because we do audits of programs of gsa. and gsa -- we do audit programs regularly at gsa. having conferences is not a program of gsa. so it's not one of the regular things we audit. we will start now. but we audit their systems and we look at their work yearly. and we find more and more fraud, waste and abuse. i don't know that we've sat back and compared how much fraud there is year by year. fraud by its very nature is hidden. and i'm happy that thanks to the hard work of our special agents, auditors, forensic auditors and lawyers, we're uncovering more and more fraud. >> well, the last two gsa administrators have had to resign. is there something about gsa? could you tell us why we're seeing that many scandals at gsa? what can you enlighten us on there? >> gsa handles a lot of money, millions, maybe billions of dollars flow through gsa. it handles a lot of money. handles a lot of property. there are a lot of contracts that it controls. there's a lot of temptation. and with over 12,000 employees, you're going to find criminal conduct, stupid conduct and just plain neglige

the strategic path is clear, customers praise us, praise gsa publicly. the labor partnership is fruitful. there is e-mail in the cloud, f street headquarters which held 2500 people will be home to 4500 people next year, allowing gsa to relinquish leases and save millions. however, gsa's performance does not compensate for the ig and this committee. i greeted mr. miller's report on the conference without hesitation, agreeing completely with the recommendation. i am extremely agrieved by the gall of a handful of people to misuse federal tax dollars, twist contracting rules and defile the great name of the general services administration. this is how that chapter unfolded. around late october 2010, deputy administrator susan britter requested an investigation into the western region's conference. the ig subsequently communicated progress with a power point deck in may 2011, we realized this was a very serious matter and we needed all the facts how ever painful and disruptive. we were eager for the full report. in the interim i addressed leadership, organiza

everybody at gsa does. that's the public trust that we have to honor. >> thank you very much, senator. and now we're going to turnton senator barrasso. >> thank you very much, madame carom and senator inhofe for holding this hearing. i want to thank the inspector general and special agents involved in the investigation. i agree with what senator baucus has said and senator johanns. this investigation, it has exposed the waste, fraud and abuse at that time american people really resent so much. this hearing isn't about where this wasteful conference took place. it's really about arrogance and abuse of power. you look at the mission of the gsa's public building service to provide superior value it says, superior value to the american taxpayer. the gsa western region conference was a blatant disregard for the hard working taxpayer of this country. there was a systemic failure to follow the law and abide by the procedures to spend taxpayer dollars appropriately. these events did not occur as a result of a lack

gsa. you know, it handles money on behalf of other agencies. it has millions of dollars flowing through it. and it has over 12,000 employees. in any town that you have in the united states of 12,000 or more, you always have a jail. so that you will always have people doing criminal things and dumb things and silly things. and it's no different, unfortunately, in the federal workforce, have you people doing criminal things and dumb things and that's why you need inspectors general to monitor for fraud, waste and abuse. >> i agree. what i'm trying to say is have you looked at this notion -- you have looked at this notion of more centralization and a check and balances. have you done that for every region or have you just now done this for the western areas because of this problem? i mean, obviously, a lot of us i think this is a systemic problem. so i'm asking you if these reforms are going to go forward. are you recommending to mr. tangherlini that he have centralized most of the operation?

let this be a warning sign to us with the gsa that it's not just the gsa. it's every agency out there. including congress. including the executive. we have to look at in order to trim our budgets. the american people demand that. >> as chairman of the subcommittee over federal work force will you be looking into the secret service issue, the alleged misconduct by 11 or a dozen of those many employees? does that fall under you? >> you know, we do the federal work force to that extent. yes, it may go to the full committee over me just because of more participation from more people. we would love to have the hearing on that. and, you know if i'm fortunate enough to get that, most likely it will be the full committee, though. >> have you heard from your chairman on it? >> not yet. >> all right. earl, democratic caller, jacksonville, florida kr. >> caller: hi. how you doing. a quirks i believe ms. johnson, she made a bad decision as far as with giving the guy the bonus and everything, but as far as how she came out, resigning and things, i thought she did well.

