Mark Butler
A report from the Office of the State Inspector General leaked Tuesday includes a review of expenditures made by the Department of Labor — examining over $1.1 million spent to purchase meals for each of the department’s 1,026 employees over a nearly 15-month period. Labor Commissioner Mark Butler vigorously disagrees with the report and says he will be filing a response with the Governor’s Office.
The report says the expenditures were documented in an audit conducted by the Department of Administrative Services. It says that the lunch purchases took place between March 20, 2020 through June 11, 2021 when DOAS suspended DOL’s ability to buy meals using a purchasing card (p-card) and “forcing an end to the practice over DOL’s objections.” The report claims DOL spent a total of $1,112,802 in the 15-month period.
According to the report, the Office of Planning and Budget (OPB) “confirmed that approximately $567,000 came from the DOL’s annual state funds appropriation.” It goes on to say that $519,000 originated from a federal grant provided every year by the U.S. Department of Labor with the primary objective of providing compensation to eligible unemployed workers.”
Butler doesn’t deny purchasing the meals, and emphatically stresses that the department asked DOAS about using the funds for the meal purchases prior to doing so.
“We asked permission to provide the meals if we closed the offices down during the Executive Order by the Governor,” Butler told InsiderAdvantage Tuesday evening. “We were told it was okay, we followed their guidelines and regulations — providing them with receipts daily — and were never told we were doing anything wrong. They never told us we couldn’t do this. We never would have done it if they had.”
The report states that when questioned about why the meals were being provided for the employees, a DOL administrator said, “Due to the unprecedented workload requiring consistent, dedicated extended hours, for the health and safety of our limited human resources and as a further protective measure to curtail the risk of exposure to the COVID-19 virus, our employees are encouraged to remain inside the building for the duration of the workday.”
The report goes on to say that after DOAS initiated a formal audit and requested detailed information for the entire time period of March 1, 2020 through February 28, 2021, a DOL p-card administrator said, “GDOL was severely short-staffed from the onset of the pandemic. Discouraging staff from leaving the premises once they arrived as an attempt to lower/remove the risk of staff exposure to COVID-19. Restaurant availability was also extremely scarce so we wanted staff to be laser focused on processing without worrying about leaving the premises as well as working extended hours.”
Butler agrees this was the reasoning for the meal purchases and adds that it was an effective plan. “We track COVID numbers at the DOL, and our total number of positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths increased 34 percent after we stopped providing the meals.”
The report states that on April 30, 2021 — and effective May 1, Governor (Brian) Kemp eliminated additional restrictions related to the operation of restaurants. “Still the DOL meal expenditures continued.”
“While initially justified, OIG believes that DOL’s meal expenditures eventually evolved into a recurring constitutional violation,” the report says.
Adding later, “…as the circumstances of the pandemic changed, DOL’s justifications did not. Despite the elimination of a statewide shelter-in-place executive order in May 2020 and the widespread distribution of a vaccine in March 2021, DOL continued buying thousands of meals for its employees until as recently as June 2021. DOL acted as though the pandemic was still in its first week rather than its fifteenth month. As a result, the meals purchased from May 2020 onward were gifts for which the general public received no tangible prospective and substantial benefit.”
Butler said his office did make a few “mistakes” during this process. “A few times, we did go over the $7 per diem allowed and 56 times we did not check the receipt and were charged sales tax. Other than that, we are not sure what the issue is. We received permission, and we followed their guidelines.”
Butler said Tuesday he will be responding to the Governor’s Office, and not to the OIG’s office. “No one from the OIG spoke to anyone in our office or conducted interviews with us, so we will not be responding to them.”
Republican Senator Bruce Thompson, who has announced that he will be running for Labor Commissioner in the 2022 election, said the report “clearly shows a misappropriation of resources. It’s either a lack of judgement, incompetence or a lack of integrity. Either way I see it as unacceptable to purchase meals using resources designated for taxpayers in need.”
Butler has not announced if he will seek re-election.
