Where does a muffin cost more than $16?
At a government conference, it turns out.
An audit of the Department of Justice by the Inspector General says that taxpayer money was wasted on overpriced food and drinks. At one conference, the DOJ spent $4200 on 250 muffins--that's about $16 a muffin. (Sept. 21)
Featured comment:
"This boggles my mind. Why are we paying for special expenses for federal employees? State employees such as myself never get a free lunch, and we make half as much in salary."
erinconnell
They may run just over $2 at your average coffee shop, but the Justice Department paid seven to eight times as much at a gathering it held at the Capital Hilton in Washington. And on Tuesday, the muffins seemed well on their way to joining the Pentagon’s $600 toilet seat as symbols of wasteful spending.
Justice Department auditors also criticized a $76-per-person lunch at a conference at a Hilton in San Francisco, featuring slow-cooked Berkshire pork carnitas, hearts-of-romaine salad — and coffee at $8.24 a cup.
A report released Tuesday by the department’s acting inspector general, Cynthia A. Schnedar, is full of what she called “wasteful or extravagant spending” at 10 law enforcement conferences spanning the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Descriptions of cookies and brownies costing the government nearly $10 each and beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres at $7.32 per serving struck a nerve in Washington, where austerity and belt-tightening are the watchwords at a time of economic hardship.
The reaction was blistering — and bipartisan.
“Sixteen-dollar muffins and $600,000 for event planning services are what make Americans cynical about government and why they are demanding change,’’ said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The Justice Department appears to be blind to the economic realities our country is facing. People are outraged, and rightly so.’’
His Democratic counterpart, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), added that “wasteful spending is never justified” and that “like all agencies, the Justice Department will be asked to trim its spending.’’
Even the auditor’s report noted the irony that Justice was failing to fully “minimize” costs as required under guidelines put in place after an audit in 2007, when the department had drawn criticism for serving platters of Swedish meatballs costing nearly $5 each.
Justice officials did not dispute most of the findings. The department did not offer an official to speak by name, but a spokeswoman who was not authorized to comment publicly said the agency “agrees that excessive spending of the types identified in the report should not occur” and has taken steps to prevent it. She said conference costs have been cut this year as part of an effort to curtail nonessential spending, though she could not specify an amount.
Justice Department officials gave auditors a variety of explanations for the expenses, saying consultants they hired to help plan events had valuable knowledge and that the department had done its best to control costs. Officials from one Justice office said they thought they were saving money by serving muffins and other snacks instead of full meals.
Overall, in 2008 and 2009, the Justice Department held or participated in 1,832 conferences at a cost of $121 million, the report said. The conferences examined by auditors, on topics from drug enforcement to violence against women, were held at elite hotels — including the Omni Shoreham and the J.W. Marriott in Washington and the Grand Hyatt in Denver — that added service fees of roughly 20 percent to the food costs.
Loading...
Comments