PUBLISHED: MARCH 2018 By: Adam Andrzejewski – Founder and CEO of OpenTheBooks.com Thomas W. Smith – Chairman of OpenTheBooks.com “Open the Books is doing the work I envisioned when the Coburn-Obama bill became law. Their innovative app and other tools are putting sunlight through a magnifying glass.” March 11, 2014 Dr. Tom Coburn, Honorary Chairman of OpenTheBooks.com
OUR REPORT MADE POSSIBLE BY: The “Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006” Sponsors: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) & Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) (Public Law 109-282, 109th Congress) “Is the spending in the public interest or the special interest?” – U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn “I know that restoring transparency is not only the surest way to achieve results, but also to earn back the trust in government…” – U.S. Sen. Barack Obama
THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
table of contents prologue......................................................................................................................................1 top 10 takeaways....................................................................................................................2 background......................................................................................................................... 3-4 Case Study: 99.6 Percent of Federal Employees Receive “Fully Successful” Performance Rating.....................3 Case Study: Feds Release Salaries and Incentive, Recruitment, Relocation, and Retention Bonuses but Withhold Performance Bonuses........................................................................... 4
Disclosed bonuses......................................................................................................... 5-7 Case Study: The Presidio Trust.......................................................................................................................... 6 Case Study: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)....................................................................................... 7
Legislation.................................................................................................................................8 Appendix....................................................................................................................................9-14 Bill: Federal Employee Bonus Disclosure Act (H.R. 5290).............................................................................9-12 Article: Real Clear Policy, Federal Bonus Payments in 2016............................................................................ 13 Article: Washington Examiner, Transparency on Federal Employee Bonuses isn’t a Privilege, it’s a Right......14
About American Transparency...........................................................................15
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
prologue The federal government doled out $1.5 billion in bonuses last year (FY2016) but disclosed just $351 million to the American taxpayers footing the bill. What’s missing? Approximately $1.1 billion in performance bonuses are withheld from disclosure due to anti-transparency language inserted into government union contracts. In fiscal year 2016, we audited the federal data on the 330,000 employees who received federal incentive, recruitment, relocation, and retention bonuses. We found numerous examples of waste. For example, the largest disclosed bonus didn’t go to a rocket scientist or a doctor researching the cure to cancer. Instead, it went to the human resources manager at a small land management agency in San Francisco, California, called Presidio Trust, for $141,525. Imagine the wasteful practices we’d find if performance bonuses – the largest portion of federal bonuses – weren’t completely hidden from the American public. Government unions inserted anti-transparency language into their contracts, arguing that performance awards are usually a percentage of an employee’s annual salary, varying by performance rating, and disclosure could allow taxpayers to guess the employee’s rating. However, we already have some insight into federal performance ratings. It turns out federal bureaucrats give themselves stratospheric job performance ratings, which, in turn, fatten the pay and bonus levels. A Government Accountability Office audit published last summer – using 2013 data – revealed that 99.6 percent of all federal workers received “fully successful” job performance ratings. Of course, that’s impossible. Don Devine, director of the White House Office of Personnel Management during the Reagan administration, noted that’s a higher rating than the advertised purity of Ivory soap (99.3 percent). Regardless, the pattern helps explain why taxpayers are forced to fund more than a billion dollars in federal bonuses. It’s our money, and we should be able to see which federal employees receive bonuses, for how much, at which agencies.
