U.S. Agency ‘Watchdogs’ More Like ‘Lap Dogs,’ Senator Says : Government: Report on role of inspectors general finds misconduct. Whistle-blowers’ identities are often revealed.

Senate investigators have found that federal inspectors general, who are supposed to uncover and root out improprieties inside their agencies, too often cover up governmental wrongdoing and try to intimidate those who want to expose it.

In a report obtained by The Times, to be made public this week, investigators for a Senate governmental affairs subcommittee cite “a disturbing pattern of misconduct” by inspectors general in a broad array of federal agencies.

The questionable activities the investigators cited range from routinely revealing identities of whistle-blowers to conducting phony investigations to intimidate inside-government critics.

“The findings contained in this report confirm my suspicion that many of these government watchdogs have become political lap dogs,” said Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), chairman of the subcommittee on general services, federalism and the District of Columbia.

“The inspector-general system was created 12 years ago to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse in government and to provide a safe harbor for those dedicated federal employees who try to stop government ripoffs,” Sasser said.

“Instead, the evidence shows that many inspectors general offices are engaged in damage control for their agencies and political patrons, or are knee-deep in the very abuses they are supposed to prevent.”

To counter “extremely serious flaws” in the inspector general system, the staff recommends that Congress consider creating a single, government-wide inspector-general’s office, limited to a five-year term to insulate its decisions from political considerations.

At the least, it says, Congress ought to put teeth in the current ban on disclosing whistle-blowers’ identities.

In one case uncovered by investigators, Marsha Allen, a former official at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, found that written allegations that she had presented against high-level officers at the request of an inspector general were turned over to her boss 30 minutes later.

The allegations involved possible violations of equal employment opportunity provisions and waste and mismanagement of government funds.

Although Allen had asked the inspector general not to disclose the identities of seven co-workers she had listed as potential witnesses in the case--for fear that they would suffer reprisals--their names were also turned over to her supervisor, according to investigators.

In a March 22, 1989, letter to Allen, Col. Marcia Rinkel, an Army deputy inspector general, acknowledged that “a serious error” had been made by sending Allen’s complaint to her boss.

However, the inspector general’s office contended that the seven co-workers nevertheless made “very candid statements” during the inquiry, showing that they had not been intimidated.

But the subcommittee staff said some of the seven said they had been called into their boss’s office and told that “their jobs would be in jeopardy if they cooperated with the investigation.

“In fact,” he report noted, “six of the seven workers subsequently had disciplinary actions taken against them.”

The Army declined to discuss the case. Col. Joseph Allred, a spokesman for Lt. Gen. Johnnie H. Corns, the Army’s inspector general, said “we have no comment pending official receipt of the Senate report.”

In another incident cited by the subcommittee staff, two investigators on the staff of the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general, John Martin, charged that he has been involved in misconduct ranging from misuse of travel vouchers to covering up investigations.

Martin’s office said he was not available for comment and that no one else on the staff would respond to the allegations.

And in a case sharply disputed by the inspector general involved, a deputy regional administrator for the Health and Human Services Department accused his boss of cronyism in hiring, misusing travel vouchers and government property and other transgressions.

The subcommittee investigators found “strong evidence” that the inspector general’s office disclosed the whistle-blower’s name to an assistant secretary of the department, despite a federal law that bars disclosing an informant’s identity without his consent.

The subcommittee declined to identify the HHS officials or the whistle-blower.

Judy Holtz, a spokeswoman for HHS Inspector General Richard Kusserow, one of the longest tenured such officials in government, disputed the subcommittee investigators’ findings.

“We never disclose the identity of a whistle-blower,” she said. “We’re very careful about that. In this case, the investigation was opened in July, 1988, and we gave him a number for our filing purposes. But his name was never mentioned in any of our reports or memoranda.”

The allegations of misconduct against the regional administrator “never were substantiated by this office or through a separate investigation by a special counsel,” Holtz said.

But the subcommittee report said that three days after the inspector general’s inquiry was closed, the deputy regional administrator “was transferred to a new, low-level position in which all of his responsibilities were replaced with menial tasks, and his contact with key staff and activities was severely limited.”

After a year of numerous congressional inquiries about the case and a review by the office of personnel management, which found the whistle-blower’s new job duties were those of a low-level editorial assistant, HHS Secretary Louis W. Sullivan ordered the individual “reassigned to a legitimate job commensurate with his grade,” the subcommittee report said.

“Certainly any transfer did not result from any disclosure on our part, because no such disclosure occurred,” Inspector General Kusserow’s spokeswoman said.

The staff report also recommended changing the way an inspector general can be fired--from the present system under which they serve at the pleasure of the President to removal only for just cause.

“Even the most modest reforms should include some ‘teeth’ in the current statutory prohibition against disclosing confidential identities,” the report said.

It called for considering criminal sanctions for “knowingly, wrongfully breaching confidentiality” and the possibility of providing for civil remedies for injured whistle-blowers, with triple or punitive damages.