Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is seeking to determine how much the federal government is spending to train senior executives.
He recently sent letters to OPM, the Federal Executive Institute, the Center for Creative Leadership, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government seeking clarification on the total amount spent on executive training after being unable to find out that information.
"Training is important, but it needs to be managed in a responsible way," Grassley said in a statement.
"The limited information that is available about current training programs indicates that in some cases, programs are 460 percent higher in cost than the total tuition, fees, and room and board of the average four-year private university, and exceed the average four-year public university by over 1,000 percent," he added.
Grassley said OPM does not collect complete, reliable information on how many federal employees participate in these training activities, or how much this training costs each year – and further, that OPM does not compare the training to other types of training that may be available on the open market at a cheaper price.
