Luke Rosiak

Minority contractors ‘game the system,’ find havens in D.C. homes

You wouldn't know it from the curb, but a three-bedroom Colonial on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Southeast houses 12 businesses, all set up to receive contracts from Washington, D.C., under minority-contracting rules. Published April 10, 2013

Pass-through vendors skirt D.C. contract laws; government a lucrative client

Efforts by Washington, D.C., to include local, minority-owned and small businesses in city contracts have led to a system in which goods manufactured by major companies, including sensitive medical equipment, are routed regularly through residences where self-professed entrepreneurs — whose only client is the government — mark up and resell them. Published April 9, 2013

Pepco CEO made $11.4 million in 2012 despite utility’s spotty record

Pepco has been faulted repeatedly for dismal reliability and the electric company's hundreds of thousands of customers have little choice but to go with the monopoly, yet its chief executive's compensation package rose from $6.7 million in 2011 to $11.4 million last year, financial documents filed last week show. Published April 4, 2013

Local business contract takes the long route; government allows pass-through costs

When the U.S. Forest Service sought to do some minor work replacing the siding on buildings at the San Jacinto Ranger District in Riverside County, Calif., it limited bids to HUBZone contractors — "small businesses in urban and rural communities" or "Historically Underutilized Business Zones." Published April 3, 2013

Stimulus funds fed minority businesses that served as middlemen

WB Construction & Sons Inc. is a 10-employee, minority-owned firm that received $7.5 million in five stimulus contracts from the federal government, but it did not do close to that much work. Published April 1, 2013

Ignorance of D.C.’s copyrighted laws can be costly

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but those who want to ensure they're in compliance with the District's laws must obtain them from a private company owned by a foreign conglomerate. Published March 31, 2013

Senators: Many states are ‘gaming’ entitlements to up federal benefits

Many states are "gaming" entitlement programs that involve state-federal partnerships to maximize the number of federal dollars flowing to the states while minimizing their own input, senators said this week. Published March 7, 2013

Violations don’t deter food stamp vendors’ hunger for misuse

Kenilworth Market, a bulletproof junk-food emporium just inside Washington, D.C.'s eastern border, sells ski masks in the dead of summer. Its clerks steadily hawk "loosies," or illegal single-sale cigarettes. Published March 7, 2013

AWOL on Hill: Fundraising trumps voting

Voting on bills and resolutions is a member of Congress' most basic duty, but only 10 of its current 535 lawmakers represented their constituents on every vote last session. Published February 19, 2013

Freshmen reformers in Congress avoid Hill experience in staffing

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler is a 34-year-old Washington state Republican beginning her second term in Congress. The youngest female representative in Congress, she won't be old enough to run for president until November. But the people she relies on to carry out the day-to-day work of legislating make her look like an old hand. Published February 14, 2013

Fraud and abuse grow after subsidized telephone program expands

A federal program subsidizing phones for the poor increased from 6.8 million to 18 million recipients from 2008 — the year it was expanded to include cell phones — to May 2012. Published February 5, 2013

Obama crony wins contract to give phones to jobless

A cellphone company whose top executive has close ties to President Obama lobbied for and won a piece of a major new government push to provide Internet service to low-income job-seekers, even though critics say the company's smartphones are poorly suited to the task of helping those in the program find work. Published February 5, 2013

SEIU local eyes Midwest organizing push

One of the largest private-sector union locals, which represents janitors and service employees in the Midwest, this year will try aggressively to unionize the region's security officers and workers at airports and universities, according to an internal document obtained by The Washington Times. Published February 3, 2013

Troubles run deep for key labor union in D.C.

The Laborers' International Union has in its legislative affairs office a lobbyist who pleaded guilty in a fraud case despite a federal law banning convicts from overseeing unions' finances. Published January 27, 2013

Ex-Rep. West uses campaign funds for self-named foundation

Allen West was always a prodigious fundraiser, drawing money from far outside his Florida district. Now, he's transferred a half-million dollars in donated campaign funds to two charity groups: the Allen West Foundation and another entity sharing the new foundation's post office box address. Published January 24, 2013

Who are the best and worst bosses on Capitol Hill?

The Washington Times analyzed a decade of congressional pay records to find the offices with the highest turnover rates and found 27 members who — over a period of four or more years — lost an annual average of at least one-third of their staff who sought calmer pastures or were fired. Published January 22, 2013

For union leadership jobs, it pays well to have family ties

Labor unions are dedicated to ensuring every worker an equal voice, but it helps to have the right last name. Published January 15, 2013

Most union workers now on government payrolls

Unions were formed to bring representation to companies that otherwise were accountable to no one but their profit-making owners. But most union workers today work for government, not companies, even though there are five times as many private-sector employees overall, according to recently collected data. Published January 15, 2013

Union bosses’ salaries put ‘big’ in Big Labor

There can be riches in standing up for the working class: The Boilermakers union president earned $506,000, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars more for travel expenses, while the Laborers union president made $441,000. The Transportation Communications Union leader made $300,000, bumped up to $750,000 with business expenses. Published January 10, 2013

Non-cash welfare reforms resulted in fewer recipients

Welfare is still a mammoth program, but increasingly comes in the form of services and support, not cash — and many poor people are less interested in applying than they were when it was dollars on the line, rather than access to education, day care and transportation, a Government Accountability Office report said this week. Published January 9, 2013