GSA official reprimanded for planning party to celebrate herself
Politico ^ | 9/6/2012 | David Levinthal
Posted on September 6, 2012 7:15:42 PM EDT by RightGeek
The General Services Administration’s Julia Hudson was ready to party last month, inviting roughly 1,200 federal employees to celebrate the second anniversary of her appointment as the scandal-scarred agency’s National Capital Region administrator.
Refreshments would be served in Hudson’s seventh-floor downtown D.C. office suite, including a cake bearing her image, GSA sources familiar with the event’s planning tell POLITICO.
But on the morning of the event, the GSA’s top leadership abruptly canceled it. They were unaware of Hudson’s plans until the night before — and determined to avoid yet another embarrassment to an agency still suffering from the infamous 2010 Las Vegas conference that featured commemorative coins in velvet boxes, a clown and a mind reader.
GSA leaders verbally reprimanded Hudson for scheduling the event, said agency spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara.
“The event was canceled because it does not meet the new guidelines and we determined it was not a good use of employees’ time,” Alcantara said. “This event was not submitted for review. All GSA senior staff has received these guidelines. … As soon as we found out about this event, we acted.”
Since Administrator Martha Johnson resigned and two of her deputies were fired in April, all internal events must be cleared by GSA Chief Administrative Officer Cynthia Mezler. GSA estimates it has saved $11 million in taxpayer money from canceled events.
But this celebration of a political appointee’s job, set for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Aug. 28, wasn’t cleared.
Nor was it the first such party for Hudson. She held a similar event last year to fete the first anniversary of her appointment.
Dozens, if not hundreds of employee work hours would have been spent at Hudson’s celebration. Alcantara says Hudson told GSA officials she would have paid out of her own pocket for the refreshments, estimated at $200, had her event taken place.
As national capital region administrator, Hudson is “responsible for the entire Washington metro area federal real estate inventory of 96 million square feet in more than 80 government-owned and leased facilities that house nearly 300,000 federal workers,” according to her GSA biography. She also oversees the “acquisition of office space, equipment, telecommunications and information technology.”
Hudson did not return repeated phone calls and email messages requesting comment.
Prior to joining GSA, Hudson worked as vice president of Chase Communications and chief of staff for Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).
In addition to the Las Vegas conference, the GSA also came under intense scrutiny for conducting events that included sending staffers to cooking classes and procuring $20,000 of drumsticks for a “drum band exercise” at an Arlington, Va., hotel.
As GSA’s acting administrator, Dan Tangherlini vowed earlier this year to clean up the agency.
“We are taking steps to improve internal controls and oversight to ensure this never happens again,” Tangherlini told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, promising “full accountability for these activities so that we can begin to restore the trust of the American people.”
Tangherlini and GSA Inspector General Brian Miller are scheduled to testify next Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the future of the agency.
