ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, October 21, 1996 TAG: 9610210129
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN say the agency has wasted money at posh resorts and on courses that don't deal with keeping the air and water clean.
The Environmental Protection Agency has spent more than $1 million since 1993 on training seminars at ritzy resorts or on subjects unrelated to environment such as ``defensive driving'' or speed-reading courses, according to congressional investigators.
Posh inns in West Virginia, a beach-front hotel in Puerto Rico and a mountain resort in Colorado were among venues chosen for classes and conferences, Republican investigators with the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee reported.
Training sessions included:
* Four-day seminars on improving managers' productivity, held at various resorts in West Virginia and Maryland. Cost: $20,000 per seminar.
* A $7,000, one-day session at a beach hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to train EPA lawyers on preparing for administrative hearings.
* A two-day auditors' conference at a Breckenridge, Colo., lodge costing $4,400.
The committee said it identified $1.4 million in ``questionable'' EPA training expenses between 1993 and 1995. The agency was among the worst offenders in the committee's investigation of inappropriate spending on federal employee training programs, said committee chairman William Clinger, R-Pa.
``What is especially offensive about EPA's action is that the Clinton administration has repeatedly requested increases in EPA's budget while doing nothing to curb this wasteful spending,'' Clinger charged.
All the training was for employees who earned more than $50,000 a year, a committee aide said.
The EPA defended the seminars as training sessions necessary to boost worker performances, like those programs any company or agency sponsors.
Some classes must be held outside EPA offices to accommodate large groups, spokesman David Cohen said, but the agency keeps costs down by choosing hotels near employees' offices and paying less than commercial firms for outside trainers.
``The EPA takes a very conservative tack when it comes to training,'' Cohen said. ``It doesn't cost a lot to reserve a room or stay somewhere close by.''
The EPA spent $10.8 million on training for its 17,200 employees, about 1 percent of its overall budget. Private companies typically spend 3 percent to 5 percent of staff costs on training.
Some seminars had nothing to do with environmental issues. The agency's office of solid waste and emergency response spent tens of thousands of dollars on Evelyn Wood speed-reading courses, business writing classes, driving courses and seminars on resolving conflicts among employees.
Cohen said some EPA employees must read through voluminous files. Improving their reading speed boosts productivity, he said.
The $20,000 seminars on productivity were to teach required management skills to staffers up for promotion to senior jobs, Cohen said.
Run by an outside firm, the seminars imitate actual executive settings and have ``specific logistical requirements,'' an EPA training official said. The West Virginia resort was chosen because it's close to the agency's Washington headquarters.
``These are the kind of things that can't be put on in a government conference room. There's not enough room,'' Cohen said.
Seventeen employees attended each session, according to the committee's information.
The meeting in Puerto Rico was to fulfill the EPA's statutory obligation to train staff and local officials involved in pollution cases. Many EPA staffers at the meeting were based in Puerto Rico, Cohen said.
``It's not extravagant spending,'' he said. ``We try to keep the training localized so that people can drive.''
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB