The Fraud – How Much Has Been Missed?

CDOT Supervisor Kelly Iiams resigned under allegations of gas card fraud.

After exposing two cases of fraud within CDOT involving gas cards, I can only imagine the fraud that existed in the past that will never be found.

This month I revealed CDOT paid more than $30,000 on lost gas card and in another case, a department supervisor resigned (see photo) amid accusations of racking up $7,000 on a card.

While CDOT deserves credit for finding these fraud cases thanks to recent self-audits, it certainly does not deserve any praise for how it failed to watch your tax dollars in the past.

The state admits it did a horrible job of watching its gas cards and promises it’s been putting tighter controls in place.  Those tighter controls only started coming into place a year-and-a-half ago.

Oversight should have started the day when the state first started using fuel cards (years ago I assume).

Without a doubt, dubious employees who will never be caught have taken advantage of the of oversight.

And with CDOT spending seven million dollars in gas on its fleet per year, who knows how much fraud over the years the state missed?

How much of our tax dollars ended up in the wrong gas tank?

We’ll never know.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as an investigative journalist, the drive within government to find waste and abuse is not as imperative as it is within the private sector.

Our taxes continuously fund agency budgets.  The government makes money regardless of the quality of service it provides.   Rooting out fraud and abuse is often not a priority with a guaranteed flow of income.