CNSNews.com - FAA Official Charged $3,700 Eye Surgery to His Government Credit Card

CNSNews.com - FAA Official Charged $3,700 Eye Surgery to His Government Credit Card

(CNSNews.com) - An employee of the Federal Aviation Administration charged a $3,700 eye surgery on his government credit card, according to a report on government credit card usage completed last month by the Congressional Research Service.



This FAA official may have been outdone, however, by a Defense Department official who sought and received reimbursement for thirteen airline tickets worth almost $10,000 that he never purchased, or the State Department official who bought an unauthorized first-class ticket to Hawaii on his government charge card.

"Among some of the more egregious examples of card misuse identified by auditors are a Federal Aviation Administration employee who charged $3,700 for laser eye surgery to his travel card, a Department of Defense employee who requested and received reimbursements for 13 airline tickets totaling almost $10,000 that he did not purchase, and a Department of State employee who took an unauthorized trip to Hawaii on a first-class ticket," said the Congressional Research Service report.

State Department officials, in fact, have become accustomed to travelling in relative luxury on tickets charged on government credit cards. According to the Congressional Research Service report, almost half of the airline tickets purchased by the State Department, an audit discovered, were for first-class or business-class seats. Government protocol, however, strictly limits when such seats can be legitimately purchased by department personnel.

These rules require that government employees travel in coach except under certain special circumstances, including when the trip is more than 14 hours in duration or when for security reasons the traveler needs to go in business or first class.

“An audit of the Department of State’s centrally billed travel accounts, which are used to purchase transportation services for State Department employees and for employees of other foreign affairs agencies, found that nearly half of all airline tickets purchased were for premium-class travel,” said the Congressional Research Service report.

“Moreover, auditors estimated that two-thirds of those premium-class tickets were either not justified by the circumstances, not authorized by the department, or both,” said the report. “Poor oversight resulted in numerous violations of the FTR and departmental travel regulations. The audit found, for example, that travelers signed their own upgrades, approved their own travel, or had a subordinate authorize premium-class accommodations.

“In addition, auditors determined that many executives used premium-class repeatedly on trips that were less than 14 hours, and diplomatic couriers used premium-class accommodations even when they were not transporting classified materials (which could have justified first-class or business-class travel on security grounds),” said the report. “The cumulative cost of these abuses may run into the millions of dollars, given that the Department of State spent nearly $140 million on premium-class travel during the audit period, and the cost of a premium-class ticket can be two to three times that of a coach-class ticket.”

In 1998, President Bill Clinton signed the Travel and Transportation Reform Act, which was supposed to save taxpayers’ money on government travel. The act required government employees to use government-issued charge cards to theoretically reduce travel costs and streamline the processing of government travel expenses. In fact, since Clinton signed the law, the amount of money charged by federal employees on taxpayer funded travel cards has almost doubled, rising from $4.39 billion in 1999 to 8.28 billion in 2008.

In 2008, government employees used federal travel cards underwritten by the taxpayers 45.8 million times.