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Head of the General Services Administration resigns
Martha Johnson resigned as head of the General Services Administration today amid reports of excessive spending.
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This final note today. The head of the General Services Administration -- essentially the federal government's landlord and business manager -- resigned today. The Washington Post reports Martha Johnson has stepped down after she spent $835,000 on an employee training conference in Las Vegas.
Included in the line items? $147,000 in airfare; $6,300 on commemorative coin sets; and $3,200 on a mind reader.
Shoulda seen that one coming, I guess.
I'm guessing that the problem wasn't the conference itself so much as how it was put together?
Did you even read the FCW article or her resignation letter?
Reading her resignation letter it: "The Agency, however, has made a significant mis-step. Reports of an internal conference in
which taxpayer dollars were squandered led me to launch internal reviews, take disciplinary
personnel action, and institute tough new controls to ensure this incident is not repeated."
I'm not sure I could judge if an internal conference was squandering money after being on the job for a few months, especially one that has been in the planning phases 6 months prior.
I think she did the prudent thing.
While Kai didn't have much time to go in depth, she actually did the right thing here. The problems she investigated happened before she started at the GSA. She was also only in her jobs a few months before the conference/training took place:
http://fcw.com/articles/2012/04/02/martha-johnson-gsa-resignation.aspx
Also, the folks that were most responsible, it seems were fired.
So no disconnection from reality but someone doing the honorable thing by cleaning house and then stepping aside.
