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At the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), red tape is preventing the removal of a top level employee accused of viewing porn two to six hours a day while at work, since 2010. Even though investigators found 7,000 pornographic files on his computer and even caught him watching porn, he remains on the payroll.
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A CBS News analysis of cases under review by the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB), an appeals board for federal workers, found other instances of employees who had committed seemingly fireable offenses who were later reinstated to their jobs, often with back pay and interest.
Highly publicized cases are no exception.
Five years ago, the General Services Administration (GSA) spent more than $800,000 on a lavish conference in Las Vegas. They were served 1,000 sushi rolls costing $7 each and a clown and mind reader were hired for entertainment. Two managers were initially fired but got their jobs back after the MSPB reversed the decision.
At a Congressional hearing in 2012, Chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Jason Chaffetz asked GSA Chief of Staff Mike Robertson what it takes to be fired from the GSA.
"There is a long-standing due process that career employees are entitled to as part of their employment," Robertson said. "We have begun that process, among other disciplinary actions, for several individuals that were involved in the planning and execution of this conference."
The appeals board found that while the conference's level of extravagance has "no place in government," the GSA did not convincingly prove that the two managers "knew or had reason to know of these ill-advised planning and purchasing decisions." The GSA was ordered to "cancel the appellants removals" and give them back pay plus interest. Meanwhile, the organizer of the convention was never technically fired. He was allowed to retire.
More...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/civil-servant-protection-system-could-keep-problematic-government-employees-from-being-fired/
