Congress Accuses TSA of “Smurfing” Bonus Money to Executive

by Eric

With the recent news that TSA lines are longer than ever, it probably isn’t good timing for this embattled agency that the United States Congress believes the TSA is doing some shady business in order to reward senior executives.

tsa-money

Earlier this week, the Transportation Security Administration was accused of disguising bonus payments to the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Security Operations, Kelly Hoggan. Despite his role in overseeing security screenings, which failed to detect about 95% of weapons passing through security, Kelly apparently receive 9 separate bonus payments of $10,000, instead of a lump sum of $90,000. This is a strategy known as “smurfing” and is designed to reduce the likelihood that the bonuses will attract further attention.

Current TSA administration refused to acknowledge the wrongdoing was their fault, instead passing the blame on to previous administration. The current TSA Administrator, Peter Neffenger, said that the bonuses were awarded to Kelly by the previous TSA Administrator.

In case you were curious, Kelly Hoggan’s salary last year was $181,500, before the bonuses.

What are your thoughts on the TSA?

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Related Articles

6 comments

Ryan May 15, 2016 - 8:15 am

Outrageous and shameful. Meanwhile the government in other areas is cutting back on payments to doctors, etc. and cutting medicare/medicaid….. and then we pay clowns like this $200k a year for what? To be a middle manager.

We’re going to hell in a handbasket, that’s for sure ….

Reply
mike murphy May 15, 2016 - 10:00 am

seems to me with the fee collected on each ticket and the volume of passengers the tsa should be running at a profit, where is the money really going?

Reply
Joke May 15, 2016 - 10:30 am

You’re an idiot. Tsa doesn’t receive money off of airline tickets. Tsa is a separate entity from the airport and/or airline

Reply
mike murphy May 15, 2016 - 11:13 am

so where does the money go ?

and try be demeaning to my face

Reply
MSer May 15, 2016 - 12:49 pm

Smurfing – so that’s what this is called. They’ve been doing the same thing for at least 30 years – pay all sorts of things just under the reporting limit. Worked for a contractor who was due multimillion dollar change order due to a Govt effup and to avoid scrutiny for their own incompetence, the govt split payments into multiples less than $100K because above that required higher level approval. Imagine the scams that go on inside the Pentagon…

Reply
cc May 25, 2016 - 8:52 am

“Not enough Smurfs in the world, Mr White.”

Reply

Leave a Comment