and not by anyone in the gsa office of the cfo. this decentralized organizational structure of gsa financial operations increased the risk of these types of abuses at the regional conference and in the hats off program. in my experience at irs and other federal agencies the agency cfo had far more oversight and control. to correct these issues the acting administrator has already taken strong action by realigning all public building service regional budget and financial management operations under the direct authority of gsa's cfo. in addition to the strengthening of the internal control environment, the acting administrator is reviewing employee relocations, will require all future relocations to be approved by both the chief people's officer, and the cfo, and has closed the pacific rim region hats off store as well as all similar programs. in addition to the actions taken by the acting administrator, i added two controls to cfo processes. first cfo is now performing an additional review of selected invoices before payment to veri

recall, no. >> did any gsa employee raise concerns about mr. neely's retaliatory actions, whether through negative performance reviews, threatening to relocate them or other similar actions? >> no, sir, no to my recollection. i'm sure if i had, i would have taken action on it. >> this employee who was squashed like a bug was clearly right about all the lavish spending. what does this mean to you if it was not retaliation? >> that -- >> this isn't somebody who felt they had been sdwaushed like a bug. >> mr. cummings, i wouldn't split hairs over that. that's an intimidating atmosphere. >> and if somebody said that to you, you would have taken some type of action? >> yes, sir. >> according to the inspector general's office, mr. neely may have spent $250,000 on travel over five years. mr. peck, as head of the public building service, did you track the travel expenditures of regional administrators or commissioners? >> mr. conductinummings, thank asking that. the way we tried to maintain managerial controls was benchmarking the travel, training and

that's one of the things we're asking ourselves to be, is more like gsa for gsa. and ask ourselves, can we challenge ourselves to use some of the technology we have developed, challenge ourselves to use some of the innovations that have come out of gsa over the last several years, and use this to overcome the costs associated with some of the travel for conferences and training. and i will say that we believe that there's huge value in high-quality training, interaction between federal employees who are working on the same areas and ideas. when you're dealing with things like the federal acquisition system, you need to have skilled, trained people managing those resources. because literally, billions of dollars go through those folks. and so we want to make sure that they have the highest-quality training. so our chief administrative officer office, which had been set up under the former administrator, we have given extra powers to oversee these conferences, to oversee the training, so oversee the travel. and, in fact, i issued on april 15th guidelines on conferen

>> administrator could do it. >> greta: at gsa? >> gsa. that may justify it to the personal management, i believe. >> greta: all right. so gsa, one who is the head of gsa now, acting head is the one two decided he would be on leave with pay? >> no, i believe martha johnson may have done it, again, in my mind, another example of her delegating that responsibility. in other words, there is a lot of ducking and dodging going on here. at some point you have to stand tough. you have to say this is wrong. i will not tolerate it. bonus is a perfect example. >> greta: what took the inspector general so long? >> that is an excellent question. one would like to see if you were proactive on these things and alerted folks in advance you could stop the abuse from happening. stop the waste of taxpayer money. yes, they sent out letters to recover funds, but that is only few thousand dollars. when you talk about million that was wasted on one of them. by the way, what has happened in the subsequent 11 months? >> i would like to look at the inspector gener

everybody at gsa does. that's the public trust that we have to honor. >> thank you very much, senator. and now we're going to turn to senator barrasso. >> thank you very much, madame chairman thank you also senator inhofe for holding this hearing. i want to thank the inspector general and special agents involved in the investigation. i agree with what senator baucus has said and heard from senator johanns. this investigation, it has exposed the waste, fraud and abuse at that time american people really resent so much. this hearing isn't about where this wasteful conference took place. it's really about arrogance and abuse of power. you look at the mission of the gsa's public building service to provide superior value it says, superior value to the american taxpayer. the gsa western region conference was a blatant disregard for the hard working taxpayer of this country. there was a systemic failure to follow the law and abide by the procedures to spend taxpayer dollars appropriately. these events did not occ

because we do audits of programs of gsa. and gsa -- we do audit programs regularly at gsa. having conferences is not a program of gsa. so it's not one of the regular things we audit. we will start now. but we audit their systems and we look at their work yearly. and we find more and more fraud, waste and abuse. i don't know that we've sat back and compared how much fraud there is year by year. fraud by its very nature is hidden. and i'm happy that thanks to the hard work of our special agents, auditors, forensic auditors and lawyers, we're uncovering more and more fraud. >> well, the last two gsa administrators have had to resign. is there something about gsa? could you tell us why we're seeing that many scandals at gsa? what can you enlighten us on there? >> gsa handles a lot of money, millions, maybe billions of dollars flow through gsa. it handles a lot of money. handles a lot of property. there are a lot of contracts that it controls. there's a lot of temptation. and with over 12,000 employees, you're going to find criminal conduct, stupid conduct and just plain neglige

