EPA Staff Misreport Purchase Card Transactions, Watchdog Finds

Government Executive: Rank and file staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency are not properly documenting their use of purchase cards to acquire such items as computer keyboards, laboratory supplies and, in one case, a garage door opener, a watchdog found.

“Despite the EPA’s control efforts, oversight is weak,” EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins Jr. wrote to EPA central administrators in report released on Monday. “The purchase card team… does not have enough staff to implement effective proactive and detective controls. Instances of cardholder noncompliance primarily resulted from ineffective training and/or a lack of monitoring and control activities.”

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