WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley
(R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is seeking
information from multiple government agencies on reported misclassification of
positions at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that
allowed staff in administrative positions to receive additional compensation
reserved for law enforcement officers. The allegations were first revealed
by
CBS News, which also reports
that the whistleblower who called attention to the alleged misconduct is now facing
retaliation.
“Without whistleblowers, Congress and
managers in the Executive Branch of government, not to mention the public,
would not find out about mismanagement and government waste of taxpayer
dollars,” Grassley wrote in a letter to the attorney general and acting
ATF director.
Federal law enforcement officers who
are required to be available and responsive around the clock are eligible to
receive Law Enforcement Availability Pay, or LEAP, which is designed to
compensate them for work time beyond their regular work ours. LEAP benefits add
an additional 25 percent to an employee’s base salary. Employees who work in an
administrative capacity and aren’t required to be available during off hours
are not eligible for LEAP. However, according to information received by the
Judiciary Committee, some ineligible ATF employees are receiving LEAP. ATF’s practice of classifying administrative positions
as law enforcement was so pervasive that the government’s Office of Personnel
Management (OPM) suspended ATF’s authority to classify new positions as law
enforcement, so as to not make administrative employees eligible for LEAP
benefits.
Grassley is seeking details on OPM’s
suspension as well as data on the scale of abuse both in terms of instances and
lost taxpayer dollars. He’s pressing for details on steps being taken by the
Justice Department and ATF to rectify the situation and seeking information on similar
behavior by other law enforcement agencies. Finally, Grassley admonished the
agencies for failing to protect whistleblowers who bring attention to
misconduct and abuse of taxpayer dollars.
Grassley’s letters to the Justice
Department and ATF are available
HERE. His letter to OPM
is available
HERE.
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