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Using Credit Cards at HUD - It’s Like Free Money

Mixing Apples and Oranges

Observer
HUD
Mon Nov 8, 2004 12:55 PM

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Certainly there is plenty of misconduct connected with the two government credit card programs. But it doesn't help correct the problem when people like the author mix them up with each other.
See, the HUD GAO report you linked to this article has nothing to do with the government travel charge card program which the people at USDA misused to get cash advances.
The HUD GAO report was about the Government Purchase Card program, which is a more efficient subsitute for the old paper purchase orders for micro-purchases.
Mind you, problems with the design of the agency's government purchase card program were plenty serious, but they are more easily corrected, and more easily caught, since the actual bills got to the government. Whereas for government travel charge cards, the bills go to the employee's home address, and the government oversight person has to review management reports after the fact.
And match purchases up with travel orders to determine whether a particular expense is valid.
Maybe we should junk the travel charge card program and its efficiencies, and go back to the more expensive, but less front-page-worthy system of cash travel advances for all official travel.
Then it's just the boring accounting people chasing down filing of travel vouchers, requiring repayment of excess advances, etc.

Using credit cards at HUD is like free money

HR Asst
irs
Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:23 AM

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I found this article very disturbing. All this waste and no one has to account for any of it. Take away the credit cards from everyone for crying out loud. This total waste of taxpayer money has continued too long. I used my credit card for legit purschases. I knew a bill would be arriving soon after the trip. It never did. So I mailed in a pmt to the company saying I never received a bill but I think this is what I might owe. It wasn't. I owed 73.00 more. I was called on the carpet by mgmt to explain why I didn't pay the bill in its entirety. Go figure! I told mgmt, I will never travel again. I will not deal with this pettiness. But HUD....Are they hiring???

Using Credit Cards at HUD

Procurement
Department of the Army
Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:58 AM

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If using Government credit cards at HUD is 'like free money' then various people in that organization are not being held accountable - Headquarters general organizational management and more specifically, Resource Management leadership of that organization.

Excerpt from article: "GAO says that HUD does not have a system of internal controls that enables investigators to determine how much of a problem exists. But the auditors did find plenty of smoking guns to enable them to conclude that the lack of controls 'created an environment in which improper purchases could be made with little risk of detection and likely contributed to the $2.3 million in improper, potentially improper, and questionable purchases GAO identified.' "

In this era of technology - this is amazing & unacceptable.

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