The Smithsonian; Directors Living Lavishly on Taxpayer Dollars

If a picture is worth a thousand words then a portrait must be worth at least $58,500. Actually, this sum of taxpayer money was approved by the retiring director of the National Museum of the Native American, W. Richard West. In another fit of self-importance, this bureaucrat wanted his painting to go on the walls of the board of directors meeting room at the museum. Now if a person thinks this is a bit much, you haven’t heard anything yet.

According to a report by the Washington Post, in the past four years West has billed the Smithsonian, ergo taxpayers, for more than $250,000 in expenditures to lavish countries all over the globe. The destinations are too extensive for this report but suffice it to say, if you can name it, West went there courtesy of all of us.

Remarkably, West stated he did nothing improper as all his expenses were approved by Smithsonian supervisors. His two supervisors, Lawrence M. Small and Small’s deputy, Sheila Burke have both resigned due to heavy criticism regarding their own outlandish expense accounts.

The Smithsonian doesn’t seem to have a problem with their directors just going off on jaunts as the Post has uncovered that the museum allows directors leaves of absence with full pay. The three directors previously mentioned, have used this beyond what any normal person would consider fair and reasonable absences.

In West’s case, he was paid his $27,750 a month salary while off traveling 576 days during the last four years. One would think that getting paid that kind of salary for not being on the job would be enough but not according to West.

During these trips to exotic places, West sent bills for reimbursement for lodging in $1000 a night hotels, rare bottles of wine and five star dining at the most expensive restaurants in the world. West even had the nerve to charge bills for his six day attendance at the Sundance Film Festival last year.

West’s supervisors were even looser with taxpayer money than West. Both Small and Burke, stayed on Smithsonian payroll although they were on leaves of absence for almost half the past four years. What were they doing during these absences? They were getting paid huge sums to sit on the board of directors of various major corporations.

Although Small and Burke will be brought before a congressional panel to justify their expenditures, it is obvious the mentality at the Smithsonian hasn’t changed a bit. Kevin Gover, the replacement for West has already gone on record that he finds nothing wrong with any of West’s actions or expenditures.

Taxpayers don’t have a chance, do we?

Oh, one last thing that carries a real touch of irony. The artist who did West’s portrait is of Polish descent. It seems West, who has Native American lineage, couldn’t find any Native Americans in the whole of the country who could do the job. Maybe if he had stayed home a little more, he would have been able to find a Native American artist. It appears there aren’t many in Borneo, or Paris, or New Zealand or Spain etc etc.