Despite federal employees working almost entirely remotely during Covid-19 lockdowns, agencies still managed to purchase billions of dollars worth of furniture for their empty office spaces, according to a new report from OpenTheBooks.
Federal furniture spending from 2020 to 2022 exceeded $3 billion at an annual rate of over $1 billion. The Department of Defense topped the list as the number one furniture buyer, spending over $1.2 billion in three years on furniture, while only using 23% of its total office space. Next in line comes the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Justice, both of which spent over $400,000 on furniture over the same three-year period.
The Government Accountability Office recently reported that most agency headquarters are under 25% capacity, or in other words, 75% empty. All 24 buildings included in the review are underutilized, the GAO uncovered, and several buildings remain under 10% capacity, or 90% empty. Yet these mammoth wings of the executive branch spent impressive amounts of taxpayer dollars on unessential, down-right wasteful items.
SEE ALSO: Are gov't employees hard at work or hardly working? Data suggests the latter
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spent $237,960 on solar-powered picnic tables and the State Department spent nearly $120,000 in apparently additional cash for brand-new Ethan Allen leather recliners for its embassy in Islamabad. The list of questionable items goes on and on. Most ironically the feds spent $26 million on furniture for their conference rooms – during a time when their meetings were held on Zoom.
“As Congress fights overspending, we want to show that members are appropriating, wasting, and sometimes hiding massive amounts of money from the taxpayers,” wrote OpenTheBooks. “Despite federal employees working from home, the agencies continued to splurge on furniture purchases.”
One has to wonder how the federal government’s furniture demand remains high every year when most households buy furniture and large appliances to last for many years or even decades. If they’ve got the funding they will figure out how to use it, which makes a balanced budget all the more needed.
The feds think money grows on trees, not hard-working Americans footing the bill. Our way out of this toxic cycle is Convention of States, an effort to bring fiscal responsibility back to Washington. To support the cause, add your name to the petition below.
