Throwback Thursday!
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spent a whopping $92.4 million over ten years to purchase, rent, install, and store office furniture ranging from fancy hickory chairs and a hexagonal wooden table, worth thousands of dollars each, to a simple drawer to store pencils that cost $813.57.
That was $6,000 in furniture for every one of the agency’s then-15,492 employees.
In 2015, OpenTheBooks.com reported EPA purchased $48.4 million from Herman Miller, a retailer known for its high-end, modern furniture designs, and also spent $5 million on designer Knoll, Inc. modern office fittings.
The agency justified its furniture spending, during a location move to the D.C. suburbs by noting its old furniture didn’t fit in the new building. It also justified the furniture spending by noting savings from its new lease.
Examples of EPA furniture purchases:
- One executive desk for a “right handed executive” ($3,959)
- One “Wood Racetrack Conference Table” from Herman Miller ($15,751)
- Four “Park Ave Arm Lounge Chairs” ($4,083)
- Five “Computer work stations” ($28,290)
- One “five drawer multi-lock file case” ($13,304)
- One “Herman Miller chair with adjustable arms, swivel, lumbar, caster and tilt” ($4,047)
- One hexagonal table ($5,539)
- Multiple hickory chairs ($6,391)
- One “Galerie lounge chair” with “Galerie settee” ($2,641)
- “Ethospace” furniture ($30,707).
Update: The EPA is moving again. To save $12.7 million in annual lease payments in northern Virginia, the agency is scheduled to move employees back to D.C. this year.
The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.