Report: National Weather Service misappropriated $43 million
Jack Hayes, the director of the National Weather Service, stepped down Friday in response to an investigation that top officials at the weather service had misappropriated $43.8 million by giving bonuses and extensions to contractors without proper justification.
The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, released the report on May 18, detailing an audit of nine contracts that include incentive pay for good work. The contracts have a maximum potential value of $1.6 billion.
The investigators said there may be other contracts that provide additional awards from 2008, 2009 and 2010 but that NOAA was unable to “provide a complete and reliable list when requested by the Office of Inspector General.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe, the ranking member of Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard subcommittee, released a statement Friday, the same day Hayes that stepped down and a week after the report had been released.
Full story at MSNBC.com h/t to Ryan Maue
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They must have thought they had a free hand as they continued to support AGW.
Where is the audit of GISS?
From the article: “Snowe states that the investigation, which took place last May and this February, arose from anonymous complaints about the misappropriation of money in 2010 and 2011…
WTF? The investigation too place last May? About money pissed away in 2010? Looks like they weren’t in any hell of a rush to lock the barn after the horse was stolen. What did they do between last May and today, conduct a witch hunt to find the anonymous complainer? I’d guess so.
“…Snowe stated there is no evidence that anyone profited from these transactions.”
What a stupid statement! The money wasn’t put into a mattress, was it? Somebody did profit from these transactions, and quite handsomely, too.
Wow, this is sad 🙁
The National Weather Service has developed an excellent system for forecasting the weather, from it’s computer models to the regional interaction by skilled Meteorologists with the computer products to produce a very accurate point forecasts which it distributes via the internet. It has developed excellent satellite and radar systems and a cutting edge system to produce and distribute weather warnings, advisories, etc. It is important that we support and encourage the people behind these systems and those who keep them rolling day and night, seven days a week, year after year.
It seems all buraucracies eventually corrupt and top overload until they get out of control. And, there is no doubt the NWS has been strictly assigned an activitist role in proliferating the “official” government carbon dioxide causes catastrophic climate change position. We must work to clean up the buraucrascy and attempt to hault the climate change promotional campaign without doing any harm to the current meteorological operations and the fine team of professional forecasters.
Probably the fall guy, but an interesting bio.
Dr. Hayes returned to the NWS in 2007 after serving as the director of the World Weather Watch Department at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a specialized agency of the United Nations located in Geneva, Switzerland. In that position, he was responsible for global weather observing, weather data exchange telecommunications, and weather data processing and forecasting systems.
Before joining the WMO, Dr. Hayes served in several senior executive positions at NOAA. As the Deputy Assistant Administrator for NOAA Research, he was responsible for the management of research programs. As Deputy Assistant Administrator of the National Ocean Service (NOS), he was the chief operating officer dealing with a multitude of ocean and coastal challenges, including the NOS response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster in August 2005.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/presentations/hayes.htm
Out of a $4 trillion budget? Yawn…
Out of a $4 trillion budget of waste? This is a distraction.
I once did some work for someone who was subsequently investigated and found to be a crook. I didn’t spot it at the time, but I did think he was remarkably generous with other people’s money. If you have profitable peccadilloes of your own that need to be kept quiet, one way to try and achieve that is by generosity to people who might otherwise feel inclined to report them. Now the payouts have stopped, it will be interesting to see what emerges.
I know it’s almost required that SOMEone say it, but:
Apparently they’re using the same metrics of accuracy for their accounting that they use for their AGW agenda…
Mark
May 27, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Out of a $4 trillion budget of waste? This is a distraction.
###
Worse, its a political witch hunt. The amount of money and the supposed misuse of it is pretty weak-tea. I suspect that this is all part of bringing the organization in line with the agenda and to serve as a warning to others.
Never take anything like this, reported in the new, at face value.
Going through the report it seems this is mostly a bit of laziness and failure to document contractor award fees. Not a good thing, but not some conspiracy. There is some indication that NWS was acting a bit too cozy with contractors in providing award fees. Overall in large government contracting, award fees of less than 90% of the possible pool are fairly uncommon. Report seems to be saying the process and documentation was weak more than the fees were wrong, though there was an example of setting the success criteria weaker than FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations) requires.
Mark says:
The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.
corio37 says:
Yes, indeed. Any proper investigation will turn up some nasty surprises.
The Parable of the Shrewd Manager
Luke 16, 8
For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are
the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves,
so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
Oh, dear!
That’s going to leave a bruise, at the very least…
@Mark @DesertYote
$43 million is NOT chump change.
Find and fix enough problems like this and we might have a government that uses tax revemues wisely.
The Met office is the same in the UK – there was a public outcry after its senior managers got bonuses and the head a knighthood. Both because the Met is an ideologically-motivated body which now exists merely to forward propaganda about the origins of climate change, and because it’s rubbish at forecasting the weather!
Doesn’t surprise us this gov’t has turned out to be as corrupted as china and russia. Its not even worth voting anymore. now with florida disqualifing voters
Mark says:
May 27, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Out of a $4 trillion budget of waste? This is a distraction
First, John Coleman is spot on. Esondly, $1.6 billion is several times all the lottery wins each week. It’s enough to pay an army of teachers, a gaggle of nurses and a bunch of policeman. It is not trivial.
Yes, they need to solve the other over-spend (daily costs) and reduce the size of both ALL the weather and climate agencies but it won’t happen. Obama will be returned to the White House this year and the flood gates of expenditure will open.
Financially, this is a bit of a non-story in my book.
Government department revealed as being wasteful , inefficient and not very fiscally responsible.
What else does one expect these days?
Unlikely to be confined to the NOAA/NWS.
I suspect politics of some sort is the driver here.
Having worked in a few public sector organisations, my first observation is that the reflex response is that this is just a minor anomaly which has been fixed, nothing to see here.
Sometimes that is true. But, very often, it is the tip of an iceberg which reflects an organisational culture of sloppiness or worse with public money.
Given the size of the public sector deficit, surely coming down on impropriety and sloppiness like a ton of bricks is a no-brainer for any government that is serious about balancing the budget. $43M here, $500M there (Solyandra) – it is pretty clear that these people are not spending their own (borrowed) money.
My computer model predicts the heat is on. Finally.
jorgekafkazar says:May 27, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Thank you, your comment has echoed across to Australia.
The impact of such $ must surely be far and wide in promoting a set cause within a network.
Report seems to be saying the process and documentation was weak more than the fees were wrong, though there was an example of setting the success criteria weaker than FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations) requires.
Well tls@ur momisugly 11.16pm: Following a different (or no) process and the lack of rigorous reporting does NOT provide others with the basis for comparison.
A weakened position to argue or publish their observations is shaped. Shoddy work continues while good science and process has to catch up. While $ are, in many cases, distributed and needlessly spent.
Now, to read the report.
Mark says:
May 27, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Out of a $4 trillion budget of waste? This is a distraction.
$43 million here, $43 million there — pretty soon we’re talking some real money…
I’d say this is a bad development. The NWS is the LEAST warmist part of NOAA. It consists of real meteorologists who have to observe real weather conditions, and who bear the burden of saving real lives with their real warnings. Because they’re tied to reality, they don’t use warmist insanity in making their forecasts, and they don’t spend any time propagandizing for the Carbon Cult.
This smells to me like a punishment of heresy, an attempt by the Carbonists to assume stronger control over the pragmatic and truthful branch.