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• Why not make it mandatory to use your personal credit card for travel exnenses? The small group that can't qualify for a personal CC or prefer to use a govt CC would be the accounts that need to be closely monitored. One hopefully would think twice about making charges to their personal CC for which they may not get reimbursed.

  Wheel Posted Thursday, April 10, 2008 6:20 PM

• Lets see 2 engraved Ipods, $500 lingerie, 2 vehicles a Toyota 4 Runner and a sedan, $12k for a dinner. Yep Tom no outlandish spending here. No one was disciplined or lost their job, hey there's more money where that came from. Oh by the way we want pay parity with the private sector Ahhh civil sevice priceless!!!

  dan ketter Posted Thursday, April 10, 2008 6:23 PM

• I'm old enough to remember the time before government purchase cards. The purchasing process was slow and many retailers would not accept the purchase orders. Even with the slow system, abuses still took place. Let's get real - the need is to discipline those who abuse the system, not to create a system where the standard is no abuse. The government will spend more money preventing the abuse than they currently lose through improper purchases.

  Will Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 7:02 AM

• There is no such thing as credit card abuse. It's real name is theft and it should be delt with accordingly.

  Doug Allston Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 7:55 AM

• This is a no-brainer:

  Measures short of legislation requiring costly audits and related time-wasters:

  1. Establish policy on credit card use

  2. Educate government credit card holders on the proper use of the cards

  3. Punish those who abuse the cards

  4. Periodically review credit card use and abuse to see if something else needs to be done

  What else can an agency do?

  Morris21654 Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 8:26 AM

• Tom,

  I think you did your job too well. The quote above says zero is the goal. Your response is why should zero be the standard.

  Dictionary.com's first definition is "the result or achievement toward which effort is directed; aim; end." I think it's a worthy GOAL to direct efforts TOWARDS zero abuse.

  A standard is defined differently: "something considered by an authority or by general consent as a basis of comparison." It can also be considered "an average or normal requirement." I think that's what you're implying.

  If Johnson came out with a plan and budget that had it's sole measurement to be zero CC abuse, then your alarm is justified. If he states that a goal to strive for is zero abuse, then the alarm is falsely set off.

  Journalists and lawyers have to work with nuance on slow news days to generate readers' interest, but readers need to recognize when something is important and not just there to fill the column.

  Dan

  Definition Dan Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 9:45 AM

• Dan:

  In the quote, Johnson not only sets a goal of zero, he explicitly says "we need to make it zero." That clearly implies to me that he's setting more of a standard than a goal.

  Tom Shoop Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 9:52 AM

• Why do we keep hearing these excesses? The cards have controls that can be programed into them. I travel and I can pay for my hotel, transportation, restaurants, and rental car. However If I want to cook for myself, I cannot use it at a grocery store. The programming my agency has set up does not allow me to use it at a grocery store. I cannot use at Staples to buy office supplies or to pay to Fed Ex some of my work back to the office. Before travel cards, I could incur all these expenses and put it on my voucher. Then a human had to review the voucher and approve it.

  James Boyd Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 10:27 AM

• The real issue is why there is a mandatory government travel card program in the first place. I am told 1) I must have a card, 2) it is issued in my name (subject to a PERSONAL credit history check), & 3) I may not use it for anything other than govt-authorized items despite the fact it is my personal responsibility to pay the bill every month. Meanwhile, some govt contractor is profiting from the industry they've built to "manage" the program. Here's an idea--use your own funds/card/checks/etc. while traveling, submit a voucher for the reimbursed expenses, and get your money back. If that's not a viable option, then give travelers a "company card" programmed to allow only official expenses. The FM office gets the bills every month and monitors who spent what. If someone abuses that, then you have the authority DISCIPLINE them. But if the govt insists on putting my name on the account, then stay out of my wallet!

