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article is provided courtesy of Stars & Stripes,
which got its start as a newspaper for Union troops during the Civil War, and has been published continuously since 1942 in Europe and 1945 in the Pacific. Stripes reporters have been in the field with American soldiers, sailors and airmen in World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo, and are now on assignment in the Middle East.
Stars and Stripes has one of the widest distribution ranges of any newspaper in the world. Between the Pacific and European editions, Stars & Stripes services over 50 countries where there are bases, posts, service members, ships, or embassies.
The 40-page GAO report, released last week, criticized some of DOD's
reimbursements and identified $433,000 in questionable USO expenditures
after examining the details of six celebrity tours from fiscal years
2000 to 2002. The GAO did not identify which tours had the problems.
So far, the DOD has recovered about $19,000 from the USO for the overseas
tour expenses.
USO spokesman John Hanson said Wednesday that the DOD should have
charged the USO back for the payments it should not have paid for
in the first place.
He added that since fiscal 2002, the USO has hired a full-time person
to handle the contracts and other billing issues regarding the military.
The reimbursement problems included more than 50 business- and first-class
tickets worth about $76,000 for celebrities; the use of a limousine
service and an airport lounge that cost $3,054; and $343,910 for unsupported
production assistance and celebrity honorarium payments, which are
used to help celebrities with day-to-day tour expenses; and other
miscellaneous expenditures.
More specific problems included reimbursing one unnamed celebrity
$27,000 without supporting documents and paying one unidentified production
tour manager $56,520, again without any detailed supporting documents.
The flights in question included trips to Frankfurt, Germany; Cairo,
Egypt; Doha, Qatar; Amman, Jordan; Athens, Greece; several cities
in Italy; and Istanbul, Turkey.
Because the entertainers donate their time, the USO will fly them
first-class internationally and business-class within the United States,
Hanson said, something DOD guidelines would not allow. He added that
last year, the USO sponsored roughly 60 celebrity tours overseas,
and had 12 tours alone from Thanksgiving until now.
"We know how important this is to our servicemembers," he said.
The Armed Forces Entertainment Office, which is run by the Air Force,
did not have an immediate answer to the GAO report, said Jacquelyn
Hampton, an Air Force spokeswoman.
However, in the GAO report, the DOD acknowledged the problems and
said it would follow GAO advice to improve management and oversight
of the USO contracts, as well as develop written procedures consistent
with DOD and federal travel regulations.
The report examined only the USO World Headquarters in Washington,
which operates the USO's overseas entertainment tours.
The USO is a congressionally chartered, nonprofit agency; however,
significant chunks of its funding come from the Defense Department.
Nearly every month, the USO brings a dozen or more entertainers to
visit troops stationed around the world. In the past few months, for
example, it has brought actor and comedian Robin Williams and actors
Daniel Stern, Ben Affleck and Tom Green to military personnel in the
Middle East.
The USO also provides travel services, phone cards and other troop
support services.
In 2002, the most recent figures available from the USO's Web site,
the organization spent about $46 million on programming, with $4.8
million going toward entertainment.
GAO investigators said they believed if the USO's auditors had checked
internal controls, they, too, should have found the problems.
The DOD relies upon the Armed Forces Entertainment Office to deliver
overseas entertainment. In turn, the entertainment office contracts
with the USO, which gets celebrity entertainers to perform for free
or at reduced rates at overseas locations.
Ordinarily, according to the report, the DOD pays back the USO for
honoraria, which are daily allowances paid to the celebrities, tour
managers and producers, production support and administrative costs.
The USO also would pay for some of the costs related to the entertainers
that the DOD will not pay, such as the difference between business-
class and first-class airline tickets, and travel costs for individuals
accompanying the performers.
The USO gets funding from businesses and individual donors, too.
The GAO investigators said that because of limitations in the way
the DOD and USO keep records, they could not determine exactly how
much the federal government supports the USO. But from fiscal 2000
through 2002, the DOD provided at least $34.7 million in direct USO
support.
