The House has passed HR-5215, under which a VA employee who has “knowingly misused” an agency-issued purchase card would no longer be eligible to have one or to serve as an approving official, in addition to “any other applicable penalty.”
Misuse would include splitting purchases into segments to keep each under a thresholds that would require a more formal procurement action.; exceeding purchase card limits or purchase thresholds; purchasing any unauthorized item; using a purchase card without being an authorized purchase card holder; or violating ethics standards.
The bill follows IG reports finding purchase splitting and other misuse of the cards at numerous agencies, including several at the VA within the last year.
For example, one found that the department may have spent more than $256 million more than necessary for the purchase of prosthetics in fiscal 2015 alone by using government-issued purchase cards rather than contracts; another found that once a contract for restroom supplies within a Veterans Integrated Service Network expired, purchase card holders made 18 split purchases valued at about $73,000 on Federal Supply Schedule orders for such supplies from the same vendor.
