Susan Walsh/AP - Army National Cemeteries Program director Kathryn Condon told a Senate panel that Arlington National Cemetery’s accounting procedures have been updated since she took over in 2010 so every dollar is accounted for.
January 25 2012 - Arlington National Cemetery is trying to account for $12 million — about a quarter of its current annual budget — that was allocated to the cemetery between 2004 and 2010 but apparently was never spent.
Congressional leaders and federal investigators who have been probing the cemetery’s operations said at a Senate hearing Wednesday that there was no documentation detailing where the funds are or how such a large amount of taxpayer money could have gone missing.
“It’s not clear if it was returned, if it was spent or where it is,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said after the hearing, which she chaired. “I don’t think there is any indication of people walking out with it. I think this is incompetence . . . gross incompetence.”
McCaskill called the hearing as a part of continued oversight of the cemetery, the nation’s premier military burial ground, which has spent the past 18 months attempting to fix serious problems with its burial procedures, contracting and management. In 2010, Army investigators found that people had been buried in the wrong places, unmarked or mismarked grave sites and that millions of dollars had been spent on contracts that produced nothing. read more>>>
January 26 2012 - Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday strongly disputed news reports, based on federal audits, that the cemetery could not account for $12 million that had been allocated to it between 2004 and 2010.
In a statement, the cemetery said that it had “fully accounted for these funds” and that “as part of the process of instituting new financial management controls and oversight, Arlington National Cemetery’s resource managers meticulously reviewed years of financial records and recovered funds that were sent to Department of Defense agencies that support the cemetery.”
The cemetery released its statement a day after a Senate subcommittee hearing during which Army officials were questioned about the $12 million in unspent funds identified by the Army inspector general. During the hearing, cemetery officials did not dispute the figure and did not provide any additional information about their efforts to reclaim unspent funds.
Afterward, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), chairwoman of the hearing, told reporters that she was concerned that the cemetery could not account for the $12 million, which she said was the result of “gross mismanagement” by the cemetery’s previous leadership.
On Thursday, however, cemetery officials said that since the report was issued in September, they have been able to recover $12 million by continuing to reconcile contracts for work and services with the federal agencies in charge of dispersing those funds.
McCaskill was not entirely satisfied.
“While I understand that Arlington management is now indicating that the money has been located, as a former auditor I will not be satisfied until outside auditors confirm this information,” she said in a statement, promising to “continue to track progress and monitor outside audits, until every gravesite is checked, and every dollar accounted for.” read more>>>
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