Tools to prevent inappropriate government spending
Govpro checked in with Chris Rossie, vice president, Public Sector and International, at Atlanta-based Oversight Systemson the topic of questionable spending practices in government. Agencies at the federal, state and local level rely on Oversight’s predictive analytics to prevent cash leakage, stop potential fraud and misuse, and strengthen operational processes.Many of Oversight Systems’ clients rely on the company to deliver critical real-time visibility into bad spending behavior.
Govpro: Can federal agencies successfully eliminate inappropriate spending, such as the extravagant spending reported at GSA for a Las Vegas conference?
Chris Rossie: First, one needs to determine whether inappropriate spending can be identified. The answer to that is Yes. A number of government agencies have taken steps to proactively predict improper payments before they occur so they can take steps to investigate and, when necessary, stop the payment from occurring. So identification of improper or inappropriate payments is really the first step in the process of eliminating improper and/or inappropriate spending. The next step is to ensure there is an effective process for reviewing, investigating and taking action on improper and/or inappropriate spending.
Making this happen relies on two items being in place. First, there needs to be an effective and efficient process for reviewing potentially improper or inappropriate spending. Second, there needs to be an effective and efficient process for tracking the actions taken during review and ultimately addressing the improper or inappropriate payment.
The Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Education (ED), and the Census Bureau are examples of government agencies that effectively and efficiently identify improper and/or inappropriate payments through automated transaction analysis. [The agencies] have regimented processes for reviewing and taking action on improper and/or inappropriate payments, and include in their processes audit trails outlining the underlying conditions that indicate improper or inappropriate payment(s) along with the actions taken to stop them.
Since beginning its program in 2008, the DoD has prevented over $4 billion in improper payments. ED is monitoring over $250 billion in federal education grants, and Census is ensuring that excluded government vendors don’t receive payments.
Govpro will have more of Chris Rossie’s views on monitoring to prevent inappropriate spending in a future Govpro posting.
Go here for Govpro’s report on proposed legislation that will require an annual audit of the federal GSA. The push for auditing legislation followed news bulletins about lavish spending at a Las Vegas GSA regional conference.
