Fed employees use over $1 million in charity donations for meals, massages and Vegas trip
A government audit found several federal workers and a contractor guilty of using over $1 million of charity money for personal use including massages and elaborate meals.
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Referring to themselves as “volunteers,” government workers involved in spending the cash said they needed “motivation” as they administered “just one local chapter of the government’s annual workplace charity drive, the Combined Federal Campaign,” the Washington Examiner reported.
They arrived a day early and stayed a day late for annual training conferences in New Orleans and Las Vegas, and paid for room service and pay-per-view movies with donated funds. Then, they adamantly defended their right to do so when questioned by auditors.
When auditors questioned their spending, the federal workers got defensive. One response was “They claimed that restrictions on spending for things like first-class flights didn’t apply to donated funds because taxpayer money was not involved…”
The audit found members of the Alexandria chapter of the CFC abusing contributions granted the charity amounting to $764,069 in 2012.
The report found another $300,000 in “petty” expenses such as dry cleaning bills and gift shop purchases.
The audit, which found suspicious spending through 2013, said the chapter “did not adhere to its responsibility to conduct a campaign aimed at maximizing the charitable contributions donated by civil servants and employees and members of the U.S. Military serving overseas.”
