Spending Controls | The Contracting Education Academy

October 28, 2013 By AMK

DoD gears up for Round 2 of sequestration

Opponents of last year’s across-the-board spending cuts are hoping — perhaps quixotically — that sequestration’s second verse won’t be the same as its first.

Now that a bipartisan deal has ended the government shutdown, the resulting budget conference committee is the new best hope for turning off the cuts that have hit the Pentagon and defense industry hard and threaten to get even worse.

But even though the latest chapter in Washington gridlock is over, very little has actually changed.

“It’s important to note that Congress did not remove the shadow of uncertainty that has been cast over this department and our government much of this year,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday during a press briefing at the Pentagon.

“The damaging cuts of sequestration remain the law of the land,” he said. “In the months ahead, Congress will have an opportunity to remove this shadow of uncertainty as they work to craft a balanced, long-term spending bill.”

Hagel urged lawmakers to give the Defense Department and its vast workforce stability and predictability after the ringer they’ve been through, including sequestration furloughs over the summer and then shutdown furloughs more recently.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/dod-gears-up-for-round-2-of-sequestration-98577.html

August 16, 2013 By AMK

DOT employees made $58 million in improper purchase card charges, IG says

Nearly a quarter of all Transportation Department employee purchase card transactions in fiscal 2010 and 2011 did not comply with DOT rules for employee spending, a departmental Inspector General report says.

During those years, DOT employees spent $277 million in 450,000 transactions on their purchase cards, the report says. About $58 million of that did not comply with DOT employee spending controls, the report says.

Purchase cards are routinely used to supplies and services, the report says.

DOT auditors based the results on a sample of 413 purchases in which 84, totaling $254,000, did not comply with DOT rules.

Offenses ranged from not receiving approval prior to card use, receiving approval for purchases from officials that were not authorized to approve the purchases and not verifying fund availability prior to purchases.

In the sample, about $93,000 in improper charges were made due to not getting preapproval for a purchase. About $65,000 came from the wrong person approving the purchase. And $47,000 came from purchases made without checking if the funds were available, the report says.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/dot-employees-made-58-million-improper-purchase-card-charges-ig-says/2013-07-31

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