Nothing like a government that has our back when it comes to responsible guardianship of the taxes they collect from us, and well they should be, since that money is our money.

They should, in fact, be paying exceptionally close attention to how they dole out our money these days, considering all the hype we get regarding the dreaded “sequester”…

Energy Department approves lavish bonuses: $3.5 million to 10 workers alone

Ten contractors are on pace to collect $3.5 million in excessive bonuses due to a lack of oversight, investigators warn

Federal employees are facing unpaid days off and salary cuts due to the sequester, but several contract workers inside the Energy Department are still raking in the cash.

Ten individuals at the department’s operations in Oak Ridge, Tenn., are set to make an extra $3.5 million above and beyond their normal pay, according to an Energy Department inspector general investigation that exposed a lavish bonus system.

The operations in Tennessee include a national laboratory, a security site, and a former uranium enrichment facility that is being cleaned up. The contractors are involved in what is known as the East Tennessee Technology Park, where the cleanup work is going on. (An earlier version of this story incorrectly mentioned the lab as being connected to the contractors.)

The 10 people are executives at the company UCOR, which the department hired for environmental clean-up. And despite watchdog warnings that the executives’ salaries are as much as 82 percent above the market rate, Energy Department officials continue to pay out the bonuses.

The entire article is here, in The Washington Guardian.