another cronie ? Julie Myers declined to discuss her plan to address problems what the shit ?

another cronie ? Julie Myers declined to discuss her plan to address problems what the shit ?

If Julie Myers is confirmed as expected as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Homeland Security Department, one of her top priorities and major challenges will be repairing the agency’s financial integrity.

Federal auditors have singled out the agency’s financial management problems as particularly troublesome in the last year.

Myers told senators at her Sept. 15 nomination hearing that fixing ICE’s financial management will be paramount among her concerns. Myers said the problem stretches back to ICE’s creation in March 2003, when it was cobbled together from remnants of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Customs Service. She said ICE was shortchanged in those early days of Homeland Security.

Homeland Security’s current and former inspectors general told lawmakers in July that ICE’s effort to provide accounting and other services to other department agencies during that time contributed to its budget shortfall. ICE and its customer bureaus did not agree on what ICE would provide and how much it would charge until late fiscal 2004, former IG Clark Kent Ervin said in a written statement to the House Government Reform subcommittee on government management, finance and accountability. By that point, ICE was left with a shortfall of between $200 million and $300 million, Ervin said.

Since then, Myers said, Congress ensured ICE received necessary funding, but the effects of that initial underfunding are still being felt.

The budget problems prompted a year-long hiring freeze that began in fall 2004, and some agents were forced to pay for their own gas and did not have enough money to pay confidential informants or use cell phones, Ervin said. ICE’s already-underfunded efforts to house arrested illegal aliens awaiting deportation also suffered further, he said.

Also, experienced financial staff began bolting in the summer of 2003 some to other Homeland Security bureaus delivering another blow to the agency’s financial management, Inspector General Richard Skinner said.

By fiscal 2004, ICE had fallen far behind in its basic accounting functions, Skinner said, such as balancing checkbooks and resolving bookkeeping anomalies.

Skinner said ICE’s accounting records were so bad that independent auditors could not tell whether the agency had broken federal law by spending more than it was budgeted.

ICE’s difficulties have affected the entire department by consuming large amounts of management time that could have gone to helping other agencies, Skinner said.

Myers on Sept. 15 pledged to get the agency’s financial house in order. But a major hurdle is that the agency still lacks enough financial managers, Myers said. She told senators one of her first tasks will be to hire a permanent chief financial officer.

Myers declined to discuss her plan to address the agency’s financial problems until after she is confirmed. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved her nomination in an Oct. 7 party-line vote; it now awaits a Senate vote.

Myers, now President Bush’s special assistant for personnel, was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, a deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury Department in charge of investigating money laundering and financial crimes, an assistant secretary of Commerce for export enforcement, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s chief of staff when he was the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general.

Several senators from both parties, including Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, expressed concerns during Myers’ nomination hearing about her lack of experience with immigration issues. Running ICE, which has a $4 billion budget and more than 14,000 employees, is a vast step up from her Commerce position, where she oversaw 170 employees and a $25 million budget. Her tenure at Commerce was the largest management job she noted in written responses to Senate questions.

Republican senators’ subsequent conversations with Chertoff and Myers alleviated their concerns, and Myers’ nomination was passed out of committee. Before the committee approved Myers, Democrats such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut restated their misgivings.

Experts contacted by Federal Times said Myers is right to make improving finances a priority.

Former IG Ervin said that financial management problems will plague the agency until it can staff itself with enough qualified accountants and financial managers.


By STEPHEN LOSEY see more at ..........

http://federaltimes.com/index2.php?S=1212903