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illiter-it t1_jc2rduk wrote

Reply to comment by superpowerwolf in U.S. government agencies may have been double billed for projects in Wuhan, China, records indicate; probe launched by Jamalginsbergback

I have a feeling this happens a lot in the federal government (and probably states). We see it with the Pentagon, but they resist efforts for thorough audits.

Frankly, a government-wide spring cleaning/audit might be nice, at the very least to just be sure.

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RubberPny t1_jc3ab5f wrote

Private as well. Let me give you an example. My former job had a property with a few "trailers" on it, that it was using as temporary offices. Said trailers cost, $20,000 each to outright buy. Ok so 2 trailers x $20,000 = $40,000, not bad to own 2 good to go offices. Turns out, they did not buy them, they used a "rental" from the trailer company, where they were paying $2000/month.....for 20 years, a total of $960,000 wasted on rentals over a 20 year period, when they could have outright bought them for $40,000. Of course, no one in finance caught this, they were just writing the check each month for the rental, without a review of bills payable. When the CEO learned of this, the trailers were gone within one week. LOL

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outerproduct t1_jc408sv wrote

Thems some fine $1M trailers. They come with a Ferrari, too?

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RubberPny t1_jc41n18 wrote

We were thinking that someone in the trailer rental company were probably crying that day once they found out the offices were being sent back. 😂

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Demmetros t1_jc52dac wrote

You'll get a Rolls-Royce... As long as ya pay for it

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Standard_Wooden_Door t1_jc4b2o0 wrote

Auditor here. It’s not our job to figure out if the company is pissing money away. It’s our job to provide reasonable assurance that those transactions are recorded properly. Unless it is fraud or the company is in danger of folding, we don’t care if the company is making poor choices.

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Honalana t1_jc6tazg wrote

An entity I worked for got an award because an audit was able to clearly track all the money they spent. Not that the money was well spent. Basically just that the money was accounted for. And they would tout this award as if it showed they were fiscally responsible but it didn’t. Irritates the shit out of me.

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Amphabian t1_jc3yyn4 wrote

I'm an accountant with 8 years experience, 4 of those working for the Department of Transportation; double billing happens all the fuckin time and is easily reconciled. I wish we'd do a thorough audit of the Department of Defense, I'd LOVE to see what those books look like lol

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thisusedyet t1_jc48vxl wrote

Always loved the bit in Independence Day where they explain that’s how they fund Area 51

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theknyte t1_jc4hzaj wrote

"You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?"

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scotchdouble t1_jc51vzq wrote

I like John Hurt in Contact: “why build one when you can have two at twice the price? Only, this one can be kept secret.”

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Mrsparkles7100 t1_jc5ww6g wrote

You talking about the Pentagon Audits? First one was in 2018 I believe of course it failed.

My favourite in the buildup to its audit was this

"The Army found 39 Black Hawk helicopters that had not been properly recorded in its property system.

"The Air Force identified 478 buildings and structures at 12 installations that were not in its real property system,"

First audit in 2017/18. Believe they expect to fully pass a clean audit in 2028.

For fun look into Air America CIAs covert air force, had Air America Inc and all these smaller companies beneath it. How they made numerous air line companies to support their covert actions. Also these same companies took on normal government transportation contracts. Was an extra source of income that was separate from their own CIA budget.

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lameth t1_jcajkxc wrote

As someone who has been responsible for property disposition (though much, much lower in cost) within the Army, I can entirely see how this happened.

Let's say you report something as broken. For whatever reason, it cannot be repaired. You are keeping it on your books until you get your replacement. The replacement comes in, and you now have the task of turning the old one in to be destroyed/decommissioned. You assume (or are told) the new one has been already added to the property book. However, the new one hasn't. For a while, the old one is retained on the property book until the new one is in the system. Whenever you do your property count (by serial number), it is noted the new one is the replacement for the old one, with the turn-in paperwork for the old one maintained as proof.

Suddenly the old one is off the books, new one isn't on it. Huh, that's odd... So you go to the records office and get the new serial number added to the system. You're done, right? Not necessarily. Just because locally it is fixed, doesn't mean it is in the centralized database.

Accountability of high value items is a pain, and in my case it was left to someone that had 2 years in the army and took a 40-hour class in security and record keeping.

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Krunch007 t1_jc3lhso wrote

Remember that guy that just sent bogus bills to like Facebook and Google and they just paid? Over $100m in bills, for over two years, until they finally caught him?

It'll happen man...

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NozE8 t1_jc3yw3c wrote

I wonder if it became a game for him or if it was just straight greed that made him keep going over 100m? I feel like if buddy had stopped at a couple million from each he might have gotten away with it. Before a certain threshold a huge company has to pay whatever because it's going to cost way more in lawyer fees let alone accountants and whatever else to fight it.

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Amphabian t1_jc3z6qx wrote

When a nerd with a ruler shows up and asks for your ledgers you know you're about to get caught.

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cursedjayrock t1_jc3ea82 wrote

Wouldn’t I be great if the Pentagon could pass a single audit though? They must not be doing a great job at resisting these efforts.

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Catssonova t1_jc59lt7 wrote

To be honest, knowing that all Rand Paul cared about in his 2016 election was auditing the entire government (supposedly) it would have been tempting to vote for him even as a republican vs a third party candidate like I did. He was significantly a more closeted asshole at those times. I don't give him the light of day anymore.

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Jmoseph t1_jc6tauu wrote

> they resist efforts for thorough audits

Have you read the Pentagon audits? There's lots to criticize the Pentagon for in this respect but resisting the audits isn't the reason they're unable to account for shit.

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