Preventing government spending that’s out of line (with related video)

General Services Administration (GSA) bonuses and spending have drawn congressional ire and probes. Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., chairwoman of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, has disclosed preliminary findings from her investigation into the GSA, showing that in the past few years, the agency has paid more than $1 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses to employees being investigated by the Inspector General for wrongdoing or misconduct.

McCaskill’s announcement comes after the Obama Administration disclosed in April that top agency leaders had been fired as a result of an Inspector General investigation of a GSA conference held in Las Vegas. McCaskill began investigating questionable government spending practices and lack of accountability at GSA in 2010.

In response, GSA said it is conducting a top-down review of the agency’s operations, including bonus payouts the agency has awarded in recent years.

Govpro asked Chris Rossie, vice president, Public Sector and International, at Atlanta-based Oversight Systemsabout ways to halt questionable government spending activity in agencies. His company’s predictive analytics provide real-time results that ensure that agencies use public funds only for their intended uses.

Govpro: What steps should GSA administrators take to rein in extravagant or inappropriate government spending?

Chris Rossie: It’s important for GSA administrators to understand what’s going on with spending. Taking a page from the Department of Defense (DoD), the U.S. Department of Education (ED), and Census Bureau books, this means analyzing 100 percent of their spending transactions to understand spending in individual budget areas where outlier spending is occurring. By understanding the comparative spending of one versus all of the others, they will be able to identify where one area may be spending inappropriately. GSA should also look at the entirety of its spend, including not only vendor payments processed through the normal purchase to payment process, but also including transactions executed through purchase cards, meeting cards, travel cards, and travel and expense reimbursement. Looking at all of this spending in a single view is important to understanding the overall spending behavior and where potentially inappropriate behavior is occurring.

Govpro: Do most federal agencies successfully and adequately control government spending of tax dollars within the agency?

CR: In our experience, federal agencies are roughly equivalent to their private sector counterparts when it comes to control of overspending. In fact, DoD, ED, and Census are performing at a higher level than most private sector organizations because of their highly effective spend monitoring programs. But the public and Congress demand a higher level of success for government agencies than typical shareholders do for private sector organizations.

A big challenge in both the public and private sectors is the image associated with analyzing and measuring payment performance. If I monitor 100 percent of my transactions and find improper payments, am I admitting to having a less-than-perfect operation? Particularly for government organizations whose spending is significantly more transparent at a detail level than any private enterprise, it takes courage to analyze and monitor every single transaction within the organization.

The technology to make this happen exists, [and is available] from companies like Oversight, so technology is not the issue. Rather, it is having the confidence in one’s processes and placing the priority on achieving successful control of spending that ultimately is the key to success.

Rossiehas blogged on this topic: “GSA Revisited: A Dose of Common Sense.” In an earlier Govpro post, the Oversight Systems executive discusses how federal agencies can successfully eliminate inappropriate spending.

Greta Van Susteren outlined McCaskill’s fight for accountability at GSA in this video.