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AIMD-95-219R 1 (1995-09-05)

handle is hein.gao/gaobackxv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 




GAO          United States
             General Accounting Office
             Washington, D.C. 20548

             Accounting and Information
             Management Division

             B-262098

             September 5, 1995

             The Honorable Anthony A. Williams
             Chief Financial Officer
             Department of Agriculture

             Dear Mr. Williams:

             At the request of the Chairman, Senate Committee on
             Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry and the Ranking
             Minority Member, Subcommittee on Government Management,
             Information and Technology, House Committee on Government
             Reform and Oversight, we reviewed the Department of
             Agriculture's (USDA) management and planning of
             telecommunications. As part of this ongoing review, we
             identified two telecommunications bills that included
             charges for leased equipment and services that are no longer
             being used. In these cases, USDA has been paying tens of
             thousands of dollars annually for equipment, such as
             rotary telephones and outdated modems that could not even be
             located, and for telephone services for an office that
             closed over a year ago.

             On July 12, 1995, we discussed these bills with the Deputy
             Chief Financial Officer and the National Finance Center
             (NFC) Director. In this meeting we recommended that USDA
             (1) immediately take the necessary actions to stop payments
             for the charges on these bills and seek recovery of past
             vendor charges deemed inappropriate and (2) evaluate and
             correct the financial management processes and controls at
             NFC that permitted such payments to be made. The Deputy
             Chief Financial Officer and the NFC Director agreed to take
             appropriate actions on these bills and evaluate controls at
             NFC for these types of payments. The purpose of this letter
             is to confirm our discussion and provide further perspective
             on disbursement control issues for USDA's consideration.

             AT&T Bill Number 7162119126

             This consolidated monthly bill covers hundreds of items,
             including telecommunications modems, telephones, and other
             equipment, leased by various USDA agencies and offices
             across the nation. We identified the following charges
             included in this bill:


                                GAO/AIMD-95-219R USDA Telecommunications

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