Troubled by wasteful spending tied to abused government purchase and travel cards, Sens. Tom Carper, D.-Del., Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., have introduced a bipartisan bill to help agencies better track and analyze federal card charges.
The “Saving Federal Dollars Through Better Use of Government Purchase and Travel Cards Act” builds on controls in the “Government Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act of 2012.” The legislation would help curb charge card abuse by requiring agencies to strengthen accountability and oversight over purchases.
Specifically, the bill directs the General Services Administration to review its database of charge card purchases to identify patterns of misuse that could be shared with agencies to assist in their efforts to spot fraud.
Additionally, information sharing policies and best practices would be established to help agencies exchange information on fraud schemes and high-risk sellers.
And all information analyzed would support strategic sourcing initiatives that could minimize the times purchase cards were used for numerous amounts of an item and promote more federal purchasing power and negotiated discounts.
“We’ve seen bad apples at federal agencies using government-issued charge cards as a personal credit card — and we need to take every possible action to put a stop to this misuse,” said Sen. McCaskill in a press release. “This bipartisan legislation is a simple way to help more agencies conduct better oversight, saving taxpayer dollars in the process. Agencies have the data they need; they just need to use it.”
Bipartisan bill hones in on feds abusing agency charge cards
