Laser Eye Surgery Online

From the associated press:

WASHINGTON – Laser eye surgery may improve one’s visual horizons, but it doesn’t qualify as a travel expense, a congressional office says in a report on abuses of the federal travel card system.The Congressional Research Service, in a recent survey, found that federal employees in a wide range of agencies misuse travel cards to buy goods for their personal use, travel first-class or simply bilk the government.

Among the examples: a Federal Aviation Administration employee who charged $3,700 for laser eye surgery; a Pentagon employee who received reimbursements for 13 airline tickets totaling almost $10,000 that he never purchased; and a State Department employee who took an unauthorized trip to Hawaii on a first-class ticket.

Auditors had also determined that certain agencies have not collected reimbursement for millions of dollars worth of unused airline tickets and had repeatedly failed to pay travel card invoices in a timely manner, according to the report.

“A private travel agency would be out of business running this kind of operation,” said Scott Amey, general counsel of the independent Project on Government Oversight. He said the CRS report points out the need for immediate improvements, including better oversight of all transactions and increased penalties for misuse.

A 1998 law requires any federal employee who travels more than five times a year to use travel cards. The CRS said travel card spending increased from $4.39 billion in fiscal year 1999 to $8.28 billion in fiscal year 2008.

The report said one major problem is the failure of agencies to determine whether tickets have been used. It cited a Government Accountability Office study finding that over a seven-year period the Department of Defense may have purchased more than $100 million in airline tickets that were not used and had not been processed for refunds. Similarly, the State Department failed to seek reimbursement for $6 million in unused airline tickets over an 18-month period.