WASHINGTON -- The inspector general for the General Services Administration said Monday that he is investigating possible bribery and kickbacks in the agency, as lawmakers assailed the former GSA administrator for allowing a Las Vegas spending scandal to erode taxpayers' trust in government.
Inspector General Brian Miller told a congressional committee scrutinizing an $823,000 Las Vegas conference that his office has asked the Justice Department to investigate "all sorts of improprieties" surrounding the 2010 event, "including bribes, including possible kickbacks."
Mr. Miller's revelations of possible further misconduct by organizers of the four-day event, along with the details he released in a report last week, enraged Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The lawmakers put GSA officials on the defensive during a tense four-hour hearing, with some Republicans raising their voices as they scolded former administrator Martha N. Johnson and her colleagues.
GOP lawmakers argued that the excessive spending proves their case for smaller government. Taxpayers picked up the tab for a mind reader, bicycles for a team-building exercise and a slew of private parties at the conference.
"There are those who believe government's reach should be expanded," committee Chairman Darell Issa, R-Calif., said in his opening statement. "What has come to light surrounding GSA's activities should give pause to anyone who has opposed cutting government size and spending."
But Democrats joined him in condemning the conference's outsize tab, with Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the panel's ranking Democrat, calling it "indefensible" and "intolerable." Mr. Cummings scolded agency officials, "It's not your money, it's the taxpayers' money."
Ms. Johnson, speaking publicly for the first time since her abrupt resignation last week, called the biennial Western Regions Conference a "raucous, extravagant, arrogant, self-congratulatory event that ultimately belittled federal workers." Closing her testimony, she said, "I will mourn for the rest of my life the loss of my appointment."
Seated next to her was Jeffrey Neely, the senior executive in the GSA's Pacific Rim region, who organized the event. Mr. Neely, 57, who had received a subpoena from the committee, asserted his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself and left the witness table.
Mr. Neely, who earns a salary of $172,000, is one of five senior managers who have been placed on paid administrative leave pending further discipline. Several lawmakers said it galled them that the managers are still receiving their full salaries. As civil servants, they have more protections than political appointees do.
Ms. Johnson's replacement, acting administrator Dan Tangherlini, told lawmakers he has canceled almost every conference scheduled for GSA employees for the rest of the fiscal year. He also sent letters Friday to Mr. Neely, former Public Buildings Service commissioner Robert Peck and Robert Shepard, Mr. Neely's chief of staff, demanding repayment for private parties they threw in their M Resort Spa Casino rooms.
Mr. Peck has been summoned to appear today at the second of four congressional hearings about the scandal.
Mr. Tangherlini also wants repayment from an audiovisual company that was given hotel rooms as part of its $59,000 contract for the conference, but that Mr. Tangherlini said had double-billed the government.
Asked if the GSA has a "culture" problem that led to the freewheeling spending, which included poolside entertainment by a clown and a "Red Carpet" talent show, Mr. Tangherlini replied, "We definitely have a culture problem in Region 9," referring to the four-state Pacific Rim office. "I can't say I know enough to say we have a culture problem" in the rest of the agency, he said.
The officials' apologies did little to satisfy lawmakers, who were outraged that top agency officials allowed the spending to occur, then waited to take action even after the inspector general briefed them midway through his year-long investigation.
Mr. Issa and others questioned how Ms. Johnson could have signed off on a $9,000 bonus for Mr. Neely last year over the objections of a committee that reviews bonuses for senior executive service members.
In an email released by the committee, Ms. Johnson wrote "yes on a bonus," in part because Mr. Neely had to serve as regional administrator in an acting capacity "forever and a day." She told lawmakers Monday that the reward was for his job performance. Pressed on whether she would deny the bonus knowing what she knows today, she said she could not say.
Ms. Johnson said she received a briefing on preliminary findings in May 2011. She decided not to launch her own investigation, "as such action would have entailed a terrific duplication of government resources."
Ms. Johnson said she believed that Mr. Miller would quickly conclude the investigation, but "the deadline slipped repeatedly from October to November to December." She said her office got a final report last month, 15 months after it was requested.
"I personally apologize to the American people for this entire situation," Ms. Johnson said.
Most contracts for the conference -- including for an event planner, the audiovisual company and the bike-building exercise -- were not competitively bid, as federal rules require.
First Published: April 17, 2012, 4:00 a.m.
Updated: April 17, 2012, 4:25 a.m.
