Commerce Department inspector general
Todd Zinser makes clear the government is at risk of wasting millions of additional dollars without tighter spending controls by the Census Bureau on its 1 million temporary workers.
"The costs were substantial," he wrote, imploring the agency to improve
cost estimates so the national head count does not exceed its
$15 billion price tag.
Recent audit findings:
--More than 10,000 census employees were paid more than $300 apiece to attend training for the massive address-canvassing effort, but they quit or were let go before they could perform any work. Cost:
$3 million.
--Another 5,000 employees collected $300 for the same training but worked a single day or less. Cost
$1.5 million.
--Twenty-three temporary census employees were paid for car mileage at 55 cents a mile, even though the number of miles they reported driving per hour exceeded the number of hours they actually worked.
--Another 581 employees who spent the majority of their time driving instead of conducting field work also received full mileage reimbursements, which investigators called questionable.
--Other temporary employees claimed nearly 3.9 million miles driven at the mileage reimbursement rate of 58.5 cents per mile, even though the federal rate had been reduced to 55 cents as of January 2009. The result: excess payments of roughly
$136,000.
Census regional offices that had mileage costs exceeding their planned budgets included Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City and Seattle.
The Super Bowl advertising -- which included a 30-second spot in the third quarter, two 30-second pregame spots and on-air mentions -- was panned by media critics as weak and ineffective, and it was criticized as wasteful by Republicans including
