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By Alan Scher Zagier
COLUMBIA, Mo.
The Missouri senator whose subcommittee is investigating potential contracting fraud at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday said the number of mislabeled graves there could be in the thousands.
An internal Army investigation found at least 211 discrepancies between burial maps and grave sites at Arlington. The review found lax management of the cemetery and a reliance on paper records to manage the burial sites.
At a news conference Monday in Columbia, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said the number of burial site errors could be much higher because the Army report was limited to a small section of the cemetery.
McCaskill called the growing scandal a matter of "heartbreaking incompetence" and said the military has spent more than $5.5 million over seven years in its unsuccessful attempts to computerize the cemetery's burial records.
"At the very essence here you have waste," she said. "There may be fraud; we don't know at this point."
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' subcommittee on contracting oversight, headed by McCaskill, will hold a hearing in Washington on Thursday on its cemetery investigation.
The list of invited witnesses includes former cemetery superintendent John Metzler and deputy superintendent Thurman Higginbotham.
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Privatizing Government Functions RARELY is Cheaper for taxpayers
Privatization is basically the way that Republicans transfer tax dollars to their cronies and friends who happen to run the businesses. The Dems keep the money in house to reward those who supported them as well. The problem is that private companies will "low ball" initial bids to get the business (see the state's internet contract) then depend on "add ons" later to escalate their bids and profits without having to rebid the contract. Once they are embedded, they use the excuse that there will be huge "upfront" costs for the government to take the service back over (see the recent issues with recycling collection). It also needs to be noted that once a service is privatized, the citizens lose control over the service. (see Southern Shores VFD story). So the taxpayers pay either way and all that happens is that the money goes into a different set of pockets to fund the next political race.
Arlington Mess
This is a prime example of our government at work. Kick all the illegitimate children out of the house and senate. Let's take back our country and start over.
Pitifull
The money spent on trying to computerise the cemetary probably went into the superintedants pockets. It failed because he made it fail. More complicated tasking has been computerized very effectively farther back than our national cemetary has existed. No-one can tell me that their is a ligitimate reason it failed. The money went to Caribean trips, houses, cars, and anything else the superintendant could spend it on. The feds and IRS should audit and investigate him and take back what is believed to be assets acquired by illegal means and return it back to the families affected by this. Then this individual needs to be charged criminally. More people are put away for lessor charges of forging government documents for smaller things. This man desicrated our fallen heros.
privatizing
A friend of mine's Father was just buried at Arlington, and we talked extensevely about the sad issues there.
So many people including our own governor wants to privatize everything, and Arlington is a perfect example of why we should not.
What has happened at Arlington is 'heartbreaking' for the families and friends of those who are affected.
Regulation we dont need no stinkin regulation
Turn everything over to private business, they always do it better. Everyday we are inundated with the cry "no regulation", "private business can do it better" and everyday we learn about another private business that cheats us and really messes things up. Now we have a monument to our nations war heroes forever tainted because of the lack of oversight and the greed of private business.
Yes. Just blame business...
There are bad business people in the world just as there are good. There are idiots in government as there are those trying to do what is right.
My main question is where was the Govt oversight on this? Someone dropped the ball somewhere and they should be made to pay.
Agreed!!!!
What has happened over the past couple decades in the Fed is that in an effort to streamline govt it outsourced much of its procurement and contract management to private companies. Bone-headed as that is. And here is why: The well paid contractors paid their employees better than the Federal counterparts and to get the experience the firms needed they hired Federal employees. This drained the Fed of its in-house expertise and institutional knowledge and crippled its internal capacity. The contractors knowing this reality had taken place took advantage of it. In the end the Fed provided little oversight due to lack of internal resources to manage the contracts and the contractors (many of whom received their contracts through no-bid awards)operated with impunity. A Fed paper was issued in 2006 that detailed the major cracks in the Federal procurement/contracting sector and decided they needed to bring the activities back in house. They still have a long way to go. Now we hear mantras of outsourcing local/state in the same manner. Watch out
Your post is chock full of holes.
Specifically:
The designation one needs to initiate procurement action for the federal govt is called a contract warrant - and those are only available to federal civil service employees - not contractors.
Contractors do not pay their employees more than govt employees, and their job security is non-existent - that is why govt uses contractors - cheaper, more flexible labor.
Your assertion that contractors "lure" federal employees over to their side is ridiculous. I've been doing this well over 30 years - and I've known lots of contractors scratching and clawing to get hired into civil service. I never saw one, repeat not one, civil servant ever quit the govt to go to work for a contractor.
The Problem...
Is wide spread and almost too complex to really discuss at length here but I'll try. The Federal system has seen large increases in both the volume of procurements and their complexity-same goes for state and localities. But at the same time the numbers of professionals in the field have remained stagnant. Some of the most experienced are retiring and going into the private sector or state/locality procurement offices. I know this because I have met them. It would serve the govt better if these people with remaining years would stay rather than go elsewhere because there are not enough experienced people down the line to take over. This had caused a brain drain at all govt procurement levels. And yes the private sector pay is better. It is a well known fact that in highly professional careers public sector pay lags private sector pay. Look up what is called the "double imbalance". When factors such as age, education level, work complexity, and tenure, are considered public secotr employess earn less than their private sector counterparts.
Additionally...
I have seen MANY private sector employees (including ones working for firms performing govt contracts) straight out decline offers from state and locality offices. Not quite sure about the Fed at this point in time. But this does create a problem in getting even basic level positions filled. In recent years the Fed, as a result of research out of papers like the Chicago Fed of 2006, has increased salaries to where they are now in line-if not even slightly above the private sector. This was in response to what I said in my first post-the issue of attracting and retaining experienced staff. So in summation, my first points were correct-but I should have directed them at the state and local level where the pay is much lower than the private sector and the Fed counterparts. A distinction I did not make properly as I am trying to discuss the procurement/contracts mgmnt problem in govt as a whole. I have issues with the Fed system so do not get me wrong. It needs improved.