placed on administrative leave. It was a swift reaction from an administration that issued a directive to all agencies last year to review expenses on travel and conferences, saving $280 million, White House officials said. The GSA, a little-known but powerful agency that controls the government’s real estate holdings and buys supplies from car fleets to computers, became Exhibit A in the election-year war between Democrats and Republicans over federal spending. “It takes a lot of work to spend $3,000 a person and at a time when unemployment was nearly 10 percent, Americans were suffering and GSA was enjoying the good times and doing so with high-ranking political employees,” Issa said in a statement. He blamed the White House, which learned of Miller’s investigation 11 months ago, for waiting until his report was public to remove the agency’s top leaders. GSA spokesman Adam Elkington called the video “another example of the complete lack of judgment” exhibited during the Western Regions conference. “Our agency continues to be appalled by this indefensible behavior, and we are taking every step possible to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again,” he said. In a lot of workplaces, employees roast their company culture at parties or conferences. But when an employee is rewarded for lampooning wasteful spending by his bosses when such spending is under fire all over Washington, it looks bad. The video opens with Terlaje playing the ukulele to the tune of Travie McCoy & Bruno Mars’s “I Wanna Be a Billionaire,” and rapping about what life would be like were he to become Public Buildings chief. Among his promises: GSA would “never be under OIG investigation,” a reference to the Office of Inspector General. “Obama better prepare, when I’m commissioner,” Terlaje sings as the clip turns into a rap song. He is joined walking down an office hallway by a female colleague. “I’d have a road show like [Acting Regional GSA Administrator Jeffrey] Neely, every time you see me rolling on 20s yeah, in my GOV. Spend BA 61 all on fun. ATF can’t touch GS-15 guns! Cause I buy everything your field office can’t afford. Every GS-5 would get a top hat award. Donate my vacation, love to the nation, I’ll never be under OIG investigation.” Terlaje, reached at the GSA’s Honolulu office, declined to comment. Staff writer Timothy R. Smith and researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this story.
GSA manager wanted ‘over the top’ Vegas conference By Ed O’Keefe and Timothy R. Smith, Published: April 5 The man at the center of the scandal embroiling the General Services Administration — the one who insisted that the infamous Las Vegas planning conference had to be “over the top” — was trying to supplant what previous hosts of the biennial conference had achieved. Jeffrey E. Neely initially approved a $300,000 budget for the October 2010 conference, but later authorized spending up to about $823,000. He also traveled to Las Vegas for five of the eight agency fact-finding or “dry run” meetings held in advance of the conference in order to see whether the proposed venue would be an appropriate fit. He stayed at the M Resort Spa Casino on four of the five trips, according to information provided to congressional aides by the GSA Office of Inspector General, which published the report this week. The GSA declined to comment Thursday on Neely, citing federal personnel privacy rules. Neely has not responded to requests for comment. His wife referred calls to their attorney, Robert DePriest, who also declined to comment. “Under advice of counsel, we can’t really speak to you — although we’d love to, we can’t,” said a woman answering the phone at the Neely home. Inspector General Brian D. Miller has declined to discuss the case beyond the details published in his report, but he has briefed several congressional offices on the probe. According to congressional aides familiar with the investigation, Neely sought legal advice from an agency lawyer before approving a $75,000 “team-building” exercise for the conference that required GSA employees to build bicycles. But Neely did not ask for the legal opinion in writing because it could “become discoverable” as part of a potential investigation, the aides said. Neely also received an unspecified performance bonus last year that was approved by Public Building Services Commissioner Robert Peck and GSA Administrator Martha Johnson, even though an agency review panel said he should not receive one. Congressional aides said Johnson and Peck approved the bonus despite knowing about the ongoing IG investigation and a separate $200,000 program authorized by Neely that allowed agency employees to redeem reward points for taxpayer-funded gift cards and electronics, including iPods. Friends and colleagues describe Neely as extroverted, but they say little else about the GSA regional commissioner who until recently managed more than 35 million square feet of federal office space in Arizona, California, Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific territories. The 57-year-old is on administrative leave — one of several officials removed after publication of the report. A 2005 interview with Government Executive magazine noted that Neely was an avid swimmer who once raced against Olympian Mark Spitz. He left the Army in the late 1970s and joined the federal government’s leasing and procurement agency in hopes of ultimately becoming an assistant regional administrator. “I knew I wanted that job, and I set myself to doing that by working in lots of different places,” Neely said in the interview. “Intentionally, I got myself into lots of different pieces of PBS [the Public Buildings Service], because I knew I would need that experience.” Despite his outlandish conference spending, GSA credited Neely last December for saving money by hiring a herd of goats — instead of bulldozers and crews — to clear outgrowth and underbrush on a hillside near a Pasadena courthouse. Neighbors of the courthouse “were tickled and impressed with the idea” Neely said in an agency press release. “The clerk of the court watched the goats depart and said she’d be happy to see them back again — the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Staff writer Lisa Rein and researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
