Federal Employee to Congress: Fire Me!

A federal employee has asked Congress to fire him and defund the agency he works for to save taxpayers some money.

Mike Marsh works for theDenali Commission, a federal agency established in 1998 to help people in rural Alaska by building power plants, offering job training and improving access to healthcare.

Marsh, who is the inspector general for the agency, wrote a letter to Congress claiming his agency is a waste of taxpayer dollars,The Washington Post reports.

"I have concluded that [my agency] is a congressional experiment that hasn’t worked out in practice," he wrote. "I recommend that Congress put its money elsewhere."

Last year, the government set aside $10.6 million for agency. That amount doesn’t include any grants or additional funding from other sources.

In the seven-page letter, Marsh outlines the problems he sees with the agency. He claims the commission builds facilities, like power plants and health clinics in rural towns that lack the resources to maintain them.

Rather than funnel money to the Denali Commission, he suggests sending the money straight to state or tribal governments. He believes his agency is nothing more than a middleman, where one isn’t needed.

When he got no satisfaction, Marsh wrote to California Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer, saying those who opposed his shutdown plan were "shooting the messenger, tackling the referee, or berating the pathologist who has to convey the news one would prefer not to hear."

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According to the Washington Post, Marsh’s coworkers had no idea the letters were ever written, let alone sent. Marsh’s boss told reporters he had never heard of them.

Marsh isn’t the only federal employee who has made attempts to be fired; it has been done in the past. Orson Swindle, a who ran an agency called the Economic Development Administration under Ronald Reagan, tried the same thing. With Reagan’s support, he asked lawmakers to get rid of him and the agency. Congress declined his request. Swindle eventually quit.

As for the Denali Commission, it has been on the chopping block before. A recent bill to cut such commissions came before the House, but it failed to pass and all commissions stayed intact.

Last summer, the commission was also under investigation, according to the Alaska Dispatch. Marsh pushed for the investigation after claiming the organization lost track of millions of dollars. The investigation found no money was missing. Alaska's Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski called Marsh’s claims "ambiguous and underreported" and pushed for better communication with the agency.

And in February Marsh claimed the agency had lost track of accounts that could hold up to $100 million. He suggested then that it should be defunded until the money was found, the Dispatch reported.

Despite troubles in the past, Alaskan lawmakers say they will fight for the commission’s survival. GOP Rep. Don Young called the Denali Commission’s mission critical. Young and other lawmakers from Alaska say they will continue to fight for federal funding for the commission in the future.

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