Bad news for federally employed
Trekkies: You can’t bill hours spent at the theater watching the
latest Star Trek movie to the government—even if you take
your whole office with you.
That’s the conclusion of the Commerce Department inspector
general (IG), who indicated in a report
this week that hours spent at the movies, even if they happen
during the course of a regular workday and are intended as
team-building activities, should not in fact be counted as billable
hours on the job.
As The Washington Post
notes, the IG report came in response to a group outing to an
afternoon matinee:
In May 2013, a supervisor at the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Operational
Environmental Satellite-R Series — which monitors, among other
things, space weather — organized a “team building” activity
in the middle of the day to go grab lunch together and then all see
the 2 p.m. showing of “Star Trek Into Darkness.”
According to the IG report, “the government paid $3,487.31 in
taxpayer-funded wages for employees” to attend the screening of the
132 minute long movie, which, granted, is
less than the $5,500 the Internal Revenue Service paid in
set-building costs and staff time for the development of a low-rent
Star Trek parody several years ago.
Even still, billing time spent at the multiplex
was…inappropriate, the IG decided.
The OIG concluded that, unlike training events, which are
designed to develop professional skills and therefore may be
counted as work-hours, watching a Star Trek movie offered no
professional development opportunities. Therefore, even if such an
event resulted in greater unity or cohesion, the hours spent at the
event should not have been billed to the government.
The IG did not conclude, but probably should have, that Star
Trek Into Darkness was terrible.
Obviously these sorts of judgments differ based on professional
circumstances. I can certainly see some private businesses deciding
to sponsor movie outings or afternoon baseball games or trips to
Chuck E. Cheese for their staffers, and that’s perfectly fine if
they want do. But because public employees are paid with taxpayer
dollars, they are inevitably going to be held to a different
standard. That’s as it ought to be. There are plenty of benefits to
working for the federal government. Afternoons out at the movies
probably shouldn’t be one of them.
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