Federal Employees May Lose Access to Free Yoga Classes

May 22, 2016

Federal employees who have been enjoying free yoga and Pilates classes as a fringe benefit of their job may have to lose this benefit soon. A US senator has introduced legislation to stop these classes. He has introduced a bill that wants the government to stop spending money on these classes in order to stop wasting the money of the American taxpayers. The bill was introduced after another senator pointed out a few ways in which the government was wasting taxpayers’ money.

Legislation that Impacts Federal Employees’ Fitness

Republican candidate, Sen. Matt Salmon has recently introduced legislation that aims to stop government agencies to stop spending money on the yoga and related classes of federal employees. He stated that the federal government agencies were spending more than $150,000 on these exercise sessions of employees. The figure was counted since the year 2013. The legislation is H.R. 5242 and it is a part of the Shrink our Spending Initiative taken by Salmon.

Not Competing with Startups

Salmon issued a statement in which he said that startups are offering unique benefits to their employees because they want the employees to play a role in developing the business with a new culture. But the bureaucrats in Washington are paid by the hard-earned money of the taxpayers and these sorts of fringe benefits are a waste of dollars taken away from all the American families. He also pointed out that the government should stop trying to be like Google because it isn’t like any private sector company.

The Spending

A press release from Salmon’s office has recently revealed that the two agencies, Department of Energy and the State Department have spent over $168,000 on Pilates and yoga classes of employees in the last 5 years. Out of the $168,000, the Department of Energy awarded over $30,000 in grants to employees for yoga services since the year 2013. The Energy Department also spent $11,000 to offer Pilates classes just to the employees working in California.

The Data Source

The amount of money spent on yoga and Pilates classes of federal employees was first highlighted in the report presented by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that was offered recently. The report declared that the federal government was bending over backward to waste the taxpayers’ money. It is believed that the bill was introduced by Salmon in response to that report only.