The report added that while potential split purchases were low in percentage terms, in number terms that involved more than 47,000 transactions totaling over $188 million. Image: Ekkamai Chaikanta/Shutterstock.com
An inspector general audit has said the VA’s purchase card program is at a medium level of risk for illegal, improper, or erroneous purchases, largely due to approving officials having to oversee activity on large numbers of cards.
That rating is the same as in a prior review in 2020, said a report on a program that allows purchases of under $10,000 without the higher level of scrutiny for those of higher value. Over a 12-month period studied, some $5.5 billion in VA purchases were made in that way.
The IG judged the risk to be at low levels, 5 percent or less, for indicators of possible misuse such as a surge in year-end spending and splitting larger-value purchases into multiple transactions to keep each below the threshold. In terms of number of transactions, the former was at about 4 percent and the latter about 1 percent, while a third possibility, use by an unauthorized person, was well below 1 percent.
However, it said that about 9 percent of transactions passed through approving officials who oversee more than 25 cards, and that a similar, while for prosthetics purchases, a similar share of transactions passed through officials overseeing more than 40 cards.
The report added that while potential split purchases were low in percentage terms, in number terms that involved more than 47,000 transactions totaling over $188 million. “The team did not examine individual transactions to determine if they were actual split purchases. However, the OIG has been conducting separate financial management reviews at VA medical centers that include the examination of transactional data regarding potential split purchases,” it said.
The report meanwhile judged the VA’s travel card and fleet card programs to be at low risk; it made no recommendations.
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