Publicly funded iPods?

Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 2:07 a.m.

Federal workers spend billions each year using government-issued purchase cards to pay for such items as office supplies, computers, vehicles and other goods and services.

But in a report released Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the cards have been used for millions in unauthorized purchases that were excessive or were for employees’ personal, rather than business, use.

These purchases included Internet dating services, lavish dinners, lingerie and tailor-made suits. The GAO found the government could not account for hundreds of video iPods, computers and other electronic equipment totaling about $1.8 million that employees had purchased.

Also, the GAO noted, the Postal Service paid $13,000 for 81 conference attendees to have dinner at an upscale Orlando, Fla., restaurant — an astonishing $160 per person for a five-hour meal that included steaks, crab and $3,000 worth of alcoholic beverages. GAO auditors wrote: “We define this as abusive.”

You think?

The report also noted that an Agriculture Department employee fraudulently used purchase cards to pay $642,000 to a boyfriend in transactions from 2000 to 2006. And the USDA never discovered the fraud, the GAO said. A whistleblower reported it. (The employee was sentenced to prison and must pay back the $642,000.)

It is nothing short of amazing that a government agency lacks something as basic as a method for detecting that an employee is bilking American taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars over six years.

GAO auditors said agencies should, among other things, strengthen restrictions on the cards and create a better system of checks and balances.

How agencies could hand out publicly funded purchase cards without strong accounting procedures is beyond imagination. And, for that matter, it is shocking that employees who have been entrusted with the public’s money could engage in such vulgar spending sprees.