RBM
CAGiversary!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102600.html
The bonuses were paid during a rough patch at the FDA, encompassing a shortage of flu vaccine and embarrassing recalls of the pain-relieving drug Vioxx and malfunctioning heart defibrillators. Throughout, the agency repeatedly insisted that it lacked the resources to conduct adequate food and drug inspections.
The payments, which have attracted bipartisan criticism from lawmakers, offer an unusually detailed look at how the administration has implemented a cash bonus program that Congress expanded in 2004 to attract and retain talented federal employees.
Lawmakers say that at the FDA, many of the bonuses went to the highest-paid officials rather than the scientists, inspectors and doctors most at risk of jumping to the private sector.
Glavin, an English major who rose through the ranks of the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service before joining the FDA in 2003 as assistant commissioner for counterterrorism policy, collected $44,614 in bonuses in 2006 alone, according to the records.
In contrast, the FDA investigator who won the agency's top national award last year received a much smaller bonus. "I was nominated for a cash award for $2,500, but after taxes I got just $1,400," said Rebecca Parrilla, a chemical engineer who said she has worked at the FDA for more than eight years and was unaware how much her bosses in Washington were collecting in bonuses.
The commissioner's office -- which mostly includes policy officials and not practicing scientists -- nearly doubled the amount of its retention bonuses, from about $415,000 in 2002 to nearly $800,000 last year, the data also show.
"FDA officials have raided the U.S. Treasury of $10 million a year, not to hire more inspectors or better compensate the field personnel working to protect us from botulism and E. coli, but to award each other $50,000 bonuses," Dingell (D-Mich.) said. "Given their recent performance, I doubt the taxpayers would agree that FDA management officials deserve an extra dime, much less tens of thousands of dollars."
* * * * * * *
Honestly, what can you expect. Whenever taxpayer dollars are strictly accounted for, there's a mountain of paperwork & red tape to buy anything (in a federal institution.) But, without such strict accounting, manager-level officials pull these monkeyshines and happily award one another the lion's share of bonuses (and stand ready to blame insufficient funding, when the next public health crisis comes along.)
The "brain drain" from federal instutions to the private sector is a very real (and unfortunate) ongoing trend...but this is such a tired old mistake, throwing money at a problem without sufficient enforcement/regulation.
The bonuses were paid during a rough patch at the FDA, encompassing a shortage of flu vaccine and embarrassing recalls of the pain-relieving drug Vioxx and malfunctioning heart defibrillators. Throughout, the agency repeatedly insisted that it lacked the resources to conduct adequate food and drug inspections.
The payments, which have attracted bipartisan criticism from lawmakers, offer an unusually detailed look at how the administration has implemented a cash bonus program that Congress expanded in 2004 to attract and retain talented federal employees.
Lawmakers say that at the FDA, many of the bonuses went to the highest-paid officials rather than the scientists, inspectors and doctors most at risk of jumping to the private sector.
Glavin, an English major who rose through the ranks of the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service before joining the FDA in 2003 as assistant commissioner for counterterrorism policy, collected $44,614 in bonuses in 2006 alone, according to the records.
In contrast, the FDA investigator who won the agency's top national award last year received a much smaller bonus. "I was nominated for a cash award for $2,500, but after taxes I got just $1,400," said Rebecca Parrilla, a chemical engineer who said she has worked at the FDA for more than eight years and was unaware how much her bosses in Washington were collecting in bonuses.
The commissioner's office -- which mostly includes policy officials and not practicing scientists -- nearly doubled the amount of its retention bonuses, from about $415,000 in 2002 to nearly $800,000 last year, the data also show.
"FDA officials have raided the U.S. Treasury of $10 million a year, not to hire more inspectors or better compensate the field personnel working to protect us from botulism and E. coli, but to award each other $50,000 bonuses," Dingell (D-Mich.) said. "Given their recent performance, I doubt the taxpayers would agree that FDA management officials deserve an extra dime, much less tens of thousands of dollars."
* * * * * * *
Honestly, what can you expect. Whenever taxpayer dollars are strictly accounted for, there's a mountain of paperwork & red tape to buy anything (in a federal institution.) But, without such strict accounting, manager-level officials pull these monkeyshines and happily award one another the lion's share of bonuses (and stand ready to blame insufficient funding, when the next public health crisis comes along.)
The "brain drain" from federal instutions to the private sector is a very real (and unfortunate) ongoing trend...but this is such a tired old mistake, throwing money at a problem without sufficient enforcement/regulation.
-up?
