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superpowerwolf t1_jc2n593 wrote

Have the financial teams of these agencies looked over over the bill before paying? Isn't that common practice -- understanding what you are paying for?

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illiter-it t1_jc2rduk wrote

I have a feeling this happens a lot in the federal government (and probably states). We see it with the Pentagon, but they resist efforts for thorough audits.

Frankly, a government-wide spring cleaning/audit might be nice, at the very least to just be sure.

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RubberPny t1_jc3ab5f wrote

Private as well. Let me give you an example. My former job had a property with a few "trailers" on it, that it was using as temporary offices. Said trailers cost, $20,000 each to outright buy. Ok so 2 trailers x $20,000 = $40,000, not bad to own 2 good to go offices. Turns out, they did not buy them, they used a "rental" from the trailer company, where they were paying $2000/month.....for 20 years, a total of $960,000 wasted on rentals over a 20 year period, when they could have outright bought them for $40,000. Of course, no one in finance caught this, they were just writing the check each month for the rental, without a review of bills payable. When the CEO learned of this, the trailers were gone within one week. LOL

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outerproduct t1_jc408sv wrote

Thems some fine $1M trailers. They come with a Ferrari, too?

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RubberPny t1_jc41n18 wrote

We were thinking that someone in the trailer rental company were probably crying that day once they found out the offices were being sent back. 😂

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Demmetros t1_jc52dac wrote

You'll get a Rolls-Royce... As long as ya pay for it

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Standard_Wooden_Door t1_jc4b2o0 wrote

Auditor here. It’s not our job to figure out if the company is pissing money away. It’s our job to provide reasonable assurance that those transactions are recorded properly. Unless it is fraud or the company is in danger of folding, we don’t care if the company is making poor choices.

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Honalana t1_jc6tazg wrote

An entity I worked for got an award because an audit was able to clearly track all the money they spent. Not that the money was well spent. Basically just that the money was accounted for. And they would tout this award as if it showed they were fiscally responsible but it didn’t. Irritates the shit out of me.

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Amphabian t1_jc3yyn4 wrote

I'm an accountant with 8 years experience, 4 of those working for the Department of Transportation; double billing happens all the fuckin time and is easily reconciled. I wish we'd do a thorough audit of the Department of Defense, I'd LOVE to see what those books look like lol

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thisusedyet t1_jc48vxl wrote

Always loved the bit in Independence Day where they explain that’s how they fund Area 51

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theknyte t1_jc4hzaj wrote

"You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?"

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scotchdouble t1_jc51vzq wrote

I like John Hurt in Contact: “why build one when you can have two at twice the price? Only, this one can be kept secret.”

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Mrsparkles7100 t1_jc5ww6g wrote

You talking about the Pentagon Audits? First one was in 2018 I believe of course it failed.

My favourite in the buildup to its audit was this

"The Army found 39 Black Hawk helicopters that had not been properly recorded in its property system.

"The Air Force identified 478 buildings and structures at 12 installations that were not in its real property system,"

First audit in 2017/18. Believe they expect to fully pass a clean audit in 2028.

For fun look into Air America CIAs covert air force, had Air America Inc and all these smaller companies beneath it. How they made numerous air line companies to support their covert actions. Also these same companies took on normal government transportation contracts. Was an extra source of income that was separate from their own CIA budget.

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lameth t1_jcajkxc wrote

As someone who has been responsible for property disposition (though much, much lower in cost) within the Army, I can entirely see how this happened.

Let's say you report something as broken. For whatever reason, it cannot be repaired. You are keeping it on your books until you get your replacement. The replacement comes in, and you now have the task of turning the old one in to be destroyed/decommissioned. You assume (or are told) the new one has been already added to the property book. However, the new one hasn't. For a while, the old one is retained on the property book until the new one is in the system. Whenever you do your property count (by serial number), it is noted the new one is the replacement for the old one, with the turn-in paperwork for the old one maintained as proof.

Suddenly the old one is off the books, new one isn't on it. Huh, that's odd... So you go to the records office and get the new serial number added to the system. You're done, right? Not necessarily. Just because locally it is fixed, doesn't mean it is in the centralized database.

Accountability of high value items is a pain, and in my case it was left to someone that had 2 years in the army and took a 40-hour class in security and record keeping.

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Krunch007 t1_jc3lhso wrote

Remember that guy that just sent bogus bills to like Facebook and Google and they just paid? Over $100m in bills, for over two years, until they finally caught him?

It'll happen man...

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NozE8 t1_jc3yw3c wrote

I wonder if it became a game for him or if it was just straight greed that made him keep going over 100m? I feel like if buddy had stopped at a couple million from each he might have gotten away with it. Before a certain threshold a huge company has to pay whatever because it's going to cost way more in lawyer fees let alone accountants and whatever else to fight it.

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Amphabian t1_jc3z6qx wrote

When a nerd with a ruler shows up and asks for your ledgers you know you're about to get caught.

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cursedjayrock t1_jc3ea82 wrote

Wouldn’t I be great if the Pentagon could pass a single audit though? They must not be doing a great job at resisting these efforts.

