Tom Harkin: “I understand we are on the Gregg amendment now, and that will proceed under some fashion or form. I wish to take a few…”

“I understand we are on the Gregg amendment now, and that will proceed under some fashion or form. I wish to take a few minutes to talk about an amendment I will offer when this amendment is dispensed with one way or the other. I wish to announce my intention to offer an amendment to this supplemental bill to ensure that Federal funding appropriated for workforce investment is used to help people in genuine need and not to pay exorbitant salaries or bonuses to program executives. The amendment I will be offering would address a gross abuse of Federal funds that was exposed recently in a State audit of the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium, or CIETC. The audit showed that three executives of this program were paid nearly $1.8 million over the past 2\1/2\ years. The chief executive officer alone received almost $800,000 in salary and bonuses over that period of time, which is nearly 8 times the salary paid to the Governor of Iowa. Obviously, these levels of compensation are exorbitant and outrageous. What happened at CIETC is a scandalous abuse of the public funds and of the public trust. It is also scandalous that these inflated salaries, technically speaking, may not be illegal under current law. The law states that executives in workforce enactment programs will be paid a ``reasonable'' salary. Unfortunately, that is a very elastic definition.…”