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
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top 10 takeaways 1. In FY2016, the federal government doled out $1.5 billion in incentive, recruitment, relocation, retention, and performance bonuses. 2. The federal government disclosed 330,000 employees received bonuses totaling $351 million in FY2016. 3. Approximately $1.1 billion in federal performance bonuses were withheld from disclosure in FY2016. 4. All federal performance bonuses are shielded by anti-transparency language inserted into federal union contracts. According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, performance bonuses are sometimes based on salary amount and performance rating, and disclosure may allow others to determine an employee’s rating. 5. According to a Government Accountability Office audit published last summer using 2013 data, 99.6 percent of all federal workers received job performance ratings of “fully successful.” That’s a higher rating than the advertised purity of Ivory soap (99.3 percent). 6. Forcing open the federal performance bonus data will require an act of Congress. Congressman Mark Sanford (SC-1) spearheaded the Performance Bonus Sunshine Act which would require the disclosure of federal performance bonuses. 7. Bonus transparency is crucial at federal agencies which have demonstrated irresponsible practices in the past. For example, in 2014, the Department of Veterans Affairs doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in undeserved performance bonuses while sick veterans died waiting to see a doctor. 8. Presidio Trust, a small land management agency in San Francisco, California, awarded six of the 10 largest disclosed federal bonuses over the last three years (FY2014-2016), including six-figure bonuses to a human resources manager, a program manager, a general attorney, and a realtor. 9. The largest disclosed federal bonus went to Bart Farrell, a human resources manager in charge of processing payroll at Presidio Trust for $141,525. 10. In total, 60 percent of all disclosed bonus dollars were distributed by just five departments or independent agencies. The Department of Transportation paid out the most bonus dollars in FY2016, totaling $54.4 million. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Commerce both doled out more than $50 million in bonuses each.
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
background Opening the books on federal performance bonuses will require an act of Congress, and citizens should demand it. Federal performance bonuses amount to $1.1 billion annually, and taxpayers foot the bill. It’s our money, and we deserve to see the granular details of who’s receiving what, where, when, and after how long. After all, we can’t audit what we can’t see.
case study
99.6 Percent of Federal Employees Receive “Fully Successful” Performance Rating Although federal employee performance ratings are undisclosable, we do have some insight on the topic. It turns out federal bureaucrats give themselves stratospheric job performance rating, which, in turn, fatten pay and bonus levels. According to an audit by the Government Accountability Office last summer (using 2013 data), 99.6 percent of all federal workers received job performance ratings of “fully successful.” It’s impossible that 99.6 percent of all federal workers are “fully successful” at their jobs. Don Devine, director of the White House Office of Personnel Management under Ronald Reagan, noted that’s a higher rating than the advertised purity of Ivory Soap (99.3 percent). The pattern helps explain why taxpayers are forced to fund more than $1 billion in performance bonuses annually.
99.6 percent of all federal workers are rated “fully successful.” Source: GAO audit (see above)
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
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case study
Feds Release Salaries and Incentive, Recruitment, Relocation, and Retention Bonuses but Withhold Performance Bonuses In December 2017, we published our OpenTheBooks Oversight Report: Mapping the Swamp, A Study of the Administrative State (FY2016). In the report, we gave oversight to the $137 billion in compensation costs and the 1.97 million disclosed federal employees. Additionally, we audited the 330,000 federal employees who received bonuses disclosed by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Summed up, these bonuses totaled $351 million.
However, $1.1 billion in performance bonuses were not disclosed. When we asked OPM to confirm the fact that performance bonuses were hidden, a representative issued the following response: “Because of agreements with Federal employee unions we cannot release performance award amounts for individuals. Because performance awards are usually a percentage of an employee’s annual salary which varies by performance rating, someone could determine the employee’s rating which is not releasable. If it were up to me, I would release it, but I am not in control over that.”
