Yet another federal agency is taking heat from the Congress for spending money on conferences, as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has asked the Department of Education to explain why it still plans to hold a large gathering in Las Vegas late this year, even as it makes cuts to deal with the sequester.
"The Administration is claiming that over a million students will lose access to support services and special education, but the Department of Education is still planning to hold a conference in December at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Vegas," Coburn said in a news release issued on Thursday.
In a letter to the Secretary of Education, Coburn once more raised the issue of Obama Administration complaints about automatic budget cuts from the sequester, arguing that gatherings like the 2013 Federal Student Aid Conference in Vegas should be canned.
You can read about the Vegas conference at http://fsaconferences.ed.gov/lasvegas13.html.
"The Department should cancel this conference and review all conferences for the remainder of the year to determine whether they should continue while core programs are being reduced," Coburn wrote in his latest letter to government agencies about spending and the sequester.
Coburn's request for information on the 2013 FSA gathering comes as the Education Department is still working on a Freedom of Information Act request that I submitted on May 1 for information on the 2011 and 2012 FSA conferences.
The 2012 FSA conference was in Orlando, Florida; the 2011 FSA gathering was also in Las Vegas.
"Due to the Department’s pending FOIA backlog, we are unable to fulfill your request within the 20-day timeline. Your request is currently still being processed by the appropriate program office," the Department told me on June 3.
As you can tell, July 11 is more than 20 days after May 1.
Coburn's focus on the conference spending, as well as a multi-state bus tour planned in coming months by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, is of note, because the Education Department decided not to furlough any workers, and instead took the $2.5 billion in cuts out of various programs.
"Therefore, cutting back on employees' work days at this time would not be in the best interest of the taxpayers, states, schools, and students who benefit from the department's programs," Duncan told workers earlier this year.
"Education dollars belong in the classroom and should not be wasted on campaign-style bus tours and junkets," Coburn said in his letter, referring to a planned bus tour in Texas, Arizona, California and New Mexico.
To see the 80 page rundown of the 2012 FSA agenda, you can find that here.
On Friday afternoon, Education Department spokesman Cameron French countered Coburn's arguments with the following information:
Yet another federal agency is taking heat from the Congress for spending money on conferences, as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has asked the Department of Education to explain why it still plans to hold a large gathering in Las Vegas late this year, even as it makes cuts to deal ...
