Legions of federal workers on paid leave for months while getting paychecks

Four Environmental Protection Agency employees have been on paid administrative leave for more than a year.

One employee has been suspended with pay since January 2010 and has collected $300,671 from taxpayers without working a single day since that time.

Another has been suspended since May 2010 and paid $351,300, according to a new special audit by EPA's inspector general.

The EPA paid $18 million in salaries for employees to not work between 2011 and 2013, according to GAO figures.

But those numbers understate the true amounts paid to problem employees to stay home from work.

The EPA was also invoking "official time," a much-maligned policy where federal workers are paid by taxpayers to work on union business, to cause employees facing discipline to draw pay while missing work.

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