Report: U.S. Overpaid $32M in Katrina Evac

[cal04]

A bill for busing evacuees from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was $32 million more than it should have been, and the government paid it without question, the Transportation Department inspector general
said Friday. Landstar Express America was given 570 specific tasks to supply enough vehicles to haul thousands of truckloads of goods and thousands of busloads of people after the hurricane struck. The inspector general's office reviewed six of the tasks that have been paid for by the Federal Aviation Administration, which was the contracting agency.

The example of the bus service to New Orleans ``underscores the need to ensure that all pending invoices are accompanied by some type of documentation that substantiates that the goods and services were provided as billed,'' according to the report signed by Assistant Inspector General David Dobbs. The report said the FAA overpaid Landstar for two of those six tasks; for one, the agency paid a $59,082,000 partial payment ``with no documentation showing the actual amount of services provided to that date,'' the report said. What happened was this: the Federal Emergency Management Agency asked for 1,105 buses from Aug. 31 through Oct. 7 to evacuate people from New Orleans.

In early September, Landstar asked for an advance of $59,082,000. ``We said, 'If this is going to be this large a task, and we have to pay our contractors, we need an advance,''' said Henry Gerkens, chief executive of Landstar System Inc., the Jacksonville, Fla., company that owns Landstar Express America. But only about 400 buses per day were needed, and they cost much less than originally thought - $27,081,859, or $32 million more than the FAA should have paid for that week. A paid the invoice anyway. The inspector general's staff met in mid-October with the FAA's contracting officer and to back up the invoices from Landstar for services during the week, the report said. Several weeks later, Landstar came up with documentation showing how many buses had actually been used.

Landstar repaid the money that day, and the inspector general noted that it was the company's action that allowed the government to recover the money. ``To characterize that as an overpayment is a gross inaccuracy,'' Gerkens said. ``The government still owes us about $200 million.'' The Transportation Department issued a statement saying it will work with the inspector general ``to ensure that appropriate steps are taken to further improve our ability to respond to disasters while at the same time protecting the taxpayers' interests.''
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/21/AR2006012100378.html

[babylonsister]

1. Root out the abuses made by Landstar. Next, go after Halliburton.

HAs that been done yet?

[zann725]

2. SO MUCH donated money (to Red Cross,etc.) was funneled AWAY from helping

the very people THAT money was donated for. It appears the ONLY ones "profiting" and/or TRULY 'helped' by this aid were the sub-sub-contractors that most lead their ties back to 'Brownie' & Haliburton-like entities. That SO MANY victims of the hurrican still sleep in tents in Winter temperatures, and the VASS number of trailers which sit miles away vacant, still are UNAVAILABLE for those needing them is a SIN. NOT COMPASSIONATE, NOR IS IT CHRISTIAN.

No amount of "improving their ability" to handle future such situations WILL EVER occur under this Admin (and its "morphed" future entities)...for the priorities of said entities could give a crap about helping those in need...via a natural crises, OR one "created" by the very Admin. that benefits by creating "crises" after "crises" to generate yet more money for THEIR coffers...NOT those that they claim they are collecting monies for.

It is all SO "dark" and evil...and so NOT Christian-basedl

[Frustratedlady]

4. Don't We Have SOMEONE Who Keeps Track...

of our money? I am so sick and tired of seeing report after report of billion$ here, or million$ there that are either lost or unaccounted for. Does anyone have a ledger? There has to be a bottom line, someday, and I can't even imagine what that will look like.

Being someone who is conservative in their spending, it truly bothers me to see these gargantuan dollar figures thrown around like they are 20-dollar bills.

Am I alone?

[Judi Lynn]

3. Bush's administration owes the world an accounting for 9 billion dollars

which it claims it can't account for in Iraq.

[OneBlueSky]

5. then there was all that money they spent carting ice . . .

up to Maine and Massachusetts, storing it in trucks that had to be kept constantly running, moving it into warehouses, re-loading it into trucks for another trip south, and ultimately discarding it . . .