WASHINGTON — The federal authorities has forked over $4.6 billion for brand new furnishings since October 2020, a taxpayer watchdog group’s president instructed a Home panel Tuesday, regardless of simply round half of all company staff exhibiting up for work as of final 12 months.
OpenTheBooks CEO John Hart shared the “high cost” for each company sprucing up through the bulk of the COVID-19 pandemic and former President Joe Biden’s time period throughout a Home Oversight Delivering on Authorities Effectivity Subcommittee listening to.
“That amount can buy 9.2 million American families a modest $500 kitchen table,” Hart stated of the billions of {dollars} splurged on the “federal real estate portfolio” that was successfully “decorating and redecorating the administrative state.”
“And of course, workplaces need desks, chairs and meeting tables, and it’s true that beautiful spaces can make us more productive, but beauty at what cost and on whose dime?” he added.
The Workplace of Administration and Finances present in Might 2024 that “more than half of federal employees were either teleworking regularly or fully remote,” based on figures supplied to the Oversight panel earlier this 12 months.
The 12 months earlier than, the Authorities Accountability Workplace audited using federal workspaces and found 17 of the 24 federal companies surveyed used solely 25% or much less of their headquarters’ buildings.
President Trump later issued a return-to-work order for all federal staff after returning to the White Home — that was struck down by the US Supreme Courtroom on Tuesday.
In response to OpenTheBooks figures shared with The Publish, the US authorities doled out $4 million for furnishings and cubicles in US Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID) places of work in Ukraine, West Africa and Mozambique — the final of which crammed areas with $250,000 value of Herman Miller chairs.
The State Division additionally spent $1.4 million on artwork and drawings to fill the partitions of its embassies worldwide — together with $200,000 for simply two work by the trendy summary painter Alfred Jensen, Hart additionally famous in his opening remarks.
“Our embassy in Islamabad is a place where you can put your feet up thanks to 40 Ethan Allen chairs, which cost taxpayers $120,000,” he stated of the US workplace house in Pakistan.
The Nancy Pelosi Federal Constructing in San Francisco additionally acquired $39,000 for brand new convention tables — regardless of employees having been instructed to work at home in August 2023, OpenTheBooks auditors famous.
“All in all, we have an incomprehensible amount of physical space and furnishings — too much of it inefficiently procured, leased and maintained,” Hart concluded.
OpenTheBooks had issued a report in October 2023 giving a primary take a look at lots of the different spending objects, together with:
- $14.4 million for the Pension Profit Warranty Company to get new furnishings, averaging $14,400 per worker, with 1,000 working for the company
- $6.5 million for the Environmental Safety Company to purchase fashionable furnishings, whereas it downsized to maneuver right into a 300,000-square-foot workplace house at 4 Penn Central in Philadelphia
- $284,000 on the Federal Emergency Administration Company for convention rooms
- $237,960 for the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) to buy roughly 30 solar-powered picnic tables
- $213,828 on the Protection Superior Analysis Initiatives Company for convention rooms
- Roughly $182,000 on plexiglass panels on the IRS places of work, a COVID mitigation methodology that the NIH couldn’t discover proof for being extremely efficient
The best-spending departments included Protection ($1.63 billion), Veterans Affairs ($590.4 million), Justice ($555.5 million), State ($508.5 million) and the Basic Companies Administration ($552.8 million), the place the listening to was held.
The highest contractors for the company’s renovations had been Kreuger Worldwide ($346 million), Ethan Allen ($251.6 million), Herman Miller ($119.8 million) and the high-end furnishings maker Worth Trendy ($110.8 million).
The Home subcommittee, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), is coordinating with the Elon Musk-led Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), which introduced in partnership with the GSA final month it might be terminating practically 800 federal leases to save lots of $500 million in taxpayer cash.
“Federal agencies shouldn’t be maintaining empires at taxpayers’ expense,” Greene stated.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury, the highest Democrat on the subcommittee, characterised the misuse of federal workplace house as “a long-standing issue” and stated she hoped to “make this a bipartisan hearing about how we may best address the needs of this country.”
However she lashed out at Musk and congressional Republicans as effectively for prioritizing the cost-cutting measures in govt companies to make approach for a deficit-busting $4 trillion tax minimize bundle within the coming months.
“We have been deeply concerned that the entire DOGE effort has been a front to help support billionaires who are trying to privatize public services,” Stansbury (D-NM) additionally stated, noting billions of {dollars} in federal contracts secured by Musk for his numerous corporations.
GAO appearing director of bodily infrastructure David Marroni and Nationwide Federal Improvement Affiliation govt chairman emeritus Ron Kendall additionally appeared as witnesses for the Republican majority and Democratic minority, respectively.
“Today’s expansive, excessive and sometimes opulent federal real estate portfolio is both a monument to the federal administrative state and a mausoleum of lost dreams, opportunity and freedom for American taxpayers,” Hart stated.
“Every dollar saved in Washington is a dream realized somewhere else in America.”
