Taxpayers May Fund Ex-GSA Official’s Retirement, Lawmaker Says

Taxpayers may get the multimillion-dollar “retirement tab” for a former U.S. General Services Administration official who oversaw an $823,000 Las Vegas conference, a U.S. lawmaker said.

The GSA announced without elaboration yesterday that Jeff Neely no longer worked at the agency. He will probably retire with government payments of more than $100,000 a year, Representative John Mica, a Republican from Florida, said today in a statement.

Mica, chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, planned to investigate the terms of Neely’s departure, according to the statement.

The public shouldn’t have to fund multimillion-dollar deals for “government administrators who abuse their positions and snub their noses at Congress and the American people,” it said.

GSA spokesman Adam Elkington would not say today whether Neely had retired or if he would receive a government pension.

Neely last month refused to testify before Mica’s committee, citing his Fifth Amendment rights against self- incrimination. Mica plans to introduce legislation that would halt salaries for senior administrators who take the Fifth Amendment in such cases.

U.S. lawmakers have criticized spending at the 2010 conference, which featured a mind reader, a clown and a $75,000 bicycle-building exercise. The GSA’s inspector general has been investigating other trips and conferences involving agency employees.