How NOT to get away with procurement fraud

[thatcrazycajun]

Buy stuff with your state-issued procurement credit card like a popcorn machine, a wide-screen TV, robotic vacuums, a treadmill and football tickets. And a Jet Ski. Seriously.

What gets me is not just the unethical behavior, but the sheer stupidity of thinking she could make not one, but several extravagant purchases like that on the state's dime and not have someone notice, sooner or later. A frakking Jet Ski?!? This isn't picking up a couple videos at the corner Blockbuster, people.

I've done some less-than-upright and truly idiotic shit in my time—even when I theoretically had reason to know better—but compared to this spectacularly dumbassed, dishonest person, I feel like a Rhodes scholar. And the irony of her having been employed by one of the country's premier institutions of higher learning at the time has not escaped me, either. This is either a case of monumental lack of forethought...or of brass balls the size of the Death Star. (Can one say a woman has "balls"? Or should it be "ovaries"?)

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

*blink blink* Jet Ski?

I got two questions. One, what was she thinking? *Was* she thinking? I'm thinking Milledgeville might be the better destination for her than Hapeville.... I think she's missing a whole *bunch* of french fries out of her Happy Meal....

Two, why the heck did it take a tip for the state auditors to discover this? A freakin' JET SKI, for Buzz' sake! I just don't get that. I remember when I worked for Tech anything over a grand had to go through this massive PO process... unless it was on the State List, and that was a pretty limited number of items. I don't think Jet Skis were on there.

*shakes head* Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot. I'm just glad she didn't turn out to be an *alum*....

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

>>*blink blink* Jet Ski?<<
That was pretty much my own reaction when I heard the story.

The impression I get is that the state had, up to this point, been issuing these P-cards left, right and center with an alarming lack of supervision and accountability for how, where and when they were used. This isn't the first time someone's misuse of one has made the news around here since I've been living down here.

Supposedly, the state has put sterner procedures in place to prevent this sort of thing happening again. Then again, this is the state government. Of Georgia. We shall see.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

This is the state government. Of Georgia.

Whose minions probably went to the University[sic] thereof... (couldn't resist getting in a dig at the Dawgs... :)

'course, particularly with the budget in a bind, I bet they make it a right royal pain in the tushie now to get even legit stuff... *sigh*

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

*blink blink* Jet Ski?

Fast get a way?

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

First - what was wrong with the accounting department, which should have checked over all p-card purchases, that they did not catch this sooner? Second - with all of the flagrant examples of government officials, what else do you expect?

Welcome to The Crazy Years - Part II.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

(Love the icon!)

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I think it is appropriate for commenting on people who are acting like absolute idiots.

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

Credit cards are a recent addition to the growing panoply of ways and means to purchase University supplies. I do much of the purchases for our research lab, and I've just started using a credit card attached to one of our research grants. As an alternative to the regular Requisition Form's paperwork meandering path, the credit card can be better when the vendor offers a discount, or when my boss (the Authorized Signatory for the Req Forms) is out of town.

Every time I wield the card, though, I'm reminded of the job I held whose research grant (and my salary) was spent out from under me by a grad student's expensive misinterpretation of the PI's instructions while the PI was away in South America.
No one who truly knows the meaning of being paid on soft money could do what that lady did.

The Joke Is

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

If she had purchased items related to her department and then resold them on the open market, she likely would never have gotten caught.
Instant gratification fucks you over again.

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

We constantly hear about dumbcrap things where people who have a federal government credit card were hung up to dry for buying stuff like this; most feds, like me, are screamingly aware that it would mean their job to screw around this way.

[singingpatient.livejournal.com]

i live in NJ and this crap is in the paper so often, i have to put my paper on vacation stop for a month at a time to get my blood pressure back under control