Briefs

Officials hope to use data to improve government purchase card policies

BY Michael Hardy

Jan. 24, 2005. Defense Department officials have gathered data on the misuse of government purchase cards, and they hope to create policies based on that data.

Col. William Kelley, program director of the Army's data-mining division in the inspector general's office, said government credit card users could be misspending millions of taxpayer dollars.

Agency officials issue the cards, which look and function like ordinary credit cards. Employees use them for purchases less than $2,500. Most card purchases are for office supplies or building materials, Kelley said.

Studies that Kelley's office conducted in 2002 and 2003 looked at 1,357 cardholders flagged by data-mining tools. The cardholders accounted for 13,052 flagged transactions out of 562,499 transactions available for review.

Officials identified 182 cardholders who had used their cards fraudulently or who warranted further investigation.

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