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
disclosed bonuses There are five buckets of federal bonuses, and we argue that all of them are subject to the Freedom of Information Act disclosure laws, including performance, incentive, recruitment, relocation, and retention bonuses. In FY2016, the federal government disclosed 330,000 employees received bonuses totaling $351 million (only performance bonuses were shielded from disclosure). We audited these federal bonuses and found large and small departments and independent agencies gaming the system for personal gain. The Department of Transportation paid out the most bonus dollars in FY2016: $54.4 million in total. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Commerce weren’t far behind, awarding $53.8 million and $52.6 million in bonuses, respectively. At the Department of Treasury, 77,116 employees work for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Of the 14,987 that work at the Department of Treasury outside the IRS, 7,321 received a bonus. The condensed takeaway is this: nearly 50 percent of all employees at the Department of Treasury, outside the IRS, received a disclosed bonus in FY2016. How many performance bonuses were paid? Taxpayers and watchdogs deserve to know. Top 10 Largest Federal Bonuses (FY2014-2017) YEAR
NAME
BONUS
JOB TITLE
AGENCY
2015
MARIO LAURENCE UGOLETTI
$147,804
MISCELLANEOUS ADMINISTRATION AND PROGRAM
2014
EILEEN FANELLI
$147,000
GENERAL PHYSICAL SCIENCE
PRESIDIO TRUST
2016
BART FERRELL
$141,525
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
PRESIDIO TRUST
2015
CRAIG MIDDLETON
$140,000
PROGRAM MANAGEMENT
PRESIDIO TRUST
2015
KAREN COOK
$126,218
GENERAL ATTORNEY
PRESIDIO TRUST
2015
BART FERRELL
$89,375
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
PRESIDIO TRUST
2017
FRANCENE GONEK
$87,035
REALTY
PRESIDIO TRUST
2016
WILLIAM GERSTENMAIER
$82,355
GENERAL ENGINEERING
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA)
2015
WILLIAM GERSTENMAIER
$82,355
GENERAL ENGINEERING
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA)
2014
LESA ROE
$81,550
GENERAL ENGINEERING
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA)
FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY
SOURCE: DATA FROM THE U.S. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT COMPILED BY OPENTHEBOOKS.COM VIA THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT.
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
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case study
The Presidio Trust The Presidio Trust is a small federal agency created in 1996 to manage the San Francisco Presidio. Located at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Presidio holds property assets exceeding $300 million (FY1996 dollars) which are rented at market rate to generate revenue. The original creation of the agency was funded by at least $300 million in taxpayer paid assets and additional funding flowed through congressional subsidies until FY2012. Today, the Presidio operates without a direct subsidy on its own revenue generated from taxpayer-paid assets. Over the last three years, the Presidio has awarded six of the 10 largest federal bonuses in the federal system. In FY2016, three of the top four federal bonuses went to Presidio employees, including the largest federal bonus in the system. Bart Farrell, the director of human resources, received the largest bonus in the federal government for $141,525. This massive bonus was tacked on to his six-figure salary. One of Ferrell’s job responsibilities is “payroll processing.” Further, the Presidio’s realtor, Francene Gonek, received an $80,330 bonus, while Michael L. Boland received a $74,688 bonus as a “Miscellaneous Administration and Program” employee. In total, seven in 10 of the agency’s 326 employees received bonuses. When asked about the department’s pattern of awarding large bonuses, a spokeswoman from the agency issued the following response: “We are competing for talent in the Bay Area job market. Given the very high cost of living in the Bay Area, and the tight labor market, we make payments in addition to regular salary for the following reasons: signing, performance, retention and departure.”
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
case study
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) In 2014, it took a courageous whistleblower – Dr. Sam Foote – at the Pheonix Veteran’s Administration facility to bring national attention to a “cook the books” waittime bonus scandal. At the Pheonix facility alone, Dr. Foote suggested that up to 40 veterans died while waiting to see a doctor and up to 1,300 veterans waited up to six months for an appointment. Though it started in Pheonix, the scandal spread nationwide, revealing similar issues at VA facilities across the country. The Wall Street Journal found that seven in ten VA medical facilities across the country cooked the books so employees could collects millions of dollars in ill-gotten bonuses. Despite the media attention, a forensic audit to clawback the undeserved bonuses was never performed. Yet, during and after the worst scandal in Veterans Administration history, the VA continued doling out bonuses. Nearly half the bonuses in 2014 went to the same employees as the previous year, showing a complete lack of accountability. While veterans were waiting to see a doctor, the official books showed no wait times and tens of thousands of undeserved performance bonuses were paid out for up to $100 million per year. At the peak of the scandal, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 426-0 to end the practice of VA bonuses through 2016, but the Senate never took up the legislation. In FY2016, we quantified $22 million worth of disclosed bonuses the VA awarded to 38,292 employees. We still can’t see performance bonuses at the VA, but we can tell the problem hasn’t gone away.
