Since 2001, federal employees at 18 departments and agencies were absent without leave (AWOL) at least 19.6 million hours.

…the loss of productivity costs us about $7-$10 billion a year.

If my math is correct, then we have $7-10B/yr / 19.6M hrs/7 yrs = cost of around $3K/hr give or take $500. Even if the $7-10B is for the seven-year period, then that gives a rate of around $430/hr +/- $80. If we’re talking salary and benefits paid for no-shows, then it seems hard to believe it would be more than maybe $75/hr or something in that range.

Am I missing something?

why even responsible public managers HATE “missions and measures” iniatives!

First, a federal employee, most any public employee actually, once hired is either at work during scheduled hours and days or on leave during those hours and days. There are various forms of paid leave as detailed in the report and then there is an absence without leave which may or may not be authorized and this report does not make that distinction. The distinction may or may not be observed in the underlying data but it is not reported in the formal report. There are many forms of authorized absence with out leave or leave without pay, e.g., educational or other sabbaticals, FMLA leave after paid leave is exhausted, voluntary leave without pay for personal or health reasons – this is quite common when an employee has a chronic or even terminal illness, has run out of paid leave, but the employer chooses to keep him/her on as an employee for benefits or simply for humanitarian reasons.

Second, such reports make the good managers look bad. The way NOT to show up on such a report is to not dock employees for AWOL so you don’t have to report it or simply not track it as appears to be the case with State. It may well be that the poster child agencies, VA and Treasury, are more fastidious about docking employees’ pay for AWOL and the low AWOL agencies such as Education simply ignore AWOL – an entirely believable proposition if you’ve ever dealt with educrats.

And third, it is entirely plausible that the Democrat Administration did little or nothing to control unauthorized absences and the incoming Republican Administration went on a program of adult supervision to track and control it. In an organization the size of the federal government it would take some years to get your managers in place and on such a program, which would in turn show a steady increase in the AWOL hours. Fundamentally, if AWOL time wasn’t being tracked before, it means lots of employees were skipping work and still getting paid. At least if it is being reported as AWOL, they’re probably not being paid, a good step in the right direction. Now next, somebody can start disciplining and dismissing employees for unauthorized absence; it can be done.

But the numbers on the veterans affairs I can see. Considering the lackluster treatment our vets have gotten the last few years. Even the ones coming from Iraq.

At one time, unions had their place and were useful. Remember that book from high school about the stockyards? I think it was written by Sinclair Lewis. Anyway, they had a place in society.

All that’s changed. They’re ruining the economy and influencing politics. They have ruined the auto industry and driven more jobs offshore than cheap foreign labor.

God, they make me sick.

Where was the Republican leadership then?

We’d be better off if we just turned the entire Republican Congressional organization on its head.