Labor Department PR chief: Wasteful spender or promoting mission?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Labor Department PR chief: Wasteful spender or promoting mission?

Federal Eye
By Lisa Rein August 27

The House’s top Republican watchdog this week ordered the Labor Department to provide records on “mismanagement and wasteful spending practices” in the Office of Public Affairs, whose director has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote the agency and, critics say, himself.

Labor officials defend the spending authorized by public affairs chief Carl Fillichio as a strategy to inform the public of the agency’s mission and boost employee morale. ... But House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) called it “frivolous” and a “misuse of agency resources.”

“The DOL Office of Public Affairs frivolously spends taxpayer dollars on unnecessary items,” Issa wrote in an Aug. 25 letter to Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez, demanding that the agency turn over documents showing planning and spending on elevator posters, an agency book club and internal magazine and numerous public relations contests Fillichio entered — and award ceremonies he attended — since 2009.

Issa cited more than $600,000 in spending by the public affairs office in recent years on elevator posters commemorating the Labor Department’s achievements, public relations contests and more than $100,000 to promote a book club. ... Issa also criticized the use of taxpayer money to produce an internal magazine commemorating former Labor secretary Frances Perkins, travel by Fillichio to an awards ceremony in New York and the hiring of a Washington Nationals mascot for an agency event.

The elevator posters? If those things cost more than about two cents per, I'd be surprised. As for the magazine, it's an e-magazine. Here it is, so you can see for yourselves just how scandalous it is:

FRANCES: The monthly DOL E-MAGAZINE - May/June 2014