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legislation Congressman Mark Sanford (SC-1) sponsored theFederal Employee Bonus Disclosure Act (H.R. 5290) which would require disclosure, public documentation, and reporting of federal performance bonuses. Furthermore, performance bonuses across the federal government would be subject to inspection and public disclosure on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) website. This bill would require every federal agency head to report all bonus awards to the director of OPM, describing the bonus, the name of the employee receiving the bonus, and the amount of the bonus. These reports would be due no later than 30 days after the end of the fiscal year. Additionally, this legislation would require any bonuses equal or greater than $10,000 to be reported to Congress. Beginning in fiscal year 2019, on January 1, the director of OPM would be required to publish a list on the official agency website containing the names of all employees who received a performance bonus in that fiscal year, the name of agency that awarded each bonus, and the amount of each bonus. See appendix: Federal Employee Bonus Disclosure Act (H.R. 5290)
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
appendix 115TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION
H. R. 5290
To amend title 5, United States Code, to require the disclosure, public documentation, and reporting of Federal employee bonuses, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Mr. SANFORD introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Federal Employee Bonus Disclosure Act
A BILL To amend title 5, United States Code, to require the disclosure, public documentation, and reporting of Federal employee bonuses, and for other purposes. 1
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 3 4
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Federal Employee
5 Bonus Disclosure Act’’.
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
1
2 SEC. 2. DISCLOSURE, DOCUMENTATION, AND REPORTING
2 3
PAGE 10
OF PERFORMANCE AWARDS.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Subchapter I of chapter 45 of title
4 5, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end 5 the following: 6 ‘‘§ 4510. Disclosure, documentation, and reporting of 7 8
performance awards
‘‘(a)(1) Not later than 30 days after the end of fiscal
9 year 2019 and each fiscal year thereafter, the head of each 10 agency shall submit a report to the Director of the Office 11 of Personnel Management describing each performance 12 bonus awarded to an employee of the agency during the 13 most recently ended fiscal year, the name of the employee 14 receiving the bonus, and the amount of the bonus. 15
‘‘(2) With respect to any performance bonus included
16 in a report submitted under paragraph (1) that was equal 17 to or greater than $10,000, the agency head shall include 18 in the report a detailed description of the reasons why the 19 bonus was awarded and the metrics used to determine that 20 such bonus was appropriate. 21
‘‘(b) Not later than January 1 of each fiscal year,
22 the Director of the Office of Personnel Management 23 shall— 24
‘‘(1) publish, on the Office’s public Internet
25
website, a list containing the name of any employee
26
receiving a performance bonus in the most recently
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
3 1
ended fiscal year, the agency that awarded the
2
bonus, and the amount of the bonus; and
3
‘‘(2) submit a report to Congress containing a
4
list of each performance bonus awarded in the most
5
recently ended fiscal year that was equal to or great-
6
er than $10,000, including the reasons why the
7
bonus was awarded and the metrics used to deter-
8
mine that the bonus was appropriate, as provided
9
under subsection (a)(2).
10 11 12 13 14
‘‘(c) For purposes of this section— ‘‘(1) the term ‘agency’ has the meaning given such term in section 4501 and includes— ‘‘(A) the United States Postal Service and the Postal Regulatory Commission; and
15
‘‘(B) notwithstanding the matter following
16
subparagraph (G) of such section, the Ten-
17
nessee Valley Authority and the Central Bank
18
for Cooperatives; and
19
‘‘(2) the term ‘performance bonus’ includes any
20
performance-based bonus, including a bonus under
21
this subchapter or section 5384.’’.
22
(b) APPLICATION.—The amendment made by sub-
23 section (a) shall apply to any performance bonus (as that 24 term is described in section 4510 of title 5, United States
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
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4 1 Code, as added by such subsection) made on or after the 2 date of enactment of this Act. 3
(c) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of sections
4 for subchapter I of chapter 45 of title 5, United States 5 Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to 6 section 4509 the following: ‘‘4510. Disclosure, documentation, and reporting of performance awards.’’.