barbara rice's gsa death list was attached. with rice's help, my investigation identified more than 450 sick or dead workers at the kansas city building, including those on the east side where the department of energy makes parts for nuclear bombs. now more than two years later, congressman denim says the gsa death list will get national attention. >> we're not only going to go after the health and safety issues of gsa, but we're going to make sure that we hold them accountable. >> reporter: a second inspector general report found roy's office hired a publicity firm at a cost of $234,000 to respond to questions regarding toxic substance health risk. that year roy was awarded bonus money again. in fact, according to a freedom of information act response, every official who either sent or received a copy of that death list received bonuses over those two years. $22,000 for roy. $32,000 for her boss anthony costa. in all, in 2010 alone, gsa issued $26 million in bonuses. mary roy appeared at this congressional hearing into the hir

the gsa administrator resigned and she should have. two of her aides were fired and they should have been. others are on administrative leave awaiting further action. the acting administrator and the ig at gsa who we are very pleased to have before us today are working closely together to ensure that anyone with more information comes forward. they have set up a hot line for that and they have sent out the word. checks and balances on the regional offices have got to be put in place and many have already. many conferences my understanding have been stopped or reduced in scope, and gsa estimates that nearly a million dollars have been saved by the actions so far. regional financial officers must now report to the chief financial officer. awards programs have been shut down and reimbursements are being demanded from specific employees. the outrageous behavior of a few irresponsible, unethical, and a perhaps law-breaking individuals are overshadowing gsa's a achievements following president barack obama's cost-saving directives focused on

the first part starts out with gsa. the abuse of not just millions of dollars in a convention judgment, but billions of dollars in waste. this was our primary. i could not have had a partner like mr. dennis ham -- enham. -- denham. the building next to the post office was taken from 15 years. between that and the u.s. post office losing $6 billion per year. put this in perspective. i reference this document. this is not an attempt to get an agency under control. they held the first hearing in that empty building. it was 32 degrees outside, 38 degrees inside. the dangers are the gsa bureaucrats with their coats on. we brought into the empty building to try to get them -- again, two blocks away from the white house. a federal building. that's the building we held a hearing in to get it turned around to make it a productive property. the general services administration is our government's landlord. it is appalling to see the wasteful spending on this conference. mr. denham will outline not just this conference, he will tal

gsa. the carter administration uncovered one in 197 and 1979 when a nationwide investigation noose long-standing corruption resulted in prosecutions for bribery, for fraud, and protections for whistleblowers in the agency. then there was more misconduct during the bush administration. the first occurred when the chief of staff to the gsa administrator traveled with jack abramoff to scotland even though mr. abramoff had business before the gsa. in 2011, this chief of staff went to prison. in 2006, the bush appointed gsa administrator steered a contract to a friend and. 2007, she organized a political call with 30 appointees to "help her friends win their elections." that violated the hatch act. the administrator repeatedly clashed with the inspector general, this inspector general in one report comparing his enforcement efforts to "terrorism." she resigned in 2008. and now here we go again in 2012. this time, involving what clearly looks like waste, fraud, abuse and possible criminal violat

gsa. including the government trip to las vegas. that hearing is next on c-span two. later, a look at racial profiling by law enforcement officials. >> two things, the first is this is such a complicated concept that we have never ever thought a war like this before. it is very complicated. the second thing is that what is referred to in washington as nation building, really is very targeted war fighting. david reuter spent many years covering news for many years. he won a pulitzer prize this week. he is one of many that you can watch live at the c-span video library. find over a quarter century of american politics and public affairs on your computer. >> now, the general services administration inspector general and the new acting gsa administrator testify about waste and mismanagement at gsa. the senate environment and public works committee hearing is chaired by senator barbara boxer of california. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]clown, >> meeting will come to order.

