Another government employee bilks taxpayers out of big salary money

As 2013 drew to a close, American taxpayers were introduced to John C. Beale, a “climate change expert” at the Environmental Protection Agency who bilked taxpayers out of a million dollars in salary, benefits, and expenses over the course of a decade, while only rarely bothering to show up for work.  When challenged on his whereabouts, he would claim to be working undercover for the CIA in Pakistan.  The endless management layers of our Derp Government lapped it up like cream, until Beale finally went too far and got busted.

Here’s a similar story, albeit on a smaller scale and without the Walter Mitty fantasies, from the Treasury Department, courtesy of the Washington Examiner:

The assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Public Debt who supervised 108 employees in the bureau’s West Virginia office “was committing egregious time and attendance fraud,” depriving taxpayers of nearly $100,000 in salary for hours she did not work, according to one of several Treasury Department inspector general documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, most of which had previously gone unreported.

The official, despite being paid an average yearly salary of nearly $170,000, “arrives at work approximately two hours late and/or takes two-hour lunch breaks and departs work at approximately 4:00 P.M. and does not take leave,” and “consistently conducts personal business involving the Humane Society during work hours,” IG investigators found after verifying a tip from an employee who said the top official “abuses her power by being absent whenever desired.”

Her supervisor, the deputy commissioner, knew about the absences but did nothing, the investigators said.

Punchline: no one seems to know whether either the salary-scamming official or her supervisor still works for the federal government.  The Examiner tells of another highly-paid official who took a transfer from San Francisco to Los Angeles, soaked up $10,000 in relocation expenses, didn’t bother relocating… and then billed Derp Government another ninety thousand dollars in expenses for travel that wouldn’t have occurred if she had actually moved to L.A.  

This went on for four years, with her supervisors fully aware of her location the whole time.  Someone eventually got around to asking what happened to the ten thousand dollars in relocation money, whereupon the employee promptly retired.  The Treasury department won’t disclose her identity, or reveal whether she paid back any of the hundred grand in inappropriate expenses.

Punchline: she worked for the Office of Thrift Supervision.

But remember, there’s not a dollar of fat to be cut from this government, according to Democrat Party dogma.  Maybe there’s a little liposuction of waste spending to be done, but they’ll never actually do it – they just love to run on campaign promises of cleaner government.  In truth, the whole system is stupid drunk on the billions of dollars surging through it, to the point where these highly paid officials can fart around for years on the taxpayer dime.