Remember Where’s Waldo? from the late 1980s? Well, lately the federal community is playing that game with a growing number of federal officials.

When someone goes on administrative leave, the rumor mill heats up across the federal community and agencies respond with the ubiquitous, “We can’t comment, it’s a personnel matter,” or “Yes, [fill in the person’s name] is still an employee at the agency and we have no other details.”

The latest example is Joe Ward, the now former director of the Interior Business Center.
Multiple sources say Ward has been “reassigned” or put on “detail” as the deputy to the Interior University Chancellor.

Emails to Ward have not been returned.

The Interior press office confirmed he’s still an employee at the agency and Ward is listed at the IBC director on the website.

But soon after the news of the first cyber breach at OPM broke, which included data stored on IBC databases, Ward was moved out of the IBC director’s position.

Was it related to the OPM data breach? Sources said it’s not directly related but the cyber problems at Interior may have been the last straw in a series of reasons management was unhappy with Ward.

Sources said Ward’s deputy Angie Graziano has been leading the IBC since May.

At the same time, the federal community has been playing Where’s Waldo? with Barry West, the chief information officer at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, since early June.

The FDIC continues to list West as its CIO on its website. Other published reports say FDIC staff received an email saying West is on administrative leave dealing with personal matters.

But at least one source who said they spoke with West recently said the reason he was placed on administrative leave relates back to West’s time as Commerce CIO, where he allegedly got into hot water over transit benefits.

The source said West has “lawyered up” and plans to fight the allegations — which are unclear considering he hasn’t been Commerce CIO since 2008.

An email to West was not returned.

The problem with both of these cases is the lack of transparency from agencies. There is no doubt that personnel issues are sensitive and the court of public opinion tends to jump to conclusions before knowing all the facts.

But at the same time, agencies’ inability to confirm even basic facts leads to even more speculation and rumors that hurt both the agency and the person involved.

At the very least, agencies should be able to talk honestly about what’s going on with their employees. We already know so much about public servants — and the Chinese now know more [What, too early?] — what grade level they are, how much money they make, how much they pay for health care or the interest rates of their retirement investments. We know their job descriptions, phone numbers, emails [in most cases, however, those are becoming harder to find]. But when it comes to an employee under investigation or facing charges, we are left rumors and innuendo and that is a disservice to both the employee, the community and the agency.

This post is part of Jason Miller’s Inside the Reporter’s Notebook feature. Read more from this edition of Jason’s Notebook.

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