Eiffel Tower (Paris, France)Employees of a tiny federal agency that monitors government ethics spent nearly as much money traveling to other countries as they did traveling within the United States.

Between January 2006 and October 2010, representatives of the Office of Government Ethics spent about $621,698 on travel. At least 45 percent of that – $281,314 – went toward foreign travel.

Forty-three of the 50 most expensive trips taken by agency employees were to foreign countries, according to records the agency provided to JunketSleuth under a federal Freedom of Information Act request. The locations for five other trips were not provided by the agency.

The international travel by Office of Government Ethics employees included 20 trips to France, nine to China, seven to Austria and five to Japan. OGE staffers also visited Vietnam, Italy, Singapore, South Korea, Estonia, Belgium and Brazil.

“Conference attendance” was the reason given for 20 of the trips. Agency employees cited “speech or presentation” for 18 other trips, and “training” for one.

Forty-one more trips were listed under the category of “other travel purpose.”

Employees made more trips to France than to either California or Texas, the states with the top two populations in the United States.

The Office of Government Ethics, which has fewer than 80 employees and an annual budget of about $14 million, issues opinions in ethics matters, reviews the ethics programs in federal departments and works with other nations in treaty matters affecting government corruption. It became a separate agency within the executive branch of the federal government in 1989, and it is charged with fostering “high ethical standards for employees” and with strengthening “the public's confidence that the government's business is conducted with impartiality and integrity,” according to its website.

The agency has only one office location, in Washington, D.C.

One employee – Jane Ley – accounted for 25 percent of the $938,995 that the Office of Government Ethics spent on travel between May 2002 and October 2010.

Ley, who has been with the agency since its creation in 1979, currently is deputy director for International Assistance and Governance Initiatives. Her unit coordinates support of U.S. efforts in promoting international ethics and anti-corruption programs.

Ley made 134 trips on the agency’s behalf, at a total cost of $233,945.  They included 15 trips to France, six to Austria, four to China and two each to Argentina and Japan.

Ley was the traveler for 32 of the agency’s 50 most expensive trips since 2002. She also took the single most expensive trip, a seven-day visit to Singapore that cost $12,813, or more than $1,800 a day.

In all, 48 of her trips were to foreign countries, nine were within the United States and the 77 were to destinations not identified in the information provided to JunketSleuth.

In the midst of an ailing economy and budget problems, OGE employees increased travel spending. They spent about $130,000 for the first nine months of 2010, or $10,000 more than for all of 2009, when OGE travelers spent $120,151.

In response to written questions from JunketSleuth, agency officials said that the travel was justified. The Office of Government Ethics, they noted, provides vital training and other services to federal agencies.

“Many employees serve as panel chairs, subject experts or as speakers” at the National Government Ethics Conference, which lasts up to three days and is held about every 18 months, the agency officials said.

The Office of Government Ethics participates in international anti-corruption efforts, which helps explain the overseas trips.

“The foreign travel of OGE employees was official travel undertaken in support of these U.S. foreign policy initiatives,” the agency officials said.

A “very substantial portion” of the money spent on international travel was later recouped from the Department of State through a program in which the Office of Government Ethics provides experts to Department of State entities, including the International Law Enforcement and Narcotics Bureau, agency officials said.

Other foreign travel, they said, was paid for by non-government entities, making the agency’s “out-of-pocket” foreign travel costs “limited.”

Of the $162,783 the Office of Government Ethics spent on travel in fiscal year 2010, they said, only $59,055 was not reimbursed by other entities.

Concerning Ley’s travel, OGE officials said:

“Ms. Ley has represented the US in a number of international venues over he years... She has been with the agency since its creation and, as such, has a breadth of knowledge about OGE’s programs.”

All of Ley’s 2010 trips, they said, were paid for by the Department of State, with the exception of one trip financed by the organization Group of States Against Corruption.