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
Federal Bonus Payments in 2016 By Adam Andrzejewski December 29, 2017 The U.S. Government doled out $1.5 billion in recruitment, retention, incentive, relocation, and performance bonuses last year (FY2016), but disclosed only 330,000 bonuses totaling $351 million. Performance bonuses of nearly $1.1 billion were withheld from disclosure, which is prohibited by anti-transparency language contained within the government-union contracts. In our OpenTheBooks.com Oversight Report — Mapping the Swamp, A Study of the Administrative State, we mapped the 2 million disclosed federal bureaucrats by work location ZIP code. Search any ZIP code across America to review the name, agency, title, salary, and bonus of the administrative state. Just click a pin and scroll down to see the results that render in the chart beneath the map. The largest federal bonus last year, $141,525, didn’t go to a rocket scientist or a doctor researching a cancer cure; it went to Bart Ferrell, a Human Resources Manager in charge of processing payroll at the Presidio Trust. This small land management agency, located in San Francisco, California, is the developer of the former military base. Presidio Trust paid out three of the top four largest federal bonuses. Realtor Francene Gonek received an $80,330 bonus, while Michael L. Boland received a $74,688 bonus as a “Miscellaneous Administration and Program” employee. In total, seven in 10 of the agency’s 326 employees received bonuses. When asked about the department’s pattern of awarding large bonuses, a spokeswoman from Presidio Trust issued the following response:
Overall, the Department of Transportation paid out the most in bonuses in FY2016: $54.4 million in total. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Commerce weren’t far behind in bonus spending, awarding $53.8 million and $52.6 million, respectively.
We are competing for talent in the Bay Area job market. Given the very high cost of living in the Bay Area, and the tight labor market, we make payments in addition to regular salary for the following reasons: signing, performance, retention and departure.
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
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Transparency on federal employee bonuses isn’t a privilege, it’s a right by Rep. Mark Sanford and Adam Andrzejewski | March 20, 2018 President Trump wants to make the federal bureaucracy a meritocracy. He has proposed slapping a cap on federal employee salaries and shifting more dollars to merit-based performance bonuses. Many will consider this a great proposal, but there’s a catch. While taxpayers can see most federal salaries, they can’t see performance bonuses. In fiscal year 2016, the federal government awarded 1 million performance bonuses, racking up a $1.1 billion tab paid for by taxpayers. Every cent, however, was hidden from public disclosure. Anti-transparency language inserted into government union contracts is blocking the right of taxpayers to see how their money is being spent. Last month, a Treasury Department watchdog uncovered $1.7 million in bonuses to IRS employees who had been disciplined by the agency during fiscal year 2016-2017. These 2,000 IRS employees received “high-performing” bonuses despite their record of “serious misconduct such as unauthorized access to tax return information, substance abuse, and sexual misconduct.” Transparency is especially crucial for federal agencies that have failed in the past. The Department of Veterans Affairs has an ugly history with performance bonuses. For example, in 2014, the VA doled out up to $100 million in undeserved performance bonuses while sick veterans died waiting to see a doctor. We quantified $22 million worth of disclosed bonuses the VA awarded to 38,292 employees in fiscal year 2016. We still can’t see performance bonuses at the VA, but the VA’s problems haven’t gone away. Currently, the federal government pays out five types of bonus: performance, incentive, recruitment, relocation, and retention bonuses. Each of these types of bonuses should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act disclosure laws. Yet, in fiscal year 2016 the Office of Personnel Management disclosed just 330,000 bonuses totaling $351 million. We audited the disclosed bonus buckets and found large and small departments and independent agencies gaming the system for personal gain. For example, the largest disclosed bonus didn’t go to a rocket scientist or a doctor researching the cure to cancer. Instead, a $141,525 bonus went to the human resources manager at a small land management agency in San Francisco called Presidio Trust. In fact, Presidio Trust gave out six of the top 10 largest federal bonuses over the last three years.
