Pentagon Misspent Funds Aimed at Supporting Troops, Audit Finds
By Ken Fireman
Bloomberg
December 12, 2008
Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. Defense Department program designed to show public support for troops in war zones misspent about $9 million on “questionable” public-relations activity, the department’s inspector general concluded in an audit.
Most of the money questioned in the audit went to a Washington-based communications firm, Susan Davis International. It was spent on U.S.-based activities designed to attract media attention and “brand” the program, known as America Supports You, or ASY, according to the audit.
The Pentagon has run the program “in a questionable and unregulated manner,” the audit said. “The ASY program has produced results that were not consistent with the program’s primary objective.”
The program was established in 2004 and during the next three years received $9.2 million in government funding, according to the audit. Most of that money -- $8.8 million -- was spent on contracts with the Davis firm for public relations activities, the audit said.
Under those contracts, four senior program managers were paid annual salaries ranging from $312,821 to $662,691 in 2007, according to the audit.
The money was used to “solicit or build support from school children, corporations, celebrities and the media” aimed at promoting the program, the audit found.
Employee Complaints
Those activities “were not consistent with the program’s objective,” which was originally intended by the Pentagon “to showcase and communicate to U.S. military members defending our freedom around the globe what thousands of individual citizens, community groups, corporations, businesses, and others are doing to support them and their families,” the audit said.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the audit was initiated last year at the request of the department’s public affairs office in response to complaints from employees about the way the program was being run at the time.
Whitman said the public affairs office, which supervises the program, has already instituted changes to ensure that the program’s activities are consistent with its fundamental mission and that its spending is properly reviewed and controlled.
‘Outrageous’
“The department continues to believe that America Supports You is a valuable program,” Whitman said. “But the IG has found some things that we can do better on, and we have done better on.”
Susan Davis, the chairwoman of the firm that bears her name, rejected as “outrageous” the audit findings.
“Nobody could deny the success and importance of ASY,” Davis said in a telephone interview tonight. “It reached hundreds of thousands of service members and their families. Those who participate know its value.”
Davis said her company’s efforts under the Pentagon contracts have been instrumental in building the program.
“We are extraordinarily proud of our work and would stand by everything we have done,” she said, saying she couldn’t comment further until she reviews the audit in detail.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ken Fireman in Washington at kfireman1@bloomberg.net
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$9,728,453,193,960.00
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$31,754.86 Per Citizen |
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