The Transportation Security Administration wasted money on an operations office lavishly equipped with artwork, tens of thousands of dollars of silk flowers, expensive kitchen equipment and a state-of-the-art fitness center with towel service, according to a report by the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department that was released on Tuesday.
Some of those supplies were improperly bought from a company owned by an acquaintance of the agency's project manager, according to the report.
The spending occurred in 2003 while the agency was setting up a $19 million transportation security center in Herndon, Va., for 79 full-time employees. The site includes seven kitchens and a fitness center more than half the size of one that serves nearly 7,000 employees at the agency's headquarters, the report says.
"Breakdowns in management controls left the project vulnerable to waste and abuse," says the report by Richard L. Skinner, the department's acting inspector general.
The critique was released on the same day that Mr. Skinner published separate reports concluding that the Transportation Security Administration's airport screeners had made no progress since 2003 in detecting weapons or explosives and asserting that the agency was not taking enough steps to prevent its staff from stealing items from passengers' bags during inspections.
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