  BAW Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 11:08 AM

• I can recall when I accidently handed a store clerk my government charge card instead of my personal charge card(that card was the same color folks) when purchasing a Barbie Doll for my daughter when I was on a trip.

  It was refused at the point of sale, and the error was discovered at once. Why can't all these other cards work the same?

  iggy Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 12:07 PM

• My mistake--I thought the article involved TRAVEL cards; I see this was a report on PURCHASE card abuse/misuse. While I stand by my comment re: travel cards, I in no way condone the misuse of the purchase card. Simply put, the types of gross misappropriation of funds described in the article should have resulted in immediate dismissal. The government has an image problem that is perpetuated by worthless and dishonest employees who are allowed to retain their positions.

  BAW Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 12:21 PM

• Interesting. My union has defended members who were suspended because of charges run up by actual card and identity thieves, which were properly reported when found and paid promptly, even though the charges were not made by the cardholder. Didn't matter to the agency. All they saw was inappropriate cash advances and charges. Now we hear about other agencies where people are using their cards to purchase gift items, vehicles, and pay for conference dinners, with no consequences for the persons responsible. The policies should be uniform for EVERYBODY, from GS-5 inspectors up to SES managers.

  Tom N Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 12:27 PM

• Stop all travel cards. Nobody wants them. They are a payoff to banks etc for political contributions.

  Wise Old Owl Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 1:34 PM

• Carefully check your Agency's regulations, you may find there is not a mandatory requirement to use a gov travel card, unless booking airline tickets.

  Travel Card Posted Saturday, April 12, 2008 2:17 PM

• Lots of people here think this is about travel cards. It is not. It is about small purchase cards, which replaced the old paperwork for supply requisitions with private vendors, and in fact saves the Gov't a LOT of money each year, because it brings Gov't purchases into the same general system that corporate America and the average citize uses - commercial credit cards like VISA. Business are set up to deal with VISA, etc. I know how this program works and if there is abuse of the small purchase card it is because comeone is not doing their job. There are plenty of safeguards in this system, not least of which is that the purchaser (cardholder) cannot approve payment of the bill. A second reviewer is supposed to approve payment. So unless you have a conspiracy to defraud the Gov't between the purchaser and reviewer (which is possible, but not likely in most instances) the "mistakes" should get caught. Then on top of that, the Agency itself should be doing periodic local audits, which brings in a third party to review the purchases and see if they are getting it right. If an Agency needs GAO to audit them and find these egregious deviations from the rules then they are failing at managing the program properly and should have their credit card program suspended or at the very least completely overhauled. I'm not saying that there won't be mistakes or even cases of abuse, even for those Agencies with a good oversight system in place, but they should be minimum and not so blatant if you have the proper safeguards in place.

  JT Posted Monday, April 14, 2008 7:53 AM

• First offense = termination...simple.

  Mike Posted Monday, April 14, 2008 10:16 AM

• Wheel,

  The government gets reimbursement for credit card charges from the credit card issuer. For the billions of dollars the government spends through travel and small purchase cards, these reimbursements are substantial. If the benefits of the cards didn't outweigh the costs to the government, I assure you these cards would go away quickly. The trouble is this "abuse" is not simple. In some cases, things were chargedfor agency use that the GAO disagrees with. In other instances there were paperwork deficiences with no fraud or misallocation of funds. In others, outright theft. I have accidentally charged a personal expense to my travel card. I notified my supervisor and paid the bill. The taxpayers were completely unharmed by this "abuse". I am glad I wasn't fired for a simple mistake. I had a supervisor who forbid anyone in his branch from getting a small purchase card. He reasoned that to hold clerical employees reponsible for complying with all of the provisions of the Federal Acquistion Regulation, as small purchase card holders a required to do, was to much to expect. I see that he was correct. Also, Dan Ketter, glad to see you have a broad spectrum of uniformed opinions on almost every topic. Keep it up Buddy! I enjoy reading you.

  DJ Posted Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:06 PM

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