Previous Story
House passes personal liability bill on illegal reprogramming
|
Posted on Aug 28 2005
The majority members of the House of Representatives passed a bill Friday that aims to hold personally liable any government employee who illegally reprograms or knowingly receives illegally reprogrammed funds.
The House said this proposal, contained in House Bill 14-249, accomodates the recommendation of the Office of the Public Auditor on the issue of illegal reprogramming.
Under the bill, which was introduced by Rep. Jesus Lizama, no funds shall be reprogrammed to any account which has been zero-funded by the Legislature or to any account for which the Legislature has not made an appropriation.
“Any person who illegally reprograms government funds or knowingly receives illegally reprogrammed funds…shall each be held personally liable for the amount to the reprogrammed account,” the bill said.
The proposal was introduced last year when both the Senate and the House were investigating the funding mess involving the Commonwealth hemodialysis project.
The hemodialysis project was originally given $11 million from 702 funds and local funds. Its contract price was only worth $5.6 million but due to several changes, the entire funding was depleted.
Department of Public Works officials said some $10 million had been spent on the project, including the contract amount and other expenses.
The project design was reportedly awarded to Leo Daly for about $800,000 but, due to “unacceptable work,” the government entered into a redesign project with Tanaguchi Ruth for nearly $900,000.
The Legislature eventually referred the matter to the OPA.
The Legislature had also approved to reprogram $5.8 million of Kagman wastewater funds for the completion of the hemodialysis project.
