GovernmentExecutive.com

A Forest Service employee is not liable for thousands of dollars worth of personal checks from campers that were lost in the mail, the General Accounting Office decided recently.

In July 1999, Mick Barrus, a collection officer at Shoshone National Forest in Cody, Wyo., sent more than $14,300 in campground user fees to a lockbox at Bank of America. He sent $7,900 in the form of a cashier's check and $6,400 in personal checks from campers.

A month passed and the money never reached the bank. The Forest Service ordered the post office to trace the envelope, but the search did not turn up the checks. Barrus concluded that the post office lost the money and was able to cancel the cashier's check. But he had not made photocopies of the personal checks, so he had no way of recovering the $6,400.

Dale Bosworth, the Forest Service chief, did not hold Barrus accountable for the lost money because he had followed the agency's procedures for sending the envelope. At the time, the instructions from the Forest Service did not tell Barrus to send the user fees by certified mail or to make photocopies of personal checks.

Under the United States Code, Chapter 31, Section 3527(a), GAO can relieve government workers of liability for losing federal funds if the oversight office agrees the loss did not result from employee negligence. GAO does not consider a worker negligent if he handled the government money in as "prudent and careful" a fashion as he would handle his own money. In addition, the office considers whether the employee followed agency procedures properly.

In a March 11 letter, Susan Poling, GAO's managing associate general counsel, told Bosworth that she agreed Barrus was not responsible for the $6,400 loss. Ideally, Barrus should have read Treasury Department rules concerning the proper procedures for handling government money, which instruct employees to make copies of all personal checks before sending them to the lockbox, the letter said.

But Barrus acted under the reasonable assumption that the Forest Service's instructions for handling money would be consistent with Treasury regulations, GAO decided. In fact, the Forest Service's procedures never mentioned making a copy of personal checks.

Also, GAO applied the standard of "reasonableness" and found "many reasonably prudent and careful persons, handling their own collections of this sort, do not record the details of checks that they have collected from others before depositing them in the U.S. mail."

Poling's letter warned the Forest Service to make sure its procedures adhere to Treasury Department regulations in the future.

In response, the Forest Service issued a new policy requiring collection officers to send all money to the lockbox by certified mail, and to photocopy all personal checks before sending them.

March 11 letter from the General Accounting Office

Higher Learning

A former Education Department employee is alleging that her supervisors fired her for blowing the whistle on grant mismanagement.

The Education Department hired Christine Tomei in early 2000 to help monitor a grant program for teaching low-income high school students about postsecondary opportunities. She said was responsible for ensuring the department awarded grant money to worthy recipients, and that recipients followed program rules.

The Education Department's Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) awards five-year discretionary grants to state colleges and organizations that form partnerships with middle schools and high schools in poor areas to help students prepare for college.

Under the terms of the grant, recipients are required to match the grant funds received and demonstrate that they will continue to support the project after the grant ends. Officials in the Education Department's GEAR UP office are supposed to review applicants' budgets before awarding the money, to make sure the applicants will be able to meet the matching requirements and have devoted adequate facilities and resources to the program.

According to a June 2002 IG report (ED-OIG/A07-A0033), Education's GEAR UP office mismanaged the program. The office did not "establish and follow management controls necessary to assure that it administered the program in accordance with legislative, regulatory and internal administrative requirements," the report said. "Effective management controls help safeguard assets, ensure the reliability of accounting data, promote efficient operations and ensure compliance with established policies."

In response to the report, Education officials told the IG that staff had reviewed all grant applications thoroughly to determine eligibility, but had not always documented the review process.

In particular, the IG concluded that GEAR UP officials and staff did not review the budget data submitted by applicants prior to awarding the grants.

Tomei filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, but she said that the office dismissed her case in spring 2001 after her supervisors at Education claimed she had a history of misbehaving at previous jobs, which she denied. She appealed her case to the Merit Systems Protection Board and is awaiting a decision. The board heard testimony on March 20.