GSA's $820 million Conference

[Gerry Clinchy]

[quote=Walden7272;949885]I am with aray11, what does the GSA really do? If they only have a budget of $12M and they are part of the government, they can't do much. But I will say they learned how to waste tax payer dollars with the best of them.
quote]

Also have something to do with managing Federal real estate. The fellow who was fired, Beck, increased his own personal part of the GSA budget by about 50% from the time he went into his position. The agency's budget went from around $3 million to $12 million since 2007 (I think that was the time period mentioned). Maybe that could have been controlled a bit if the Senate had passed any budgets since then?

At least the head of the agency did one good thing before she resigned ... she fired Beck first; then resigned.

BTW, isn't there anything anyone can do to compel the Senate to put a budget on the floor? If they are "required" to present a budget each year, where/what is the penalty for their dereliction of duty? Some candidate ought to put that on their list of campaign promises: MAKE Congress pass a budget!

[Eric Johnson]

The GSA really has several roles.

1. They are the "landlord" or rental agent for the Feds. If you need office space (or anything else) and don't have the resource in your Dept., the GSA will find it for you either by renting it or by finding you space in a building that is already owned or leased.

2. They do a lot of the procurement for goods and services that are used across the Federal gov't depts. They might do a x-ray film but they wouldn't do aircraft wings. They would procure telecommunications services for a dept. but wouldn't procure telecommunications services or equipment for the battlefield.

IOW, they are the Feds "general store".

Eric

[Matt McKenzie]

The GSA really has several roles.

1. They are the "landlord" or rental agent for the Feds. If you need office space (or anything else) and don't have the resource in your Dept., the GSA will find it for you either by renting it or by finding you space in a building that is already owned or leased.

2. They do a lot of the procurement for goods and services that are used across the Federal gov't depts. They might do a x-ray film but they wouldn't do aircraft wings. They would procure telecommunications services for a dept. but wouldn't procure telecommunications services or equipment for the battlefield.

IOW, they are the Feds "general store".

Eric

3. And they party like rock stars!

[ARay11]

interesting....

How GSA is funded:

Only one percent of GSA’s total budget is provided through direct congressional appropriations. The majority of GSA's operating costs are recovered through the products and services it provides.

Another tidbit from the front page of their website:

HOW GSA BENEFITS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

GSA oversees the business of the U.S. federal government. GSA’s acquisition solutions supplies federal purchasers with cost-effective high-quality products and services from commercial vendors. GSA provides workplaces for federal employees, and oversees the preservation of historic federal properties. Its policies covering travel, property and management practices promote efficient government operations.

SO....

The GSA's "customer" is the Federal Government. Right?
They derive "only" one percent of their budget from Congress.
BUT... The remaining 99% of their budget comes from the money they make off of their customer... which would be the Federal Government.

Uhhh... and this makes our government "More transparent"??????

[Gerry Clinchy]

Reported today, however, is that this is really Bush's fault:

The administration also argued Friday night that the cost of the Western Regional Conference increased sharply under the Bush White House -- from $93,000 in 2004 to $323,855 in 2006 to $655,025 in 2008, then $840,616 in 2010, or just 28 percent under Obama.

However, there is no mention of the ballooning of the agency's overall budget in the past three years.

Based on Aray's explanation, it would seem that nobody was minding the "store." Seems they made about 11 million profit on their "services & products" in their most recent year (since their budget grew from about $3 million in 2005 to $12 million in the most recent year). And then the people who ran the "store" decided to reward themselves with the profits for running such a profitable "business", and spend almost 8% of their total annual budget on their own entertainment. And we complain about the greedy corporations in the private sector?

It was also mentioned that this was for the "western region" conference. Wonder what they spent on the other regional conferences?

[Gerry Clinchy]

Here are the agency's budget figures:

Between fiscal 2007 and 2011, the budget for the commissioner's office alone ballooned from $3 million to more than $9 million -- according to stats provided to the House committee now scrutinizing the numbers. The budget for the agency's headquarters rose 50 percent in that time.

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has accused the agency of "stonewalling" his panel in inquiries about those costs. A subcommittee on that panel announced Wednesday that it has scheduled a hearing for April 19 to examine the agency's spending practices.
The GSA has not returned a request for comment from FoxNews.com about those budget figures.

And it's unclear why the figures within the Public Buildings Service have been rising over the past few years.

The commissioner for the service, Robert Peck, was fired in the wake of the convention scandal. The head of the GSA and a top adviser also left the agency following the IG report.

It may be incidental, but the increase for the commissioner's budget can be traced to the year after Peck was appointed in 2009.

In fiscal 2009, the commissioner's budget was $3.25 million, slightly above its level two years earlier.

But that figure jumped to $6.94 million in 2010. It jumped again to $9.16 million in 2011.

[1tulip]

The hypocrisy reeks. Look, Nevada has been devastated by the recession. Economically, Las Vegas has been the biggest part of our state revenue. The Prez, told people it was BAAAAD to take a junket to LV... he didn't say this just once. He said it twice. It just killed us.

So, love the fact that they come to LV for THEIR junkets. Bet they got good room rates and everything because we're so starved for business. Then again, they were probably too stupid and arrogant to bargain with the hotel/casinos. After all, it's not their money.

[Sabireley]

They did bargain... the hotel daily rate was above the level allowed by gov't regulation, so the hotel lowered the room rate meet the requirement but charged the difference ($44,000) on a different line item to make it up. Creative...

[troy schwab]

Well, today the former head of GSA............................................... .................................................. .................................................. .........WAIT FOR IT................................................ .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ....Apologized.


Seriously? How bout some jail time for those involved. How is this different from embezzlement in a private company???? What a freakin joke.

[Gerry Clinchy]

And now we hear that Panetta has spent $860 million (avg. $20,000/wk) flying home every other weekend since he became Sec of Defense.

The unhappiest question that Panetta’s travel begs is this: Is there no other qualified person who could serve as secretary of Defense who would relocate to the Washington metro area for the job? Why are his services worth an extra $20,000 a week in average travel costs?

Panetta can expect to hear these kinds of questions today from the Armed Services committee, a fiery bunch whose members include Rep. Allen West of Florida and Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina.

Panetta, 73, may have cause to wonder whether life wouldn’t be better if he stayed among the walnut trees.

I suspect that Allen West will not be very sympathetic to Panetta's expenses, as P is busy advocating big defense cuts for the foot soldiers.