not just with the gsa, but other agencies. and you ought to be able to walk away feeling like you were treated fairly by the government. as a former small business owner, i know it takes a lot of time, and in many cases, thousands of dollars to prepare a proposal, especially for a government agency. and to have your bid disclosed to a competitor, or to have your bid when it was the lowest passed over, is very frustrating to people. and ends up -- especially in the case of smaller businesses, you just throw up your hands, you don't have the money to go hire government contracting attorney, you just walk away and say i'm done with the government. and you end up with good people who could offer products and services at a better cost, just refusing to go through the red tape. so i look forward to the gsa making that a priority to educate not just their own contracting officers, but the other government agencies that the gsa trains through the federal acquisition institute. and i would appreciate your commitment to make that part o

i went to our fas and i went floor to floor and addressed gsa employees. i've already been on what we call chatter, which is our internal social networking dialogue opportunity to take questions from gsa employees. in my letter to gsa employees on the first day, i asked them to reach out to me. they have not been shy. they've been reaching out to me. and in our joint letter, we asked employees to reach out to both of us, if they have an issue. >> i think what's important, and this is my opinion, is for you and your trusted people at the top to meet with groups of people, large groups of people and just let them know that we're going to deal with this matter. we're going to straight en this out. we're going to be known as the gsa team that cleaned up a mess that has happened over four decades and keeps on happening and we're going to clean it up. and it also seems to me -- you talk about innovation. innovation needs to be from the grass roots up. but if it has a cost to it, it needs to go to the central place here, because that's what you need. you need cos

>> i think the rules governing gsa and gsa policy says that they are to plan conferences with the -- with an eye to minimizing costs. and that's from the gsa policy. so in terms of minimizing

gsa. you know, it handles money on behalf of other agencies. it has millions of dollars flowing through it. and it has over 12,000 employees. in any town that you have in the united states of 12,000 or more, you always have a jail. so that you will always have people doing criminal things and dumb things and silly things. and it's no different, unfortunately, in the federal workforce, have you people doing criminal things and dumb things and that's why you need inspectors general to monitor for fraud, waste and abuse. >> i agree. what i'm trying to say is have you looked at this notion, have you looked at this notion of more centralization and checks and balances. have you done that for every region or have you just now done this for the western areas because of this problem? i mean, obviously, a lot of us i think this is a systemic problem. so i'm asking you if these reforms are going to go forward. are you recommending to mr. tanker lee me that he have centralized most of the operation?

guerin from the gsa, pleased to have you here. same thing. >> i can give him another chance if you want. good morning, chairman bishop, ranking member grijalva and members of the subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the proposed dwight d. eisenhower memorial. gsa is honored to play a role in helping the eisenhower commission to create a memorial to president dwight d. eisenhower. his long career of noble service to our country is and should be a sense of inspiration to the american people. the commission was tasked with creating an appropriate permanent memorial to perpetrator wait his memory and his contributions to the united states. gsa has assisted the commission with issues related to the acquisition of office space, human resource support, financial and accounting services, legal and contracting support, and our role expanded as the commission's vision became clear. given our experience and expertise, the commission asked gsa to help select both a design firm and a construction co

robertson, tell me what you did before you came into gsa. >> before entering gsa or before the current position i held? >> i'll just go through a little bit -- maybe the last five or four years of your career. >> of my career? >> yeah. >> immediately prior to the position i hold now, i was the associate administrator for government wide policy within gsa. >> okay. >> prior to that, i was the white house liaison inside gsa. >> okay. >> immediately prior to joining gsa, i was the deputy working group lead on the presidential transition team. >> okay. let me just say one thing. for somebody in administration that talks about a clear and transparent government, a government that's more answering to the american taxpayers, i've got to tell you -- as a guy who has only been here 14 months, thank god some of us are here now. because apparently, you folks have made a career out of spending taxpayer money have got some kind of a magic shield or you stay inside this bubble that allows you to do those things without absolutely any -- any feeling of wrongdoing. and to watch what's going on and wat

i think one of the members said we ought to just get rid of gsa. it's precisely because gsa serves a function in the government and it's such a serious matter. we have to do it the hard way. and i'm looking -- i'm trying to be as remedy oriented as i can. on the one hand, there are issues of misconduct. either the law enforcement system, our hearings will bring out some, or the system within gsa are going to fair those out. but we're still going to be left with the existing structure. i believe in good personnel. but i don't believe the government or any other agency or private business can always assure that there will be precisely the people in charge who will keep things going. so i am therefore, looking very carefully at the structure. ms. johnson, the structure you found in place had been put in place by an acting gsa administrator. he is aparentally responsible for the present structure of the region at gsa. now the regional administrator is a political appointee. but under mr. proudy, that administrator apparently was made no more than a fig

