The Virginia Department of Corrections lost $65,000 last year because it used the wrong mileage reimbursement rates for state vehicles, a state audit has found. State employees who are allowed to take state-owned vehicles home must reimburse the state when they use the vehicle to commute to and from work, but because the corrections department used the wrong formula for calculating what those employees owed, it collected less than half the amount it was required to charge.

The corrections department used a rate of 26 cents per mile to calculate mileage reimbursement for those employees, even though the state requires them to pay according to Internal Revenue Service guidelines, which set reimbursement rates at 55 cents per mile between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2009, and 50 cents per mile after Jan. 1, 2010.