5 generals mishandled $87M, comptroller says

[ClearedHot]

5 generals mishandled $87M, comptroller says

By Bruce Rolfsen

brolfsen@militarytimes.com

Five generals have been disciplined for mishandling $87 million and failing to meet Air Force standards.

Gen. Roger Brady, Gen. Stephen Lorenz, Lt. Gen. Glenn Spears, Maj. Gen. Anthony Przybyslawski and Brig. Gen. Sandra Gregory received letters of admonishment for acting inappropriately in 2005 by allowing the Air Force to over draw its fund for permanent change-of-station moves, according to Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a service spokesman.

All had budget- or personnel related jobs. The Defense Department uncovered the shortage in 2006 during a routine audit.

Brady and Lorenz are set to retire by the end of the year. Gre gory retired in 2006. Today, Spears is commander of 12th Air Force and Przybyslawski is a special assistant to the commander of Space Command.

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz issued the letters after being briefed in August on the results of an investigation Donley had asked DoD’s comptroller to conduct.

In a statement, Donley said the officers did not intend to act inappropriately but did fail to meet Air Force standards.

“Everyone is accountable for their actions, and we expect the highest standards of conduct from everyone in the Air Force — regardless of rank — and senior leaders have a special responsibility to those who follow them,” Donley said.

Also singled out were Gregory W. Den Herder, then the executive director of the Air Force Personnel Center, and three individuals whose names the Air Force declined to release citing Privacy Act limits. Den Herder retired in 2006.

The comptroller held Lorenz, Herder and two of the unnamed people responsible for violating federal regulations.

Donley determined Brady, Spears, Przybyslawski, Gregory and one unidentified person should be held accountable because their “actions or inactions” contributed to the overdraft.

In an e-mail, Lorenz told Air Force Times he was unaware he had committed a violation until after he left the budget office in October 2005.

“When I learned [about the violation], I was very surprised and terribly disappointed,” Lorenz wrote. “I accept full responsibility for everything. ... Our team would have prevented this unfortunate situation, had we known of it at the time. I am glad to know that our system is being improved to prevent any recurrence. ” Brady, too, accepted responsibility.

“In the context of supporting two wars overseas, yet drawing down the Air Force by 40,000 people and other force shaping efforts, it is regrettable we didn't recognize the accounting systems, in place for many years, were inadequate,” he said in an e-mailed statement.

Spears and Przybyslawski declined to comment. Lt. Col. Steve Kelly, Spears’ attorney , said the comptroller report had “exonerated” Spears.

Brady Retiring

Lorenz Retiring

Spears still in command

Przybyslawski a Special Assistant

Gregory retired

[Toro]

Brady's retirement and has been delayed for several months. Related?

[ClearedHot]

Brady's retirement and has been delayed for several months. Related?

Yup...

[Pitt4401]

Not that our elected officials are any better with the taxpayer's money.

But...

It's stories like these that remind me why the Armed Services committee wouldn't trust Big blue to negotiate a 36-month lease for a Chevy Aveo

[Coasta]

Stepher R Lorenz. Ugh! Hate that guy and his rhetoric. Hopefully, these guys get ass-whomped in some way, shape or form.

[Fud]

Question for everyone, and someone in the know. Is the 87M debacle directly the five GOs' faults, or is it simply because they were in command at the time? I find this story very interesting, and would love to read the report after all is said and done. I remember thinking the USAF was simply looking for a scapegoat during the Thunderbird debacle, but upon further reading, found that a lot was done wrong during the entire process.

[Karl Hungus]

Stepher R Lorenz. Ugh! Hate that guy and his rhetoric. Hopefully, these guys get ass-whomped in some way, shape or form.

But...but...but... he writes Lorenz on Leadership!

[Toro]

Is the 87M debacle directly the five GOs' faults, or is it simply because they were in command at the time?

The latter

I find this story very interesting, and would love to read the report after all is said and done.

You may see reporting, but you won't see a report. It's an LOA (slap on the wrist), not an accident investigation.

[Fud]

Toro, I figured that would be the answer. I am sure this will hurt their retirements(sarcasm)

[Hacker]

I can only hope that if I someday ever fuck up to the tune of $87 mil, that my punishment is also flavored in Admonishment.

[Finance_Guy]

Question for everyone, and someone in the know. Is the 87M debacle directly the five GOs' faults, or is it simply because they were in command at the time?

Well, I'm not directly in the know of the exact details but was involved in the debacle of trying to get this problem fixed when the MILPERS appropriation went bust. IMO, there was no way in hell they had direct control of this problem--not at their level. There are too many working parts to the entire PCS process and no one person can put an exact cost on what each and every PCS move is gonna end up being in the end. Yes they have good ways of estimating but that is still only and estimate. .

