FWS Employee Made Unauthorized Purchases of Print Supplies

The OIG investigated allegations that between 2013 and 2017, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) employee wrongfully purchased approximately $6,000 worth of office and printer supplies with a Government purchase card. We also investigated whether the employee’s supervisor failed to review and monitor the purchase card transactions.We found that the employee made unauthorized purchases of supplies and used them for printing that was outside the scope of her assigned duties and unauthorized by her supervisors. The printing included FWS related news articles and birthday cards for coworkers. We did not find any personal gain by the employee from the unauthorized purchases.We also found that the employee’s current supervisor reviewed the purchase card transactions as required. The current supervisor had only recently been promoted, however, and was not the required reviewer until 2016. The current supervisor also asked repeatedly for the purchase card statements from the employee, who acknowledged she had fallen behind in providing the statements to her supervisor.We referred this case to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Wyoming, which declined to prosecute.This is a summary of an investigative report that was issued to the Acting Director, FWS.