WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is an original co-sponsor of legislation introduced this week that would give the government tougher tools to deal with senior employees who are placed on leave, often with pay, and might continue in limbo indefinitely while the government makes slow progress in processing their cases. A high profile example is Lois Lerner, a senior Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the IRS targeting scandal, who refused to resign and who is on administrative leave from the agency, possibly still with pay.
“The taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for employees to go on administrative leave for long periods of time while the government takes its time deciding these cases,” Grassley said. “Even if the employees are on unpaid leave, the employees’ status should be resolved in a timely way so the government can move on and conduct business more efficiently.”
The Government Employee Accountability Act (S. 1378) provides executive agencies with the mechanisms they need to effectively deal with Senior Executive Service (SES) employees. The legislation gives agency officials the authority to remove SES employees on the spot; creates an option for investigative leave with or without pay for 90 days; requires administrators to report back to Congress every 45 days (to bring oversight to leave); and requires definitive action at the end of the 90 day investigative leave period, at which time the agency must either: remove the employee; suspend the employee without pay, or reinstate or restore the employee to duty.
Employees retain existing due process rights, including the right to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
Grassley once revealed a former IRS employee who was convicted in a criminal case and stayed on paid leave for three years. A news article from 2008 said the employee “would probably still be receiving his paycheck had Grassley not complained to the IRS in late Nov. 2001.” Other IRS employees at the time were on paid administrative leave for extended periods of time pending the outcome of criminal investigations.
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