food for non-gsa employees. those first few examples. one of the recommendations you made is -- "determine whether gsa can recover funds for meals and non-employees per "a lot of people agree with that. these employees acted like this was their money and now they should pay a back. what can you do to recover funds from these federal employes? >> one of our first conversations with the acting illustrator's was about sending a bill to the regional commissioner, a former pbs commissioner, and others responsible for these in-room parties and other expenses. the acting administrator has sent a bill and is on the next panel. i believe he would say at least taken steps to send a bill. >> if they do not pay it back, what happens? do you have criminal or civil remedies to get it back? >> perhaps civil remedies. >> in several interviews conducted, witnesses said they were scared mr. neely would retaliate against them if they blew the whistle. this is shocking to the conscious. one employees if you crossed mr. neely, you a

for my part i set about reconstituting gsa's executive team after much work, customers now praise gsa publicly, the labor partnership is fruitful, gsa has e-mail in the cloud, and gsa will relinquish leases and save millions with its renovated headquarters. however, gsa's performance tragically does not compensate for the mistakes of the western regions conference. i greeted the ig report of the conference without hesitation, agreeing with all the recommendations. i'm extremely aggrieved by the gall of a handful of people to misuse federal tax dollars, twist contracting rules, and defile the great name of gsa. this is how that chapter unfolded. deputy administrator susan britta requested an investigation into the conference. the ig subsequently shared with us a power point deck in may 2011. i realize this was a very serious matter. we needed all the facts, all of them. however painful and disruptive. while the investigation continued we appointed a regional administrator, releaving mr. kenneally of that role, established a chief administrative services office reporting to me with resp

neely, what is your title at gsa? >> mr. chairman, on the advice of counsel i respectfully decline to answer based upon my fifth amendment constitutional privilege. >> mr. neely, did you attend the 2010 western regional conference in las vegas? >> mr. chairman on the advice of my counsel i respectfully decline to answer based upon my fifth amendment constitutional privilege. >> mr. neely, did you approve the funding for the 2010 western regional conference? >> mr. chairman, on theed a vice of my counsel i respectfully decline to answer based on my fifth amendment constitutional privilege. >> a few more. mr. neely, was the original -- what was the original budget for that conference? >> mr. chairman, on the advice of my counsel i respectfully decline to answer based upon my fifth amendment constitutional privilege. >> mr. neely, are you currently employed by the gsa as a federal employee? >> mr. chairman, on the advice of my counsel i respectfully decline to answer based upon my fifth amendment constitutional privilege. >> la

the gsa administrator resigned. two top political appointees that were overseeing the public service were discharged and the civil servants who were responsible for planning the conference were placed on administrative leave pending disciplinary proceedings as required by law. the underlying behavior was indefensible, but the system that was designed to identify and punish that behavior worked. much work remains that may involve considerable reform and even restructure iing of the agency. i look forward to hearing from gsa officials about the steps they themselves believe must be taken. and thank you, mr. chairman. >> at this time i'd like to recognize the chairman of the full committee, mr. mica. >> well, first of all, i have to thank you, mr. denham, for your leadership and for not just on this -- not just on this issue, the outrageous matter that's before us, but from the very beginning when i had to select someone to chair this subcommittee that oversees public buildings i think the country was fortunate to have

we'll limit to how gsa manage the risk and what the gsa do when they got notice a problem. so we are not scientists. we didn't get into the environmental. >> did you get into the whistleblowers or how the affected people were treated? were they squashed out? it appears to me they were not taken serious. the reason i bring this up as i think in the cultural studies teacher, not the lawyer it doesn't take a leap of imagination to see this is not just western region. now we have another region with a similar cultural disinterest and employs a desire to pr. >> as an ig before you make a general statement made to effect supporting it. we have facts in region nine. we do have this incident in kansas city. we did the report, hired the pr. there were hearings before senator mccaskill subcommittee and contract being an senator mccaskill tried to hold them accountable. we noticed a number of misstatements. we informed the committee of that you can misstatements by gsa officials in the context of that hearing. >> deep the traveling again. we move at a snail's pace until it something w

