Too big to manage: Dozens of Homeland Security employees spend more time working for unions than taxpayers -- By Mark Flatten, The Washington Examiner

Dozens of Department of Homeland Security employees spend at least half of their time working for labor unions instead of taxpayers while still drawing full salaries, according to a new data obtained by the Washington Examiner.

Homeland Security had 24 workers who spent at least 1,000 hours in one year on “official time,” which allows them to be released from their normal duties to do union work while still drawing full pay and benefits from the government.

That figure does not include employees of Customs and Border Protection, a component of Homeland Security, which accounts for about two-thirds of the official time allotted by the agency.

The limited and piecemeal disclosure from DHS does not allow a full accounting of how many people took official time agencywide or how many hours each of them used.

As the Washington Examiner reported last month, Homeland Security refused to disclose the names of any of its personnel taking official time, citing privacy concerns.

That still stands.

But after the Examiner story ran, the main office at DHS agreed to provide a unique identifying number for individuals, allowing the total number of hours each individual took to be tallied.

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