The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, one of seven small agencies ordered to reduce its workforce in President Donald Trump’s March 15 executive order, had a payroll of $28.6 million in 2024, according to data obtained by OpenTheBooks.

Of the agency’s 200 employees, 164 earned between $100,000 and $204,000. All but 15 employees have now been placed on leave.

The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak, who has done extensive reporting on FMCS, claims the agency exists only to “provide luxurious lifestyles for its employees,” including hiring friends and relatives and commissioning paintings of themselves.

The FMCS was created in 1947 to offer free conflict resolution services to private companies, such as mediating disputes between labor unions and their employers.

Rosiak’s reporting in the Washington Examiner from 2013 to 2015 revealed some of the most extreme examples of taxpayer waste in the federal government.

One top employee worked in Washington D.C. but had his official work station listed as Iowa. That meant his work was categorized as a business trip for six years, allowing him to be reimbursed for his rent and meals using taxpayer funds, according to Rosiak.

The FMCS headquarters is still in D.C., but OpenTheBooks’ data shows only 17 employees working there. The remaining employees are spread across 36 other states.

Another official created a “recreation and reception fund” in 2015 to buy $200 coasters and artwork painted by his wife. Employees also removed fraud protections from their credit cards, allowing one official to lease a BMW and another to pay for cable TV at both his house and his vacation home, Rosiak reported.

For staff training, the agency paid trainers $1,500 per day plus $163 an hour for travel expenses. Officials allegedly allowed their friends to write the guidelines for hiring trainers, making it easier to get the job themselves.

Allison Beck, another top official, was reimbursed for first-class flights to Italy, Tunisia, Georgia, and Switzerland in one month. One of her business meetings in Switzerland was scheduled to be over video call, Rosiak reported.

The agency’s in-office gym included a $1,000 TV, a $3,867 ice-maker and a $560 stereo, Rosiak found.

An inspector general asked the FBI to investigate FMCS based on Rosiak’s reporting, but no one was ever charged with a crime. Rosiak’s reporting is now over a decade old and does not necessarily reflect the agency’s current spending habits.

“Like something out of ‘The Office,’ the employees spent an inordinate amount of time and money congratulating one another for being employed there and engaging in ‘work’ that really amounted to pampering themselves,” Rosiak wrote. “FMCS seemed, quite clearly, to exist for the benefit of those on its payroll, and not much else.”

The FMCS released a statement arguing that “Rosiak’s article contains numerous falsehoods and misleading claims that irresponsibly do not reflect the reality of FMCS’s operations or our unwavering commitment to support the U.S. economy with transparency and ethical practices.”

In the past 10 years, FMCS has introduced new ethics programs and conducted multiple audits with “zero findings of any irregularities,” according to the agency’s statement.

The biggest dispute the FMCS needs to mediate may be between its own employees and the taxpayers whose money they are spending.

(The #WasteOfTheDay is from forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com via RealClearWire.)