the gsa bill, $150,000. the gsa's 2010 las vegas massive billing, right in the face of the advice president obama gave corporate executives in his first year in office. the executives were from companies that took federal bailouts in 2009. "you can't take a trip to vegas or go down to the supepepepepepe the taxpayers' dime." mr. obama repeated this admonition in february 10 in a forum. "when times are tough, you tighten your belt. you don't go buying a boat when you can barely you're trying to save for college." so, vegas gambling is seen by president obama as an expensive indulgence. but nevada is also an important swing state in this year's presidential contest. so first lady michelle obama gone there several times so far this year, most recently to inspect the copper mountain facility. tell us about the gsa this week. >> well, we've got a career -- worker at gsa who elevated himself to a position where he was his own supervisor, and allowed him to plan elaborate trips. one of which you described there, th

gsa is about saving. so we should really find ways that we can reemphasize savings within the gsa vision. >> now you heard the testimony of the former administrator, and the fact that i think just about all the members up on this -- on the did heis are very concerned about, and i think it was probably one of the weak parts of her testimony. this whole issue of the $9,000 bonus. and she explained the process by which one thing was separate from another thing. i mean, i -- i mean, what -- how do you deal with that? because i think if there is anything, i remember when we had aig and all these companies giving bonuses for bad behavior, i was very loud and sometimes loud by myself. but very upset about it. i think when you have got bad actors, the last thing you want to do is be -- is to give them bonuses. even if there is a two-track process and that's the impression i got -- two tracks here. some kind of way we don't want -- you know, as you go about the business of trying to re-establish this trust, you do

or outside of gsa's money for -- for operating gsa? what is the $10 billion slush fund. >> sean. >> $10 billion is the money they receive from the irs and all the agencies that use public buildings, they pay rent back to gsa, gsa uses that money for what gsa likes to -- >> greta: why isn't that going to the treasury for a different path, in terms of revenue? why does that go to treasury? >> it should. that's why i say, we should abolish gsa altogether. they don't sell things that have been vacant for years. tie time to get rid of them. >> greta: they are good party planners. there is that, i say sarcastically because i am scandalized by it. when the slush fund, do they spend every cent they take in, in terms of revenue from the buildings paying rent? irs or the labor department, or whatever is paying them rent, do they spend it? >> no. they allocate it, tuse to redevelopment some buildings. they are supposed to use it to sell buildings. out ever 14,000 that they have identified as excess or unneeded properties, they have sold 82 in in

, to then being chief of staff to gsa. is that fair? >> after about 18 months inside gsa, yes. >> you went from an lc to a chief of staff. that's great. congratulations. at what point did you talk with ms. johnson about her resignation? she just said that she had talked with you about resigning. when did you speak with her about resigning? >> she told me that she was thinking about it at some point during the development of our response. i don't recall -- i don't recall the date. >> can you give me a month? a month -- for the first time you talked about it with her? >> it was sometime between february and april when the final report came out. i believe it was in march. >> who did you talk to at the white house about her resignation during that period of time? >> nobody. >> you did not convey in writing or verbally to anyone at the white house that there was a consideration of a resignation? >> no. >> did -- >> to the best of my recollection, i do not -- >> to the best of your recollection. >> yeah. >> so you didn't, or to

what do we do instead of the gsa? there is a lot of abuse in the gsa. a lot of abuse of other government agencies throughout the government. eight the money spent in las vegas by gsa should be a farewell party. thank you. >> congressman john mica, chairman of the transportation and infrastructure committee joins us. good evening. >> good to be with you. >> greta: thought of systemically pulling apart of gsa we'd all like to get rid of gsa but that is impractical since someone has to run the physical structure of the government. >> this running all of our property that people own. how many people listening would turn over their property for the management by the federal government? i don't think many. what mr. denham and i discussed is maybe taking apart gsa. they are on billions of asset and losing money and billions every year with the vacant public buildings. some of them not far from where we are sitting tonight. >> greta: how did a clown, mind readers and ipods and bathtub, nude pictures. why did it take that for all of a sud on the realize there is

for my part i set about reconstituting gsa's executive team, after much work customers praise gsa publicly t labor partnership is fruitful, gsa has e-mail in the cloud and will relinquish leases and save millions with its renovated headquarters. however, gsa's performance, tragically, does not compensate for the mistakes of the western region's conference. i greeted the i.g. report of the conference without hesitation, agreeing with all the recommendations. i'm extremely agleeved by the gall of a handful of people to twist contracting rules and defile the great name of gsa. this is how that chapter unfolded. deputy administrator susan brita requested an investigation into the conference, the i.g. subsequently shared with us the power point made in 2011. i realize this was a very serious matter, we needed all of the facts, all of them, how ever painful and disruptive. while the investigation continued, we appointed a regional administrator for region 9, relieving mr. neely of that role. established a chief administrative services office reporting to me with responsibility for gsa's acquisit

