Editorial: A question of leadership

Thursday, July 20, 2006 | 7:28 a.m.

Yet another scandal involving reckless spending by federal employees has been uncovered. This latest scandal involves purchases made by dozens of Homeland Security employees on their government-issued credit cards.

Federal auditors examined purchases made during five months last year, including months following Hurricane Katrina when the spending limits on many of the credit cards were increased from $2,500 to $250,000.

Raising the spending limit in a time of emergency would have been fine - if there had been rules in place establishing oversight procedures.

But the Government Accountability Office, which audited the purchases at the request of Congress, discovered that a manual setting forth credit-card spending policies has long been planned by Homeland Security officials but has never been completed.

As a result, the GAO estimated that 45 percent of the more than $400 million worth of Homeland Security's credit card purchases last year were improper.

One purchase was for $68,442 worth of booties for rescue dogs. As the dogs are led into shattered areas and encounter broken glass, protruding nails, caustic substances and other dangers, some amount of booties would seem reasonable under a coordinated spending plan. But in this case, the booties ended up in a warehouse, unused.

Many other purchases were made in similarly uncoordinated and unsupervised fashion, sticking taxpayers with higher-than retail costs and with expensive items that are either unnecessary or missing.

Other scandals uncovered over the past few months have included a financial aid program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Katrina, in which at least $1 billion fell into the hands of con artists. Additionally, the Small Business Administration was found to have mismanaged a loan program after 9/11. Thousands of low-interest loans were given to businesses all around the country that were financially unaffected by the terrorist attacks.

The GAO cited a "lack of leadership" for the accounting lapses within Homeland Security. It is very troubling to hear this term applied to the department upon which our country depends for its safety. Congress should follow up this report with hearings into Homeland Security's all-around preparedness.