Tag Archives: Conference spending

GSA Exec Dismissed During Spending Scandal Gets His Job Back

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Originally posted by Kedar Pavgi on Government Executive

A Merit Systems Protection Board judge on Monday ruled that a General Services Administration executive was wrongfully dismissed after being caught up in a conference spending scandal, according to Federal News Radio.

MSPB Administrative Law Judge Patricia Miller reversed GSA's decision to remove Paul Prouty following allegations of misconduct and overspending at a training conference. Prouty, a 41-year veteran of GSA, was dismissed during the fallout from an $820,000, four-day conference in Las Vegas in 2010, and left the agency last August.  Until then, he had served as the agency's Public Buildings Service Region 8 commissioner.

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Travel restrictions and cuts have saved $2B so far, says OMB

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Originally posted by  on Fierce Government

Efforts to reduce travel and increase oversight in travel and conference  spending have saved the federal government roughly $2 billion from fiscal 2010  to fiscal 2012, says Daniel Werfel, controller at the Office of Management and  Budget.

Speaking at a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing  Wednesday, Werfel said agencies expect to save another $1 billion by the end of  fiscal 2013. Efforts to save money include general travel cuts, limits on  conference expenditures, conducting training in-house and increased use of  technology such as webinars and teleconferencing to replace travel.

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GSA ponders offering new contract to cut conference costs

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Originally posted by Matthew Weigelt on FCW

Editor's note: This story was modified to correct the planned location of GSA Expo 2013, which GSA decided to cancel.

The General Services Administration may create a new Multiple Award Schedule program to aid agencies in managing meetings and conference events in light of budget constraints, administration memos and congressional legislative efforts to keep a close eye on spending.

GSA's idea--the Meetings Management Program (MMP)--would offer a disciplined, enterprise-wide approach to managing conferences and events, including the activities, processes, suppliers and data regarding the meetings. The program would aim to save money, mitigate risk and improve meetings overall. The scope of the services, or level of complexity an agency orders, would be based on each agency's own requirements.

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Defense Intelligence Worldwide Conference Cancelled

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Originally posted by Bob Gourley on FedCyber.com

This is not surprising news, but still I'm sad to report this. The 2013 Defense Intelligence Worldwide Conference has been cancelled. This event had evolved from the famous (in my community anyway) DoDIIS Conference, an event that over my career grew from 50 people in a little room to 3000 global technology professionals all focused on enhancing systems making direct contributions to the security of the nation.

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Unintended consequences of limits on government travel

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Originally posted by  on The Washington Post

Concerned about government travel expenses? Here's a thought.

Slice agency budgets, across the board. Tell employees not to work one or two days a week. Don't pay them for that time. This recipe not only will reduce federal employee travel, it also will make an across-the-board cut in their morale and do a disservice to American taxpayers.

There is a better way to reduce government travel expenses, even if Congress can't find a better way to run the government than the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration,  which are set to take effect Friday.

But going too far, cutting too much travel spending in ways that aren't smart, can have unintended bad consequences -- witness the sequester.

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