About this much.
"The Transportation Security Administration Lost Control of over $300 million spent by contractor to hire airport screeners after 9/11."
Wow, the Transportation Security Administration lost track of over $300 million dollars. Naturally they do not have a $300 million dollar bill so they had to make it more complex than accidentally letting it slip out of their wallet.
Sadly, the country's post 9/11 hysteria let contractors create open ended contracts allowing such practices as "mapping" (making the TSA pay for more than what a temp was actually paid. e.g. I hire a typist on behalf of the mayor for $20 and make the government pay me $48 in return), virtual blank checks, and orders to change recruitment centers from the 925 assessment centers already used by the prime contractor, NCS Pearson Inc to 150 more expensive hotel-based assessment centers.
(By the way, NCS Pearson had been used for things like assessing potential Wal-Mart employees and had never before taken on something of this scale.)
These new arrangements increased contracts by at least $343 million to what would eventually become $741 million from what started as a $104 million contract. "But the contract was on a 'time and materials' basis." (Blank checks, go figure). Luckily for tax payers, NCS Pearson was gracious enough to negotiate and settle for $741 million instead of their original $867 million in claimed costs after the audit.
According to the Washington Post, some of the $300 million of the $731 million dollars allocated to the TSA was misappropriated in the name of Homeland Security to such noble causes as:
· $526.95 for one phone call from the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Chicago to Iowa City.
· $1,180 for 20 gallons of Starbucks Coffee -- $3.69 a cup -- at the Santa Clara Marriott in California.
· $1,540 to rent 14 extension cords at $5 each per day for three weeks at the Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colo.
With 186 subcontractors, "public bidding" might as well have gone the way of Haliburton. I mean the administration has been making a fortune off nepotism. Why can't a couple of educational centers do the same?
All in all none of this was really surprising. The TSA is but a tenth of the problem, if that much. Just a little over three days ago Congressman Dent (R) of Pennsylvania pointed out some of the flagrant deficiencies in spending nationwide among the states (pdf). The Department of Homeland Security granted $6.3 billion to the states and only 31% of it was spent. I want to know what happens to the $4 billion dollars not spent. Surely it could be used to help pad the increasing $30.85 billion dollar budget Dent and the Homeland Security Committee proposed. Before we increase the budget maybe we need to figure out how get everyone to spend the money correctly.
Our tax dollars managed to literally pay for plasma televisions, air conditioned garbage trucks and lawn mower drag racing all in the name of Homeland Security.
Even though the executives of Pearson may say these are accepted practices, so was slavery, not allowing women to vote, the existence of county bosses and unsanitary meat packing.
Just because you're stealing from America legally doesn't mean you can gloat about it. Keep stepping on our toes and eventually we'll decide to stop letting you just take our money.
