Forest Service Purchase Cards

Since 1999, GAO has designated Forest Service's financial management as a high-risk area because of internal control and accounting weaknesses that have been identified by the Inspector General and GAO. Given these known risks and the hundreds of millions of dollars in credit card purchases made by the agency each year, GAO was asked to review the Forest Service's fiscal year 2001 purchase card transactions to determine whether (1) existing internal controls were designed to provide reasonable assurance that improper purchases would be prevented or detected, (2) purchases were made in accordance with established policies and procedures, and (3) purchases were made for a reasonable cost and reflected a legitimate government need.

Internal control weaknesses in the Forest Service's purchase card program leave the agency vulnerable to, and in some cases, resulted in, improper, wasteful, and questionable purchases. These weaknesses included inadequate segregation of duties over purchases, supervisory review and approval of purchases, monitoring activities, and control over property used in Forest Service activities. For example, GAO found instances where items highly susceptible to theft, such as all terrain vehicles, digital cameras, and snowmobiles, were purchased and retained by cardholders, but no records of the items were created in Forest Service systems. These weaknesses likely contributed to approximately $2.7 million in improper, wasteful, and questionable purchases identified in our review. GAO identified purchases that totaled over $1.6 million that were improper because they violated law, regulation, or agency policy. These included purchases that had been split into two or more segments to avoid the cardholder's single purchase limit, purchases that had been paid for twice, purchases that exceeded single transaction limits, purchases for which required approvals were not obtained, purchases of unauthorized items, transactions on accounts of former employees, and instances where cardholders wrote convenience checks to themselves. GAO also found purchases totaling $212,104 that it considered wasteful because they were excessive in cost relative to available alternatives or were for a questionable government need. Further, GAO found purchases totaling $869,825 that it considered to be questionable because the Forest Service either could not provide supporting documentation for them, or supporting documentation was incomplete or incorrect and GAO was unable to determine whether the purchases were proper.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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