in my many years at the gsa i attended a number of conferences from. what i personally saw, the conferences i attended were not extravagant. the 2010 western regions conference described in the i.g.'s report was a serious aberration. when i arrived the first afternoon of the conference, i was shown to a very large suite. i questioned the organizers as to the cost. they told me that all the rooms were within the government rate, including this room, and that my suite was included at the basic room rate as part of the conference's package of rooms. my first morning at the conference i made a powerpoint presentation to the entire group about national pbs goals and priorities. irattended presentations from the four western regions about their projects and performance and another about the gsa's sustainability goals. that afternoon i asked the conference organizers to invite a number of employees of their choosing to my room. my intention was to have a meet and greet with a group of regional employees attending the conference. this pre-dinner reception went

businesses and wonder how the gsa deals with its vendors. and whether the real estate letdown is really over. we want to spend a few minutes with a ceo with a blockbuster. the move goes downhill fast than to movers stealing alcohol and a movg bus. a hugelyy s successful company attrting attention for t the rapid grth rate. foununder d ceo of jk moving and storage, charles kuhn, welcome towashington b business reporort." we set up the stage. your parents always lived in northehern virgini you hid a mover and it was disastrous. >> absolutel i was a young child.d. it w was snowing. theyey showed up and they were rude andnd intoxicated. lfway tough, my pararents had to call the police. it was a dister. >> in the interim you lived with an unclee who had a moving company and taught you a thingng or two about the business. >> when we cam back, we were very young, seventh h or ehth grade. we worked witith him and a small lolocal moving company he had in maryland. >> he reaeally tried toto emphasize making every me a pleleasant expeence for t cusmer.

gsa has email in the cloud. they renovated the headquarters, which will be home to 4500 people next year, allowing tsa to relinquish leases and save millions. however, this tragedy does not compensate for what was raised by the h.g. and this committee. i greeted the report on the conference without hesitation, agreeing completely with the recommendations. i am extremely aggrieved by the call by handful of people to misuse federal tax dollars, twist contactor rules, and to file the name of the general service administration. this is hell that chapter unfolded. around late october 2010, the dignity and a straighter requested an investigation into the western region conference. they subsequently communicant progress in may 2011. we realized this was a very serious matter, and we needed all of the facts, however painful and disruptive. we are eager for the full report. in the interim, i addressed a leadership and management. i placed a new regional administrator in region 9, relieving jeff from the responsibility. w

>> the gsa -- we have had some experience with the gsa. we found them to be very, very responsible and very professional, to be honest. when we cut a ribbon in toronto and in hawaii, you cut ribbons for buildings. people do go to those things and they do have parties. so i am not looking to be the defend -- the -- come to the defense of anybody, but you do on occasion have to go and travel. if gsa has property or if their top people have property and they are responsible for it, people do go and cut ribbons and spend monoparties like that. >> greta: you know what? i don't have a problem with you spending your private dime at the party and to do the ribbon cutting or in the case of the case where the gsa went to hawaii and took a wheel week to cut a ribbon that took an hour. they could have outsourced that to a member of congress, making a trip home anyway, who could be the stand-in for the gsa. so i totally disagree with ow this. this is the most extravagant waste of taxpayer money. >> i know nothing about t. i know when i do open building

alert gsa to potential waste and abuse so gsa could take steps to avoid future issues. that's why i want to give you every opportunity to outline whether or not you took that as a warning that you should move ahead on the spending and expenditure issues even though you could not take the action you ultimately took with respect to administrative leave and discharging employees. >> i believed upon hearing the report, and about knowing about the hats off situation, that we had a number of issues -- >> did you do anything about the hats off at that point? >> i -- deputy administrator susan britta and steve leeds were briefing me on it. i do believe the best of my remembrance and again, i don't have any of my material, so bear with me on that, and i can try to check it out, if i need to. but they were updating me on the status of the hats off investigation. the cfo was doing a report about the various regional -- >> did you ultimately, before you left, did you ultimately eliminate hats off in that region? >> i understood that we had, yes. the -- >> you understood that we had