To put this in a little perspective. Per the AFD document, for FY 2005, the Direct Program for PCS costs was $988M. So being off by $87M was within 10 percent, right?

http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070221-128.pdf , Pages 102-119 in the .pdf file.

So, you give me almost a billion dollars and here's what I do with it.

#1. Issue PCS orders for everyone and don't put one estimate anywhere within.

#2. We don't load any such estimate into any accounting system (These are Centrally Managed Funds- CMA)

**Note, our accounting systems are written in COBOL and one cannot expect us to find programmers who can create a Window GUI in COBOL. It just would not work with the AF Standard Desktop or would take about a decade to get an ATO.

#3. Prepare all kinds of HHGs shipment and storage documents and don't load any outlays/obligations to any accounting system

#4. Same with PPMs (aka DITY Moves)

#5. Oh, and did we forget the every changing rules and increase to entitlement from the JFTR and forget to update our Budget Estimate?

#6. Then all the rain comes down. Everyone starts filing their travel vouchers to get paid and finally some expenditures begin to be posted to the COBOL accounting system, which by the way is not reviewed by the CMA Resource Advisor. They trust your local Finance Office to make sure entitlements are paid correctly.

#7. Some people forget to file their travel vouchers so you have no idea how much their PCS costs are going to be. You might be thinking right now...hey, do I still need to file that DITY move from 2005? If so, make it $87 point something, something more mishandled.

#8. Oh and go back to HHGs storage. Did we tell you that those thousand some storage lots that began years ago have to be charged to the Fiscal Year (FY) of the actual storage months? And, also, the TMO's system for tracking this doesn't allow them to update the FY in their system, so they keep charging the original FY.

#9. Then we have accounting professionals who cannot figure out how to read an AFI and properly charge PCS moves to the correct fiscal year (that's where I got involved). There may have been $87M mishandled, but there was a lot of work done that identified that improper postings to the COBOL systems charged the incorrect FY which put the appropriation in the hole. We did what we could but to get everything 100% accurate was not possible.

If only we had some modern software that could handle all this mess....well, we do. They are testing DEAMS as a technology demonstration at Scott AFB. Guess what, we still don't load PCS funding as targets or initial commitments. We just post it all at the payment stage and call it good.

No freak'in wonder. There is no one person in the AF that could tell you exactly how much obligated for PCS moves on any given day. They can only tell you what has been expensed and by that time it is too late. These funds were not mishandled, but rather mis-posted or just not foreseen. The GOs were just the scapegoats of our bad un-auditable procedural and accounting systems.

My 2 Cents, and only my opinion based on my knowledge of how all this works. I could be wrong. Out.

Edited December 10, 2010 by Finance_Guy

[Guest peaceman]

What's more interesting is the article published on 13 Dec Early Bird. The article stated 15 General Officers were issued LOAs or LORs from the CSAF or SecAF in the last two years. Mentioned there could more, but the Air Force refused to release names due to privacy concerns. Some LOAs/LORs were unrelated to the above fiasco.

Edited December 14, 2010 by peaceman

[AEWingsMN]

Talking to TMO the other day, and it came up that they recently got something brought up to them about a PCS for someone 3 years ago by the guy who does the audit... they said that it looks like only one guy audits all PCS's in the military and he's about 3 years behind. If that's so, it might be why this entire investigation waited so long. Not necessarily that they were waiting for the right time to attack certain generals.

[amcflyboy]

5 generals mishandled $87M, comptroller says

By Bruce Rolfsen

brolfsen@militarytimes.com

Five generals have been disciplined for mishandling $87 million and failing to meet Air Force standards.

Gen. Roger Brady, Gen. Stephen Lorenz, Lt. Gen. Glenn Spears, Maj. Gen. Anthony Przybyslawski and Brig. Gen. Sandra Gregory received letters of admonishment for acting inappropriately in 2005...yadda yadda yadda.

Przybyslawski's name was pretty dominant on all the signature blocks in the FTU training packets you would get at the respective school houses. Interesting...

Edited January 25, 2011 by amcflyboy

[Herk Driver]

5 generals mishandled $87M, comptroller says

By Bruce Rolfsen

brolfsen@militarytimes.com

Five generals have been disciplined for mishandling $87 million and failing to meet Air Force standards.

Gen. Roger Brady, Gen. Stephen Lorenz, Lt. Gen. Glenn Spears, Maj. Gen. Anthony Przybyslawski and Brig. Gen. Sandra Gregory received letters of admonishment for acting inappropriately in 2005...yadda yadda yadda.

Przybyslawski's name was pretty dominant on all the signature blocks in the FTU training packets you would get at the respective school houses. Interesting...

Why is that interesting?