House panel wants greater oversight of ‘shared employees’

A House panel agreed Wednesday that greater oversight of staffers who work for more than one member is needed along with a set of guidelines to prevent future cases of fraud from occurring in offices.

Members are at great risk of being defrauded by “shared employees” if multiple areas in need of “significant improvement” are not addressed by early next year, said Inspector General (IG) James Cornell at a hearing of the Committee on House Administration.

{mosads}The IG released its report Wednesday, citing many instances in which shared employees unknowingly broke the law in their daily work practices.

“I think this has been a great wake-up call,” said Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.), ranking member of the committee. “I think all members should learn a lesson from this and I’m sure they will.”

Committee members of both parties agreed to work with the Chief Administrative Office (CAO) in the coming months to develop a set of guidelines for shared employees that would provide them with more oversight.

“We’re not saying this is a terrible system and we need to throw it out, but clearly, safeguards are needed to make sure we don’t have again what we just had,” Ehlers said.

The IG’s report comes after shared employee Laura Flores was recently convicted of defrauding several members’ offices of nearly $200,000.

“You can’t stop someone from breaking the law, but you can certainly make it easier to catch them,” said Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.)

Not everyone agreed on all issues, though. Committee member Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said while he conceded that guidelines needed to be established for shared employees, he would not be comfortable hiring a shared employee through the CAO because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) appointed the position.

“It’s a partisan appointee, so the majority would get an advantage if they went to your shop,” McCarthy said to Chief Administrative Officer Dan Beard.

Capuano shot back at McCarthy, saying that while Beard is a partisan appointee, his track record has been one of bipartisan fairness.

Congressional offices often hire shared employees in the areas of financial and technological support to avoid the expense of hiring a full-time employee. But shared staffers are not held accountable in the same way that regular employees are because of a lack of controls.

Beard said he fully supports the IG’s recommendations, warning that if guidelines are not established, members could face dire consequences.

“It is broken and we do need to fix it,” Beard said of current shared employee oversight. “We have a problem and we can’t guarantee that we won’t be back at some point in the future with a similar problem unless we make substantial changes.”