WASHINGTON – The FBI and its contractors spent more than $17 million on first-class airfare, inflated labor rates, missing equipment and other questionable payments during the botched attempt to upgrade the bureau’s outdated computer system, according to a new audit from congressional investigators.
The findings by the Government Accountability Office expand the controversy surrounding the FBI’s Trilogy program, which cost more than $535 million but failed to produce a usable case management system for agents because of cost overruns and technical problems.
The FBI announced this week that it would spend an additional $425 million in an attempt to finish the job. Two of the contractors singled out in the audit for inflated spending, Computer Sciences Corp. and CACI International Inc., have been chosen as subcontractors for the new system, named Sentinel.
Officials with the FBI and the project’s main contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp., have vowed to implement stricter controls to avoid cost overruns and other problems in the new initiative.
The 82-page GAO report outlines a long series of questionable expenditures by contractors assigned to the Trilogy project. For example, more than 100 airplane flights costing more than $120,000 were booked at first-class or full-fare rates by Computer Sciences and others, despite government rules requiring lower-priced tickets, the report said.
Contractors also did not provide adequate documentation for millions of dollars in costs billed to the FBI, the report said. In one invoice cited by the GAO, $1.907 million out of $1.951 million was listed only as “other direct costs” by CACI.
The review also showed that CACI bought 30,000 pens and 30,000 highlighters for training sessions that were custom-made for Trilogy. Total costs: $19,705 for the pens and $32,314 for the markers.
The audit also notes that the FBI – which has had a history of difficulty keeping track of items including guns and laptop computers – was unable to locate more than 1,200 items purchased with Trilogy funds, including personal computers, servers and printers, valued at $7.6 million.
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