Senate Returns P-Card Purchase Limits to Pre-Katrina Levels

Oct 24, 2005 12:00 AM, By Null Null

The Senate has approved a measure coauthored by Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Susan Collins and Ranking Member Joseph Lieberman that will help reduce waste and abuse in federal expenditures.

Article Tools

Bookmark

Most Popular

More Most Popular Articles

Senate Returns P-Card Purchase Limits to Pre-Katrina Levels

The Senate has approved a measure coauthored by Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Susan Collins and Ranking Member Joseph Lieberman that will help reduce waste and abuse in federal expenditures related to Hurricane Katrina.

The Senators legislation repeals a provision that was recently signed into law related to micro-purchases by federal employees via government-issued purchase cards. A provision in the second Katrina supplemental spending bill increased the limit for such credit card purchases from $2,500 to $250,000. The Collins-Lieberman bill repeals this increase for normal, routine purchases and provides for a $15,000 spending limit for emergency purchases. The measure was approved unanimously by the committee earlier this month.

Over 300,000 federal employees have government purchase cards. A spending limit of $250,000 opens the door to misuse and abuse of these cards. We should not allow the needs of the disaster to trump the need for oversight and accountability for the spending that will occur by using these purchase cards. Wasting money does nothing to help Katrina victims, said Senators Collins and Lieberman.

The increase in the micro purchase-spending limit was originally requested by the Bush Administration to help expedite relief efforts during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Senators Collins and Lieberman and others objected to the provision at the time it was enacted, and recently the administration agreed that keeping the higher spending limit in place leaves the system vulnerable to waste, fraud, and abuse.

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

blog comments powered by Disqus

Online Resources

Free Webinar: Secrets for Maximizing Your Contract Management Process

Learn duringIBM and Info Trends' LIVE Webinar October 28, 2pm ET. Contracts are a critical source of information to an ever-larger number of employees and business processes, but how do you make them work better for you? Join our featured speakers as they explain six key ways to improve your contract process. Register Now.

More Webinars

News

Safety group honors MSA’s Feldstein

Joseph Feldstein, manager of Pittsburgh-based MSA’s fall-protection technical services, has been honored with a distinguished service award from the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), a professional safety organization with 30,000 members.... ... Read Now.

More News

Videos

1600 Turbo Wide-Area Mower

John Deere's 1600 Turbo Wide-Area Mower has all power (112 foot-pounds of torque) can be driven to center deck alone for mowing exceptionally tall or wet grass... Watch Now.

eNews

Maryland County Aims to Juice Up Energy Efficiency in its Buildings

Prince George's County in Maryland has inked a deal with Pepco Energy Services that could provide more than $4 million in energy savings for county facilities over the 14-year life of the project... Read Now.

Government Deck

Using patent-pending technology, GovPro eCards is the fastest way to bring you the latest products from the government marketplace. Government Deck features ten or more new services focused products from various manufacturing companies. Click directly to the company's website to view product details and specs.

View Now

Get a Job!

More Needles. Less Haystack. ™

Whether you're a government agency with open positions or a job seeker looking for work in the government, the Government Job Zone should be your first stop in your job search.

Search Now

RSS

Get the latest product news and information from Govpro.com with RSS - or Real Simple Syndication! Govpro.com headlines are delivered directly to your RSS newsreader as soon as they are available.

More Rss