WASHINGTON — A recent report cited that federal employees have been logging hours of fighting fake wildfires and bought hundreds of thousands of dollars in gift cards using government funds.
Disorganization within the Bureau of Land Management program puts millions of dollars at risk for fraud, the Washington Examiner reported.
A recent report by the U.S. Department of the Interior cited an example in which 26 employees were incorrectly paid for fighting a fire that consumed a single tree in Idaho, nearly doubling the reported cost of the incident, according to the report.
One employee from the BLM’s Nevada office billed for time spent fighting a fire that had been put out nine months earlier.
The fire program received $250 million in 2013, part of which was set aside in a suppression fund. The remainder was intended to pay for training personnel and predicting fire activity, according to the report.
However, a source says staff spent money from the suppression fund for janitorial services meals, which was billed as the cost of fighting a fire in another state, according to the report.
In 2012, one employee pleaded guilty to charging $70,000 worth of personal gift cards to the suppression fund using her government purchase card.
“BLM needs to conduct normal operations within the constraints of its budget like any other agency,” the report warned.
Nearly 50,000 wildfires burned more than 4.3 million acres of land in 2013. Wildfire suppression cost the Interior Department nearly $400 million last year, according to the report.