Labor Department are GS-12, and cost less than half that amount: $44 an hour, or about $93,000 a year. The highest-paid SEA official on this project is Richard Cutshaw, the program manager. Now I’m sure Mr. Cutshaw is a nice fellow, but SEA is billing $200.64 an hour for his time. Let me be clear so there’s no confusion – I said $200.64 per hour. That comes out to $401,280 a year! Mr. Cutshaw costs the tax-payers more than the salaries of Energy Secretary Abraham and Labor Secretary Chao combined. He costs more money than the Vice President, and S-E-A charges just a bit more for his work than the salary of President George W. Bush. Mr. Cutshaw’s counterpart at the Labor Department would be a GS-14 District Director, who costs about $135,000, including fringes. Only in a government contract can people make so much money and perform so poorly. If this were the private sector, these people would get canned and be out on the street. Yet SEA hires lobbyists to influence Congress to let the company keep this lucrative contract. Now SEA says that the average hourly wage is $60 an hour, but that’s misleading. That is not comparing apples and apples. . . Mr. Chairman, I want to note that the Navy and SEA don’t want these numbers to come out. They stamped the words “Business Confidential” and “Proprietary” in big red letters all over these invoices. Sometimes people in government, and the contractors who feed from Uncle Sam’s trough, forget who they are working for. They’re working for the tax-payers, not themselves. And they should not be trying to hide the way they’re using tax-payer money.” — Testimony of Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley before the Senate committee March 30, 2004.---------------
Also see EXHIBIT 31 — the sworn testimony of a USDOE/SEA employee, Florence Stinger, who performed her job function as a Registered Nurse or “case analyst.” Florence blew the whistle on the scandals that she reported to the Officials. After a brief period of time, Florence’s cancer was diagnosed.
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The following is Senator Chuck Grassley’s (R-IOWA) scathing testimony before the Presidents Advisory Board on Workers Health April 29, 2005.
URL internet location: http://grassley.senate.gov/index.cfm?
EXCERPTS: In a statement before the National Institute of Occupational
Safety and Health (NIOSH) Advisory Board, Sen. Chuck Grassley 