Monday, February 23, 2009

BIA Roads Program in Alaska “Rife with Mismanagement”; Poor Candidate for Stimulus Funds

Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney is warning Interior Department officials about distributing stimulus money to the Bureau of Indian Affairs Alaska Region Indian Reservation Roads Program. 

“We found that the Alaska region’s inattention to expenditures and failure to manage its programs has repeatedly jeopardized the success of the Alaskan Native community roads projects and caused millions of dollars to be wasted or unaccounted for,” Devaney wrote in is cover letter of a Flash Report

Among the findings in the report:

ü      Only $3 to $4 million of the $230 million in road projects administered by the Alaska BIA each year have any physical oversight or verification that work is completed.

ü      An Alaska Native community advanced more than $2 million to build and repair critical road areas used the money instead to perform unauthorized work on another road that was deemed unnecessary.

ü      Some wage-grade employees are earning more than $100,000 a year – far above the maximum pay for their grade -- without explanation 

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