GSA regional office rewards program divvied up $200,000 in gifts By Timothy R. Smith The General Services Administration’s regional agency that has come under fire for a lavish employee conference in Las Vegas gave away more than $200,000-worth of iPods, gift cards and other items to employees as part of a staff award program. The Pacific Rim region of GSA, which oversees federal property in General Services Administration Administrator Martha Johnson resigned Monday following revelations of lavish spending on an agency conference. (Brendan Smialowski) Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada, ran a previously undisclosed “Hats Off” program for employees that allowed them to redeem reward points for tax funded items, giftcards and electronics, including iPods. According to a statement by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the awards had little relation to employee performance. “People could be given points for anything from a quality work product to simply brightening the workplace and being a pleasant person,” said a Hill staffer, present at a GSA inspector general briefing given to staff members of the Transportation and Infrastructure committee on Wednesday. “You could give and receive points to and from anyone and there was nothing preventing quid-pro-quo.” The staffer spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose further details from the briefing. It was the Pacific Rim region that organized the 2010 conference that cost $823,000 and included penthouse suites, a clown and a mentalist. GSA Administrator Martha N. Johnson resigned Monday following revelations of the conference, and two of her senior assistants were fired. According to a staffer present at the April 4 briefing, the program was conceived by the Pacific Region’s public building’s administrator, who The Post has identified as Jeffrey Neely. “I am stunned by the squandering of taxpayer funds at a time when millions of Americans were still feeling the effects of the 2008 financial crisis,” D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the ranking member on the House subcomittee that oversees GSA, said in a statement. “I join President Obama in condemning the spending, contracting and other excesses that characterized the conference from planning to execution.” The House subcommittee on public buildings, chaired by Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) will begin a hearing on GSA on April 19. “There must be serious consequences for this type of blatant waste of taxpayer dollars, and the Committee intends to hold those responsible fully accountable,” Denham said in a statement. By Timothy R. Smith | 03:35 PM ET, 04/05/2012
The word that must not be spoken By Al Kamen, Published: April 4 Washington’s newest dirty word is “conference.” Thanks to the clowning and magic tricks by the General Services Administration at a posh Las Vegas resort (the one that led to the resignation this week of the agency’s chief and two of her top deputies and the ouster — “administrative leave” — of four officials involved in planning the ritzy event) the word may now be verboten among the agencies. On Wednesday, for example, the Department of Homeland Security boasted of its successful “2012 National Fusion Center Training Event.” A “training event” sounds like serious business. Not to be confused with a “conference,” which, thanks to the GSA, now conjures up images of conga lines and taxpayer-funded decadence. Funny, though, that the very same DHS event held last year was billed as the “National Fusion Center Conference.” Oh, what a difference a year makes. And as a helpful guide to government conference — oops, scratch that — event planners, we offer these synonyms so you might label your next gathering appropriately: ●“Annual meeting.” Using the word “annual” conveys a sense that it’s just a routine event. Nothing to see here, people . . . ●“Seminar.” Makes us think of lecture halls and trying to stay awake. So boring, no one will notice. ●“Symposium.” Implies lots of deep thoughts and has a certain air of gravitas about it. ●“Forum.” Sounds Roman, which makes us think of togas, which makes us think of “Animal House.” Well, maybe avoid “forum,” too. The art of the answer In this town, reporters sometimes ask government briefers questions they can’t immediately answer. They’re often told, “I’ll get back to you on that.” At some places, such as the Pentagon or the State Department, the briefers — or usually the people working for them — will indeed get back, within a few hours, via e-mail. At the White House, maybe they will, often they won’t. But whether the response actually answers your question, well, that’s another story. Take, for example, a question a reporter asked State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Tuesday about whether department officials will be “meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood delegation that is currently in Washington.” (Some of the Egyptian delegation met Tuesday with White House officials, our colleague William Wan reported.) A pretty straightforward, yes-or-no question. “We’ll get back to you,” she said. And here’s the e-mailed response. Answer: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is hosting a conference in Washington titled “Islamists in Power: Views from Within” on April 5. Okay, that’s a fact. And some Brotherhood members will be there. So the answer is yes? Ah, not so fast. Some of the conference participants will meet with State Department officials while in town. So the answer is surely yes? Maybe “Some of the conference participants” is code for “Muslim Brotherhood.” Deputy Secretary [William] Burns will meet with Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Dr. Marwan Muasher and some of the participants in the Carnegie conference on April 4. Wait a minute. Marwan Muasher? Jordan’s former ambassador to Israel and to Washington and a former World Bank official? Hardly known to be a member of the Brotherhood. So maybe the answer is no? Some of the Carnegie Endowment conference participants will also meet with Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Robert Hormats and Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman. Any further questions?
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