Health and Human Services improperly used federal funds for former Secretary Tom Price’s travel, an agency watchdog said Friday.
HHS’ Office of Inspector General said in a report on Friday that the agency violated federal rules for travel for Price, who resigned last year after a scandal surrounding his private jet use. Overall, the watchdog found that HHS wasted at least $341,000 related to travel.
The report looked at 21 trips and found that only one of those trips followed federal requirements for government travel.
“The remaining 20 trips did not comply with federal requirements, including all 12 chartered aircraft trips,” the OIG said. “Examples of noncompliance related to the use of chartered aircraft included not completing a cost comparison to commercial airline service, not adhering to contract requirements and not properly authorizing the use of chartered aircraft.”
A large majority of the $341,000 was related to the authorization and use of chartered aircraft, $333,014. There was also $4,926 in funding related to travel that started and ended in locations other than for official duty, and $2,960 related to excessive travel costs, the report said.
The report charges HHS to find ways to recoup the lost federal funding. It also wants HHS to install new processes to comply with federal rules for chartered aircraft.
