FBI leaders told workers in Iraq to bill nonwork hours

[firedupdem]

Source: Detroit News

WASHINGTON -- For nearly five years, FBI leaders encouraged employees on temporary assignment in Iraq to bill an average of $45,000 in overtime and extra pay by routinely claiming to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week, even when some of that time was spent eating, exercising, watching movies or attending cocktail parties, the Justice Department inspector general reported Thursday. FBI counterterrorism division managers condoned a time-billing practice under which 1,150 employees between 2003 and 2007 earned about $71,000 during a typical 90-day tour -- nearly triple the typical worker's salary, Inspector General Glenn Fine reported.

The practice violated federal law and added at least $7.8 million to the $99 million taxpayer cost of the FBI efforts.

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"We found that, on the whole, few if any employees worked exactly 16 hours a day, every day, for 90 days straight, within the meaning of the term 'work' as it is used in applicable regulations and policies," Fine's office concluded.

Several FBI employees claimed that time spent at a weekly, colleague-hosted "cocktail party was 'work' because it was a 'liaison' effort" to employees who attended from other government agencies, the report noted.

Others washed clothes during working hours. One employee defending the practice, saying, "When you're in that environment, anything you do to survive is work for the FBI."






Read more: http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081219/NATION/812190334/1020

[firedupdem]

1. Anything about "triple" the normal workers salary bug anyone? n/t