Supervision Is Over Worked
"State auditors found that [Georgia] Tech employees responsible for reviewing card use were overseeing too many cardholders, In one case, a p-card coordinator oversaw purchases for 116 cards.
"Tech has overhauled its policy, including reducing the number of cards any one supervisor must monitor. And, instead of assuming charges are legitimate until there's reason to suspect otherwise, cardholders may now be required to demonstrate their purchases are work-related."
From an article on ajc.com.
We have a scandal here in Georgia, with a capital S. It seems pretty much everyone that works for the state has a "p-card," a debit card that they are to use to buy things that are job related.
The Atlanta Journal=Constitution has run a few exposes over the second half of this year indicating that payment of an employee's debt to a debt collecter, massages, vacation travel and so on have been charged to the cards. A few have resigned, some have been fired, more maybe in the firing line.
But the quote above, from the current article, floors me. Who among you couldn't look at charges on a hundred credit cards once a month in say, what two hours? What kind of business or government assumes a payment is OK without support? "Maybe" Tech employeees will be required to prove they aren't stealing?
4 comments:
I can see how that sort of thing could snowball in a hurry. When you see your coworkers getting free massages and vacations, it's hard to be a Responsible Adult and do what your supposed to do.
Merry Christmas to you and yours, Mr. Dave.
Take care of you.
I'm wondering how the problem got to be so big and so widespread. I had a job with a corporate card once. Any time I spent money with it, I still had to fill out an expense report. They definitely looked at how the money was being spent and you had to justify it.
Why are state employees not required to document their purchases? Simply having that as a requirement ought to cut down on questionable purchases.
I'm sure everyone has heard - or said - the old line about "if government had to operate like private industry," profit making companies things would be a lot different. Pennsylvania has the same basic mode of operation as Georgia seems to have - spend with no accountability. As Fermicat said, when I worked for a large organization in D.C. many years ago, anyone who had a company credit card also had to make darned sure they had receipts to document every one of those purchases as well as any expenditures, out-of-pocket they made in order for the company to approve payment to the credit card company or to reimburse the employee for their expense accounts. One would think good management, good business principles, would dictate that is the only way to fly, don't 'cha think? Apparently governmental operations differ completely with that theory though.
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