ERIC HOLDER ANOTHER WASTEFUL SPENDER JUST LIKE HIS BUDDY OBAMA...LAVISH SPENDING ON CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS WASTES MONEY AGAIN $120 MILLION!!

The Justice Department spent more than $120 million in fiscal 2008 and 2009 to host law enforcement conferences across the country, many of which featured “extravagant and wasteful” costs for food, beverages and event planning, including spending $16 on each of 250 muffins served at an August 2009 legal conference in Washington, D.C., a report said Tuesday.

Acting Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar, in an audit report that examined taxpayer expenditures incurred by the Justice Department at 10 of 1,832 conferences held during fiscal 2008 and 2009, said investigators also found that another conference featured a lunch that cost $76 per person and coffee costing more than $1 per ounce. Other costly items cited in the report included a $32-per-person snack break consisting of Cracker Jacks, popcorn and candy bars, $7.32 Beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres, $10 cookies and $5 Swedish meatballs.

The numbers are included in a report that examined expenditures incurred by the Justice Department during fiscal 2008 and 2009 following a 2007 audit by the Inspector General's Office that also identified what it described at the time as “extravagant costs associated with food and beverages and event planning activities.” The new report said that while it found that the Justice Department had instituted conference cost guidelines since the 2007 report, individual components within the agency “are not taking all necessary steps to minimize conference-related costs and to eliminate wasteful spending.”

The report noted that the department hosted or participated in 1,832 conferences in fiscal 2008 and 2009, costing a total of $121 million. The new audit examined 10 conferences that occurred between October 2008 and September 2009 and cost over $4.4 million. It focused on the two major conference cost categories that the September 2007 report revealed as most potentially susceptible to wasteful spending – event planning services and food and beverages.

“Our audit found that two DOJ components, the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), spent approximately $600,000 in grant funds to procure event planning services for five conferences without demonstrating that these firms offered the most cost effective logistical services,” Ms. Schnedar said. “The audit also found that neither OJP nor the OVW required event planners to track and report salary and benefit costs.

“As a result, the mandated DOJ conference cost reports submitted to Congress did not include over $500,000 of the $600,000 that it spent on event planning services for the five conferences we examined where event planners were used,” she said.

The audit also identified what it called “unallowable and unnecessary event planning costs,” including the hiring of a consultant as an event planner for one conference who lived in Anchorage, Alaska, to act as the liaison with the conference hotel located in Palm Springs, California. The audit questioned as “unnecessary” nearly $3,500 in Justice Department funds paid to the consultant to travel three times between Alaska and California, especially since the event had been held at the same venue three times previously. Also questioned as unnecessary in the audit were over $29,000 in travel, lodging and food and beverage costs for a face-to-face planning meeting held in Palm Springs in January and February 2008 that was attended by Justice department employees and event planning consultants.

In a response to the Inspector General’s report, Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden sent a memo to all department heads saying that as the department works to accomplish its mission, “We must also make certain we do so with a focus on accountability and transparency to the American taxpayers.” He told the department heads to ensure that financial resources are utilized in the most advantageous and responsible manner.

“I want to emphasize the need to maximize our financial resources, ensure we are prudent in our spending, and avoid the fact or appearance of extravagant spending, especially during these challenging financial times,” he said.

No S***t sherlock!

BLOG COMMENTS:
Ron
In the time of teleconferencing we send people across country at the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars? This is the same Holder that found enough money to fund "Fast and Furious and GunWalker", this is the same DOJ that has just hired 109 extreme radical attorneys and not one Republican. This is the same DOJ that is stonewalling Rep. Issa's investigation of over 150 murders of Police Officers in Mexico and the United States and dropping criminal actions against the 'Black Panthers' for voter intimidation, by their actions we know they don't work for the People of this country but does anyone know just who they do work for?

carsrus
INDEED, same, same, and soon to be on the firing line, before Congress trying to explain his role in Fast-n-furiousgate! Next, how was he involved in Solyndrgate! Then, Obama's resignation prior to his being IMPEACHED!

lj
What a pretty dream! I totally agree.

risctaker
well said...this administration is all about control & abuse of power.I know the GOP is following all this for the 2012 campaign.

It'll be interesting how they present this info.People have not forgotten about the Black panther incident or F&F.

Lola Guin
I agree that this administration is all about control and abuse of power, but so is every administration going back to Bush Sr. To pretend like this is a partisan issue is just ignorant. BOTH parties have been sticking it to the American people for awhile now. This is not just an Obama administration issue. This type of corruption permeates our goverment, both federal and state, both parties. The sooner that Americans figure that out, and come together instead of fighting over the illusion of party differences, the better off we'll all be.

jasons
Nothing W or HW has allegedly done can hold a match (let alone a candle) to ANYTHING Clinton or BHO has ACTUALLY done. I dispute your premise of moral equivalence. If we had a fair-minded press, Clinton would have resigned and BHO would be soon to follow. With that said, machine republicans are a**holes. We need another Reagan or JFK. We have gone so far in the wrong direction.

Truther Two
I agree Lola but who ran on the slogan of "Hope and CHange"? Who ran on the slogan of "open government"? Give me a break, this bunch of jokers aren't any better than any other politician and he ran on the fact that he would be different. So that makes obama the biggest conartist of all.

Biff Watterson
Do you really want to go there ? I agree that many elitist career republican politicians have been part of the problem, but it's pale in comparision to the damage the Democrats have been doing for decades. Other wise nice try to divert the blame. But the red herrings are getting old and smelly !

Joe Dutra
The federal travel budget is completely out of control. As a civilian that worked with these dorks, I got to watch the freeloaders take their trips to Europe, Australia, East Coast, West Coast. What a waste!

RichardM
Ditto. I ran a company that supplied engineers and physicists to a systems office in the government. My people did the actual work, while the government people TRAVELED and SPENT. My favorite: a Program Manager of a CANCELLED program called for a five day "program wrapup" meeting in Hawaii. Everyone was encourageD to bring their golf clubs, etc. This stuff is ROUTINE.

coffee4closers
Problems begin when the cash runs out; not a creditor in the world will lend to us as a result. Hey WHITE, liberal soccer moms: How's that hope & change workin out ?

socalconservativemom
Just so you know, not all white soccer moms are liberal. Some of us are working moms and quite conservative.

SWMichMan
I certainly think that there was too much money spent, but it was not just the Obama administration which is included in this article as it is from fiscal 2008 and 2009. So Bush is in there for some of the time mentioned. That being said, I find it to be no surprise when it makes the news that the government over pays for something. It is this type of over paying for just about everything which needs to stop. The government workers need to pay attention to what they are being charged and dispute every penny.

Biff Watterson
Please..... Try to focus on what the current problem. What may have happened under Bush or Thomas Jefferson is done. Move on and deal with the current problem. This deflecting the blame is lame. Dems have been in control of congress well before 2008, and congress ultimately controls the purse strings. The last deficit figure under George W. Bush was $410 billion in 2008. The projected 2011 deficit will be $1.645 trillion under Obama. Look around.... the stimulus has been a complete failure of corruption and failing green projects. What credibility does Obummer and the Dems have?
andy
The Dems are in bed with "Big Catering".

jasons
and big socialism. and big hypocrisy.

JESSIE
This whole administration is a joke....