Just imagine the wasteful practices we’d find if performance bonuses, the largest tranche of federal bonuses, were dragged into the light. Opening the books on federal performance bonuses will require an act of Congress, and we’re leading the charge. The Federal Employee Bonus Disclosure Act would open the books on performance bonuses across the federal government, making them subject to inspection and public disclosure on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management website. Government unions, who insert anti-transparency language into their contracts, argue that performance awards are usually a percentage of an employee’s annual salary, varying by performance rating, and disclosure could allow taxpayers to guess the employee’s ratings. But that’s not the taxpayer’s problem, it’s a management problem for the agencies to deal with. The idea that employee ratings might be easier to guess simply does not outweigh the taxpayer’s right to know how their money is being spent. Furthermore, we already have some insight into federal performance ratings. It turns out federal bureaucrats give themselves stratospheric job performance ratings, which, in turn, fatten the pay and bonus levels. A Government Accountability Office audit published last summer using 2013 data revealed that 99.6 percent of all federal workers received “fully successful” job performance ratings. Of course, it’s impossible that so large a portion of federal workers honestly deserved “fully successful” ratings. Don Devine, director of the White House Office of Personnel Management during the Reagan administration, quipped that’s a higher purity rating than Ivory soap (99.3 percent). The fact that federal workers have a high view of their own performance helps explain why taxpayers are forced to fund more than a million “performance bonuses” amounting to $1.1 billion dollars. But, for taxpayers, it’s hard to measure what they can’t see. Maybe these bonuses are deserved. Maybe they aren’t. Because it’s their money, taxpayers deserve to know so they can decide how to hold their elected officials accountable. In our view, accessing this information isn’t a bonus or a privilege. It’s a right. Rep. Mark Sanford, a Republican, represents South Carolina’s first congressional district. Adam Andrzejewski is CEO of OpenTheBooks.com.
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THE CASE FOR FEDERAL PERFORMANCE BONUS TRANSPARENCY
about american transparency EVERY DIME. ONLINE. IN REAL TIME. Our mission is to post online “every dime” taxed and spent by federal, state and local units of government across America. We use the latest in technology to display the spending, including the first-to-market mobile app – Open The Books - which hyperlocalized all disclosed United States Government checkbook spending since 2000.
Download the OpenTheBooks app here: http://www.openthebooks.com/mobileapp/ Through our public charity at American Transparency (website: www.OpenTheBooks.com), we’ve created the world’s largest private repository of government spending. Our big data specialists have captured 3.5 billion individual public expenditures. Not only do we open the books, we audit the books. On a quarterly basis, we publish OpenTheBooks Oversight Reports.
Recent investigations include: Mapping the Swamp; Federal & State Government’s Gender Hiring Gap; National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities; Ivy League, Inc.; Federal Funding of America’s Sanctuary Cities; The Militarization of America; Veterans Affairs - The VA Scandal Two Years Later; Truth in Lending - the U.S. Small Business Administration’s $24.2 Billion Failed Loan Portfolio; The Department of Self-Promotion - Quantifying $4.4 Billion in Federal Public Relations; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Lawyered Up - 25,000 Federal Lawyers Cost $26.2 Billion Since 2007; U.S. Export - Import Bank; Federal Funding of the Fortune 100; U.S. Small Business Administration’s Lending to the Wealthy Lifestyle; and Farm Subsidies in America’s Urban Areas. Visit OpenTheBooks.com to learn more and read these reports.
The Board of Directors at American Transparency (OpenTheBooks.com) thanks our team: Adam Andrzejewski, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, authored this report. Matthew Tyrmand, Deputy Director, disseminated this report to national media. Craig Mijares, Chief Operating Officer at American Transparency assembled and organized datasets. Frank Bruno, Director of Government Oversight managed our data investigation and oversight teams. Jessie Fox, Communications Specialist, helped draft and edit the report.
Research Interns included: Lauren Renslow, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan; Moaz Al Nouri, Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas; Patrick Farrell, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan; Alec Mena, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan; Madalen Strumpf, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana; John Zachariah Shuster, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia; Daniel Sutkowski, Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois. This report quantifies federal transactions compiled at www. OpenTheBooks.com as a result of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. To the extent the government makes mistakes in reporting inaccurate or incomplete data, our report will reflect these same mistakes.
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