GSA scandal engulfs another top official

A week after revelations of extravagant spending at a General Services Administration training conference broke, another top official at the agency has been placed on administrative leave.

David Foley, deputy commissioner of the Public Buildings Service, is now under review for his conduct at the October 2010 Western Regions conference in Las Vegas, a GSA spokesman confirmed in a statement.

Linda Chero, former Federal Acquisition Service Mid-Atlantic regional commissioner, will serve as acting PBS commissioner, and Desa Sealy, formerly associate PBS commissioner, now will be the acting deputy PBS commissioner, the spokesman said.

Foley becomes the eighth GSA official to experience an abrupt change in status since GSA Inspector General Brian Miller released results of a yearlong investigation of the conference. The IG report found the four-day conference cost more than $820,000 for some 300 employees, due to overspending on planning and catering as well as on such unorthodox amenities as a performances by a clown, a mind reader (since identified by The Washington Post as San Luis Obispo, Calif.,-based Bob Garner) and a $75,000 bicycle-building exercise in teamwork.

Administrator Martha Johnson fired Public Buildings Service Commissioner Robert Peck and senior adviser Stephen Leeds before handing in her own resignation. Four regional commissioners were also placed on administrative leave. Foley can be heard on an embarrassing video of GSA employees singing and cracking jokes at the conference. The video was released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

He was appointed deputy PBS commissioner, the division’s chief operating officer, in March 2010, having worked for the building service since 1997. According to the GSA website, Foley played a key role in successfully executing PBS' $5.5 billion worth of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act projects.