Registered Lobbyist Earned $143K Federal Salary for 4-Hour Government Work Week

Government Executive reports:

A registered lobbyist and an employee at an obscure independent federal agency collected a six-figure government salary while working just four hours per week on official business, according a congressional inquiry sent to the agency.

The Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad knew about the lax work schedule of its executive director since at least 2013, when the General Services Administration’s inspector general reported on his practices, according to a letter from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. Jeffrey Farrow, the employee, earned $143,000 per year for his minimal work, nearly one-quarter of the commission’s entire annual budget.

Farrow has served as the executive director of the commission -- which was established in 1985 to preserve and protect monuments and buildings “associated with the foreign heritage of U.S. citizens abroad” -- since 2001. He is a registered lobbyist, working for Puerto Rico and the island nation of Palau, earning $820,000 last year. He is on pace to earn $1.3 million this year from his side gig.

The GSA IG report found the commission agreed to pay Farrow $104,000 per year to work eight hours per week. Instead, he took the higher salary and worked less than the scheduled amount. He conducted his lobbying business attempting to attract Congressional appropriations to Puerto Rico and Palau from his federal office and using federal resources, and reportedly spent 90 percent of his time on that work. Extrapolated out, Farrow was earning the equivalent of a $1.5 million full-time salary.

Rent-seeking gone real wild.