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Catssonova t1_jc59lt7 wrote

To be honest, knowing that all Rand Paul cared about in his 2016 election was auditing the entire government (supposedly) it would have been tempting to vote for him even as a republican vs a third party candidate like I did. He was significantly a more closeted asshole at those times. I don't give him the light of day anymore.

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Jmoseph t1_jc6tauu wrote

> they resist efforts for thorough audits

Have you read the Pentagon audits? There's lots to criticize the Pentagon for in this respect but resisting the audits isn't the reason they're unable to account for shit.

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Press10 t1_jc2t5cj wrote

This type of double billing is a actually a pretty big problem for the govt. The different agencies don't talk to eachother as much as they should, so they rely on recipient reporting of overlapping projects funded by different agencies.

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fuqqkevindurant t1_jc3o8c1 wrote

Not if you're a govt agency. There's so many rules and archaic systems in place you have to comply with that it would be completely impossible to actually know what the fuck is going on

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Ipokeyoumuch t1_jc3po83 wrote

Also a lot of government agencies don't communicate with each other which leads to situations like these where one approved but the other didn't know and approved a second time.

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kazr99 t1_jc3v0i3 wrote

I can’t speak much for the US govt but lots of companies use software by SAP that supposedly looks for these types of errors and if it’s not called out then whoever is approving payments that day probably just passes it through.

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Kanden_27 t1_jc4bxji wrote

The accountant in me is freaking out. I used to be on a payroll team out of college and did some help with corporate AP stuff. It's honestly a little baffling. There should be records that US agencies have. That when they receive a bill. They can confirm and balance out hours, then pay it out. So that when a duplicate bill, even if there is a new invoice number, should cast serious doubt against their own records. Requiring confirming with the employee, even going up thru higher checks from a manager or rep (for a example, a sales rep). That should have been caught.

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mattglaze t1_jc5xwk5 wrote

Be interesting to know exactly what they were paying for?

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MajesticOuting t1_jc2o8ky wrote

The Trump administration was totally known for their exemplary record keeping and trust worthiness.

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I_T_Gamer t1_jc2w9xo wrote

The NIH is not part of a presidential cabinet.

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MajesticOuting t1_jc34zri wrote

I didn't say cabinet, I don't think anyone who was a cabinet member in his administration would remember how to pay a bill anyway.

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I_T_Gamer t1_jc39f0h wrote

May as well blame the president for the weather while you're at it. The president has nothing to do with the NIH, which is what the article is about...

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Lazerspewpew t1_jc3j43o wrote

I mean at this point everyone should expect anything the CCP is involved in to rip off everyone they can, as fast as they can, for as much as they can.

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hamrmech t1_jc3c6j1 wrote

Oh so they screwed my health and ripped me off too.

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Motobugs t1_jc4aplx wrote

'Sources told CBS News that tens of millions of dollars could be involved. '

If it's true, we definitely should investigate, and actually we can catch some, since direct funding to WIV is only around 1 million if I understand correctly.

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Beautiful_Fee1655 t1_jc3ax5q wrote

Plot twist: U.S. funded virology labs in Wuhan, from which covid virus escaped.

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TeenyTinyHat t1_jc3pe7w wrote

The US gives funds to most virology labs across the world, including the lab in Wuhan.

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Paintingmyfreedom t1_jc6e8vy wrote

Maybe the ones doing added gain experiments in documented unsafe environments….. were bad to fund?

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TeenyTinyHat t1_jc745qk wrote

If you don't even know the name of what you're trying to suggest they were doing, maybe sit down.

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TropicalTrippin t1_jc6nnox wrote

no no see the president of the company that runs the lab was chosen to lead the investigation and he said they didn’t do it

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Jskidmore1217 t1_jc5rfcz wrote

Not really a twist- this has been the story since day 1. It was never just a “China caused the pandemic thing.” Western countries like US was outsourcing risky research to China where they could get away with it

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Stinkyclamjuice15 t1_jc6py3f wrote

So does that mean like, and let me preface this by saying (this is not some Rand Paul conspiracy backwoods redneck bullshit so please leave with that)

But does that mean the money that Falci allocated them for research was double billed or?

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substituted_pinions t1_jc4v7ys wrote

This is contracting 101. They really should have had separate charge numbers for studying and releasing.

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TheAmazingContrarian t1_jc6kr23 wrote

This is bad, but the Trillions of dollars that disappear with no excuse or reason is nothing.

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muffler11282 t1_jc6c6jr wrote

The government needs an audit and the political and donor classes an inquisition.

0

Different-Air-2000 t1_jc7ju5s wrote

Chinese cheating? I thought that was Germany’s game🤔

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Scoot39 t1_jc342ht wrote

And the great financial oversight of our government double payed.

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DissimilarLee t1_jc4gu2s wrote

What? The Deep State® was charged twice for the creation and infection of Americans with Covid?

I guess I forgot this:

/s

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Taino00 t1_jc3ws88 wrote

I find this hard to believe. This is quite the scandal. What/who was receiving the double pay? How can we verify the people travelled to the lab were legitimately the people? There is no doubt that the american government was infiltrated by foreign assets during the Trump presidency.

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[deleted] t1_jc3gesk wrote

Sounds like our government. Overbilling and generally f*cking people over, even the Chinese.

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M_R_Big t1_jc6e8o8 wrote

The US is presumed to be over billed by China. Not the other way around.

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