The federal government has a
serious problem keeping tabs on its employees, from an FCC worker
watching porn while at work, to DHS employees collecting overtime pay to
sit on Netflix or talk on the phone.
And now, a new report
from the Patent and Trademark Office found that at least 19 paralegals
have been getting paid $60,000 to $80,000 a year to sit on Facebook,
online shop and watch TV --costing taxpayers about $5.1 million in the
last four years. Even more egregious -- the auditors said managers
looked the other way and billed the hours under “other time” while also
giving each of the workers thousands of dollars worth of performance
bonuses during that same time period.
The
managers “were completely aware of the volume of ‘other time’ hours
during the relevant time frame and took little action to prevent such
waste,” the IG said. The auditors said one manager even dubbed the
billing code the “I don’t have work but I’m going to get paid code.”
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