The
Justice Department and several of its agencies engaged in “extravagant and wasteful” spending on food, beverages and event planning for law enforcement conferences, including paying $16 each for muffins, $76 per person for lunch and more than $8 for a cup of coffee, according to an audit released Tuesday by the
department’s
Office of Inspector General.
At one conference, a workshop on enhancing judicial skills, participants were served snacks of
Cracker Jack, popcorn and candy during a break, costing $32 a person, and also were provided a “deluxe” ice cream assortment that cost $10 per person. ...
The audit also is critical of money the
Justice Department spent on event planners for some of the conferences, describing as an “unallowable cost” the hiring of a consultant in Anchorage, Alaska, to act as the liaison for a conference being held at a hotel in Palm Springs, Calif.
Because the consultant was based in Anchorage, the audit says, he had to travel the 2,400 miles to Palm Springs at least three times and subsequently billed the
department $3,454 in travel costs. The audit also criticizes the $29,000 cost of travel, lodging and food and beverages for a face-to-face meeting in Palm Springs a year before the conference with members of the consultant’s firm. It describes that as “unreasonable.”...
The inquiry specifically focused on taxpayer expenditures by the
Justice Department at 10 of 1,832 conferences it hosted or participated in during fiscal 2008 and 2009. Those 10 conferences represented $4.4 million of the $121 million Justice spent on conferences during that time. The audit says the cost of food and beverages at the 10 conferences was nearly $490,000, or 11 percent of the total estimated cost of the events.
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