October 2023

NATIONAL NOTES 10 OCTOBER 2023

Federal furniture splurge as billions of taxpayer dollars were spent on office upgrades during pandemic. Really? That’s worse than the ubiquitous “use it or lose it” game played by federal agencies at the end of each fiscal year. The difference is that, in one case, each entity has a fixed amount of money to use every fiscal year. If there’s money left over at the start of the next fiscal year, that department or organization will have the following year’s funding cut by an identical amount. In the furniture scandal, agencies spent $3.3 billion on new, luxurious furniture from 2020 to 2022, while offices were operating at 9% occupancy due to the Chinese virus. That’s like buying a brand-new fleet of Cadillacs even though you don’t have any gas to put in ’em.

NATIONAL NOTES 10 OCTOBER 2023 Read More »