Employee behind lavish Las Vegas conference out at GSA

[Omaha Steve]

Source: LA Times

By Morgan Little

WASHINGTON -- Jeff Neely, the regional director responsible for much of the General Services Administration’s highly controversial $823,000 conference in Las Vegas in 2010, is no longer employed by the agency, a spokesman said.

"GSA is in the process of completing its review of activities associated with the Western Regions Conference and pursuing all available avenues for appropriate disciplinary action against those responsible. Jeff Neely was placed on administrative leave based on his involvement in the WRC. As of today, he’s no longer employed with GSA,” Deputy Press Secretary Adam Elkington said in a statement provided to the Los Angeles Times.

Neely has been silent since the onset of congressional hearings regarding the excessive spending, invoking his 5th Amendment rights as hearing after hearing detailed his practices during his tenure as regional director.

Details of his lavish spending, which have been previously explored by the Times, include lengthy trips to southeastern Asia and Hawaii, a $2,717 private party at his hotel suite that was billed as an awards event for employees, and warnings to Neely’s supervisors pertaining to his travel practices.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-employee-behind-lavish-las-vegas-conference-out-at-gsa-20120524,0,3003351.story

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http://www.trbimg.com/img-4fbeb748/turbine/la-pn-employee-behind-lavish-las-vegas-confere-001/600
Jeff Neely, the central figure in a General Services Administration spending scandal, sits at the witness table on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. (J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo / April 16, 2012)

[edcantor]

1. I hope he gets no pension, either!

Nothing! He should be forced to work pumping gas, at minimum wage, or something equally ugly.

I would hope the office of personnel management is looking into how these blow-hards ever got elevated to positions of authority to spend this kind of money on a conference for government employees.

I don't mind giving government employees a couple of days in a nice location once or twice in their career, where they actually learn something, and actually do some work, actually have a few hours in the sun when their work life, up until then, had been somewhere in a cubicle figuring out how the federal government can save a few million a year.

But to boast about this, to pay for lavish accommodations and food and alcohol, how about a Motel 6 and Burger King lunch, or maybe a Days Inn and a Denny's lunch? Nothing shameful about that!

Better still, hold these "conferences" on-line, fly no-one nowhere, do it all on Skype or something similar, and have the "conference attendees" sit in chairs in a conference room in their own work site and watch and participate on Skype? When it comes time to finish the conference, give them all a $20 steak dinner somewhere, after they complete a test about how much they learned from attending one of these "conferences". That's about as far as we should be going these days with our thousands of federal employees making decisions to make our lives better, more healthy, and how to save our tax dollars.

[Seeking Serenity]

3. Yes, because government workers shouldn't get any kind of perks whatsoever

for doing often thankless work for relatively low pay (compared to people doing similar work in the private sector). They should just feast off that warm glow in their heart knowing they're serving the often ungrateful, unappreciative, contemptuous American people.

"A couple of days in a nice location once or twice in their career?? That's it? Look, I'm not making excuses for over-the-top excesses that went on at the GSA, but this idea that public employees (state as well as federal) should get nothing and like it, all because it comes from tax money is foolish and short-sighted. Why would anyone want to work in government if that's the prevailing attitude?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

2. There are some openings in the Secret Service ...

... somebody has to prepare for the arrival of advance teams.