Card-carrying feds: Apparently, it wasn’t just hurricane refugees who were spending federal money like drunken sailors in the wake of Hurricane Katrina — Department of Homeland Security personnel were punishing their purchase cards, too. The cards are issued to DHS employees to buy necessary items while in the field, but the Government Accountability Office red-flagged a bunch of “questionable purchases,” according to GovExec.com.
The report highlighted instances of wasteful purchases by DHS agencies. Among them: The Secret Service spent more than of $7,000 on iPods and failed to produce evidence that they were actually used for “training and data storage;” and $68,000 went to “canine booties” to protect dog paws from debris during Gulf Coast recovery operations but the “booties continue to sit unused in [Federal Emergency Management Agency] storage.” Additionally, more than 100 FEMA laptops went missing, at a cost of about $300,000, the report said. Also, a 63-inch television bought for $8,000 was found unopened.
Remember those news stories about New Orleans Katrina survivors using their $2,000 FEMA debit cards to buy — gasp! — beer and cigarettes? Man, that’s microscopic potatoes indeed compared to when the feds start playing with the plastic.
For the approximately 10,000 cards in circulation during a five-month period beginning in June 2005, the report found that 45 percent of purchases lacked the required prior written authorization, 63 percent failed to confirm that goods and services were received and 53 percent did not give priority to already designated vendors.
Of course, DHS sought to counter some of the charges:
Late Wednesday, DHS issued a statement saying the iPods in question were “used by the Electronic Crimes Task Force, as such devices are increasingly being used by criminal elements to illicitly store and transfer information,” but did not describe exactly how they were used.
Those criminal elements! I bet they use their iPods to — gasp! — illegally download and store Lil Kim songs off the Internet, so the SS (Secret Service) must emulate them to crack the code of the criminal mind, right? Yah.
Contrite DHS officials told lawmakers they will update and reissue guidelines for use of purchase cards. David Norquist, DHS’ chief financial officer, concluded with this trenchant analysis of the situation: “The government is particularly vulnerable when using purchase cards in times of disaster.”
Duh.
