Fiscal Year End Spending Spree

[BMT (RIP)]

Any stories worth telling?

We know:
1. Veterans Affairs Department spent more than a half million dollars for artwork
2. Coast Guard spent nearly $200,000 on "cubicle furniture rehab".
3. Agriculture Department spent $140,000 on toner cartridges in just one day.


BMT

[SF_BHT]

You do not even want to know what we did I the last 30 days.......

Now I am looking at more sequestration and Gov Shutdown.

[SF18C]

Originally Posted by SF_BHT

You do not even want to know what we did I the last 30 days.......

Now I am looking at more sequestration and Gov Shutdown.

Same here! We probably spent more money in Sept than all year long!

[The Reaper]

Poor budgeting by the leadership.

TR

[SF_BHT]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Poor budgeting by the leadership.

TR

You are spot on. Unfortunately my Agency has no leadership just managers and that is a joke also. I have no idea how we do anything.

I have been trying to get them to give me a fiscal line for the whole year so I can manage it throughout the whole year for the last 10 yrs. No one will do it. But for the last 60 days I can just order anything and I mean anything. I have learned to have my units list ready with vendors and I hit them hard the first few weeks to stock up for the coming FY. I then have to watch the fiscal process until it is ordered so they do not wind up in the fiscal black hole. Thank god our Fiscal chief is a retired USN Chief. I have developed that asset and we work the system for what indeed and my upper management have never caught on. You have to do what you have to do.

Now we are receiving equipment and supplies and now I have my guys stashing it for the next FY. The only problem is people that do not plan have tried to hit us up for expendables and I as the boss have to be the bad guy. As most know that is not hard. Piss poor prior planning does not constitute an emergency on my part. They really hate it when I tell them that.

[Ret10Echo]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Poor budgeting by the leadership.

TR

Agencies should be required to construct zero-based budget builds. Most simply add percentages onto the previous year's bogus numbers.... But with the way congress forces waste into spending bills it would not result in a much better circumstance.

[MiTTMedic]

I remember, back in the day, successfully managing the budget for 12 different sections, coming in with almost zero over/under. Then, coming in to work and being told to find something to spend some additional money on by noon that day. We're talking low to mid six-figures we were given in "found money" as a gift because we did so well managing our budgets. Happened every year.

[Beef]

As an outsider who funds this insanity, I have a few observations:

1. The Govt needs to completely retool its thinking. Not going to happen, of course. But in the private (for profit) healthcare sector, saving money is required. Department heads who trim money off of departmental budgets are given cash bonuses for saving. Those who do not receive poor evaluations or are fired.

2. Dump the use it or lose it mentality (which is a fact, not a mindset.) Again, ain't happening. Submit a realistic budget each year for the next FYI that is independent of what was spent last year. Based only on real projections. Have some emergency funding system in place to cover unexpected expenses that may arise.

3. Hold agency and department heads accountable and fire those who are not fiscally responsible.

There is a huge Army Corps of Engineers facility here. It mostly employs civilians. I know dozens of them and I hear the same complaints that you guys have. they are all extremely frustrated. If the Govt were a private concern, it'd have gone the way WorldCom years ago.

The healthcare industry is bloated and out of control fiscally. But it's finally broken the code that it has to cut costs. As a provider, I have received a 40% reduction in income over the last 2.5 years This is largely due to a decrease in reimbursement to providers by Medicare/Medicaid. Private insurance rates are largely multiples of those. I can't wait to see what Obamacare does for the private sector! Further Increases the in bureaucracy and decrease in provider reimbursement!

[SF18C]

Beef...you premise falls apart as soon as you said fire Govt works. The Govt Unions and Merit Protection Boards make this damn near impossible. I have fired three lazy sombitches (GS-13, 9 and 7) since I have been at my current job, (2 ½ years). Firing someone can itself be a full time job! I probably spent more man-hours documenting, counseling and working with the various (please don’t fire anyone) agencies then actually doing my real job.

[MR2]

Is a shutdown really all that bad...

[ZonieDiver]

Originally Posted by SF18C

Beef...you premise falls apart as soon as you said fire Govt works. The Govt Unions and Merit Protection Boards make this damn near impossible. I have fired three lazy sombitches (GS-13, 9 and 7) since I have been at my current job, (2 ½ years). Firing someone can itself be a full time job! I probably spent more man-hours documenting, counseling and working with the various (please don’t fire anyone) agencies then actually doing my real job.

During the 2000 Census, I worked as the Ass't Manager for Field Operations of the East Valley, AZ Local Census Office. Even though the jobs were classified as "Temporary - Intermittent", it was a pain if you actually had to let someone go due to malfeasance of some kind. I was submitting D-308s (pay records) for two years after I'd ceased actual work for time spent responding to EEOC filings.

I once had a telephone interview regarding a Crew Leader I'd let go for disrupting a meeting, failing to follow instructions, and not following Census procedures. (He was a fellow Irishman and had once been a friend.) Of course, he filed. During the interview, the EEOC compliance officer asked me if I had a comment on the complainant saying that I'd used 'thuggery' in ejecting him from the meeting.

I said that I was relieved, since at first I'd thought he was accusing me of buggery. The compliance officer failed to laugh... but wrote it down.

I swore then, as did my LCO Manager (who'd worked for Maricopa County for 27 years before retiring), that I'd never work for "the Feds" again.

[Beef]

Originally Posted by SF18C

Beef...you premise falls apart as soon as you said fire Govt works. The Govt Unions and Merit Protection Boards make this damn near impossible. I have fired three lazy sombitches (GS-13, 9 and 7) since I have been at my current job, (2 ½ years). Firing someone can itself be a full time job! I probably spent more man-hours documenting, counseling and working with the various (please don’t fire anyone) agencies then actually doing my real job.

SF18C, I know it'll never happen. Just some musings. I did work for a year at a VAMC, so I am well aware of the hurdles that you guys face. The unions are doing for the govt the same thing that they did for Detroit. But the govt can't relocate off shore or to right to work states.
But the parts about budgets and incentives to save could be implemented. But they won't because "we've always done it that way." Again, I'm just venting over all this stuff.

[Peregrino]

Originally Posted by MR2

Is a shutdown really all that bad...

Those people are all "exempted". They will continue business as usual. The rest of us "not-exempted" get more "unpaid vacation".

[SF18C]

Originally Posted by Peregrino

Those people are all "exempted". They will continue business as usual. The rest of us "not-exempted" get more "unpaid vacation".

Us little folks will again get to figure out how to stretch a dollar!

I was a little annoyed at a brief I went to today about the pending shut down...Managers are to advise on how to file for unemployment benefits!



As for me, I plan to hitch hike out to Cali and live in one of Richards vineyards!