To: Tumbleweed_Connection
I say we start a national campaign of tax payers who refuse to pay another cent until the govt gets it's accounting in order.
They obviously don't need my money if they can write off the losses of billions.
2 posted on
10/14/2002 10:16:00 AM PDT by
Endeavor
To: Tumbleweed_Connection
The price we pay for affirmative action.
3 posted on
10/14/2002 10:24:07 AM PDT by
BIGZ
To: Tumbleweed_Connection
I'm getting a warm fuzzy feelin' in my tummy as I write out my last $3000.00 check to "da man" for this year. Last trip to the accountant is tonight. Whose B.S. slush fund will MY hard earned money wind up in?
To: MissAmericanPie
- "Year after year, auditors studying the financial records of federal government departments find many of them so disorganized, even chaotic, that the agencies cannot account for tens of billions of dollars.
- when many agencies realize that they have made major accounting errors, rather than looking back to see where the money went, they simply enter multibillion-dollar balance adjustments, writing off the money.
- the federal government's accounts would "never be tolerated in the private sector,"
- early this year began rating the 24 largest federal departments, scoring each green, yellow or red. Green indicates that the agency's financial systems are acceptable, yellow that they are troubled but improving and red that there are serious, chronic problems. In the most recent rating, completed in June, only one agency was rated green, the tiny National Science Foundation. Twenty were rated red.
- the department's financial records are so chaotic the agency has more than 1,100 accounting systems that Congress advised the agency's auditors not to bother even trying to audit them.
- the Agriculture Department, NASA and the Agency for International Development had unauditable books in 2000-2001.
- The Internal Revenue Service, for example, is unable to produce a hard figure for the amount of tax payments due the government. Instead it runs a statistical sample of taxes due and from that derives an estimate an arduous process that takes several months. That estimate is one of the figures the government uses to plan spending for the year..
- in 1994, required each agency for the first time to produce annual financial statements. Those reports would be subject to audit, and in 1996, the first year audited statements were due, only 6 of the 24 agencies produced statements that it was possible to audit.
- An additional law, in 1996, required major agencies to install a financial accounting system that could generate auditable statements and give managers the ability to examine the agency's situation before making decisions on programs or policies something they could not do.
- The government's financial rating system shows the Department of Agriculture to be the worst managed major agency. [Note: Meanwhile, back on the farm]. The agency's financial statements are in such disarray that they have been unauditable since 1994. "I can't tell you what's in that figure," said the senior auditor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I don't think they even know." Behind it, audit reports show, is a department in financial disarray. After seven years of trying, the Agriculture Department recently completed installation of a financial accounting system. But another inspector general's audit, last summer, found the system to be largely dysfunctional because of user errors and unauthorized modifications. For example the system uses a "funds control" program to limit spending to the budgeted amount. In 68 accounts, the audit said, agency employees had overridden the control, or not turned it on, leading to $1.3 billion in what was apparently overspending. When auditors tried to view the system's override log, to see how the overspending had occurred, they found it turned off. The system included a payment limit for each check of $999,999. But users who could not be identified by auditors had added a digit, changing the limit to $9,999,999. Contrary to agency rules requiring approval from supervisors, more than 2,200 agency employees had been authorized to process certain payments with no oversight or approval, raising the risk of fraud, auditors said. In addition, 186 people who no longer worked for the department still had approved access to the system."
Please send Washington D.C. more and more money
To: Tumbleweed_Connection
The bill is coming due and the piper is demanding his damned money.
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