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GSA failed to halt exec's taxpayer-funded junkets
The Washington Examiner ^ | 4/17/17 | Susan Ferrechio
Posted on April 19, 2012 11:47:12 PM EDT by CitizenM
General Services Administration officials permitted a high-ranking employee to spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on lavish travel junkets, despite an inspector general's dire warning about the executive's pattern of waste, fraud and abuse, officials said Tuesday.
GSA Inspector General Brian Miller warned Martha Johnson, then head of GSA, in May 2011 about Neely's pattern of inappropriate and unbridled spending, including a $823,000 Las Vegas conference for 300 GSA employees in October 2010. A month later, a GSA official informed a White House lawyer about an investigation of "fraud and wasteful spending" at GSA
Despite those warnings, Neely received a work bonus even while under investigation and was allowed to continue traveling at taxpayer expense, often taking his wife and family with him. A missing iPod intended as a gift for GSA employees was traced to Neely's daughter.
A year after the career bureaucrat first raised suspicions about his spending, Neely took his family on a nine-day GSA-funded trip to Hawaii.
"I know. I am bad," Neely wrote to a friend. "But Deb [his wife] and I say often, why not enjoy it while we have it and while we can. Aint going to last forever."
Late last year, GSA officials discussed the inappropriateness of Neely's planned 17-day junket to the Pacific Rim. But officials approved the trip and Neely in February set off for Hawaii, Guam and Saipan with employees and his wife, whose birthday he planned to celebrate as part of the trip.
Neely was still traveling on the taxpayer's dime as recently as last month, including a four-day trip to Hawaii and a $40,000 "executive team meeting" in the Napa Valley.
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