On Thursday, Rep. Matt Salmon announced his bill to eliminate the frivolous use of paid “administrative leave” for federal workers accused of misconduct. The bill is part of his newly-reintroduced Shrink our Spending Initiative that will highlight and cut wasteful taxpayer-funded programs.
“If an private sector worker is accused of misconduct, they are dealt with appropriately by their employer,” said Salmon in a statement released Thursday. “This is what Americans expect; fair and just consequences for bad performance. As of today, ‘administrative leave’ is not defined in federal law and, as a consequence, many government workers accused of misconduct collect millions of dollars from the federal government in pay when they are removed from service until the conclusion of an investigation. Tax dollars aren’t supposed be used as a slush fund for the vacations of delinquent bureaucrats. We’ll end that practice with this bill.”
Currently, the federal government places workers accused of misconduct on “paid administrative leave” for extended periods of time. According to a GAO report, 263 workers took between one to three years off, and over 57,000 federal employees were on leave for a month or more. Right now, administrative leave is not defined by federal law and is an issue that is ripe for abuse. Addressing the proper scope of paid administrative leave and limiting its availability for cases of employee misconduct will generate a savings of roughly $775 million over three years and encourage proper conduct within the federal government workforce.
In 2014, Rep. Salmon began a program to identify and cut wasteful spending government-wide, because he knew every federal department, office, and agency has wasteful spending within their budgets. The program was called the “Shrink Our Spending” Initiative and aimed at finding $ 1.5 billion in wasteful spending. In 2015, the initiative identified and cut over $3 billion in government waste.