Rats, Foiled Again

What do you do with a Department of Agriculture employee who failed to notice a rat infestation at a pasta factory? Overturn his punishment and reward him with back pay, of course:

Now, a federal labor board has directed an arbitrator to consider whether taxpayers also should reimburse the $67,589-a-year federal worker for legal costs–which his union already covered–even though the food inspector didn’t notice rat feces in a storage room where a bag of flour was ripped open.

Critics of government inefficiency call the sequence of events a cautionary tale about the difficulty of punishing, much less firing, federal employees for poor work — even when it endangers public health.

Irvin Boesen is now also suing to recover his legal fees.