National Weather Service misappropriated $43 million

Jack Hayes, the director of the National Weather Service, stepped down Friday in response to an investigation that top officials at the weather service had misappropriated $43.8 million by giving bonuses and extensions to contractors without proper justification.

The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, released the report on May 18, detailing an audit of nine contracts that include incentive pay for good work. The contracts have a maximum potential value of $1.6 billion.

The investigators said there may be other contracts that provide additional awards from 2008, 2009 and 2010 but that NOAA was unable to “provide a complete and reliable list when requested by the Office of Inspector General.”

Sen. Olympia Snowe, the ranking member of Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard subcommittee, released a statement Friday, the same day Hayes that stepped down and a week after the report had been released.

Read the full report

“The deeply troubling revelation that senior staff at the National Weather Service, which provides indispensable storm and weather forecasting, have been conducting improper and potentially illegal transfers of taxpayers’ money is unacceptable,” Snowe said.

“I am further alarmed that the investigative report raises fundamental concerns that the core operations of the National Weather Service are underfunded, and that the current process in the Department of Commerce is broken, as it ‘did not encourage questioning or provide independent channels for reporting dubious budget decisions,’” Snowe stated.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/27/11910049-report-national-weather-service-misappropriated-43-million

National Weather Service misappropriated $43 million

National Weather Service misappropriated $43 million

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