Audit On NEON's Waste of Taxpayer Money - NEON Website Offline After Congressional Hearing

NEON Cited for Waste of Taxpayer Money

Bill Smith, ARRA News Service: Fox News has reported on new "party" spending scandal involving the National Science Foundation and the environmental organization NEON, Inc.$25,000 for a Christmas party.

$11,000 for premium coffee services.

Millions more for questionable construction costs.

All this was billed to taxpayers by an obscure federally funded science group, according to a scathing new inspector general report.

The audit, conducted by the National Science Foundation inspector general and the Defense Contract Audit Agency, detailed spending by the Colorado-based National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). The nonprofit, designed to operate a network of ecological observatories across the continent, is solely funded by the National Science Foundation.

The report found that spending at the group has gotten out of control.

Millions of tax dollars wasted in climate change study
$25,000 for a Christmas party.

$11,000 for premium coffee services.

Millions more for questionable construction costs.

All this was billed to taxpayers by an obscure federally funded science group, according to a scathing new inspector general report.

The audit, conducted by the National Science Foundation inspector general and the Defense Contract Audit Agency, detailed spending by the Colorado-based National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). The nonprofit, designed to operate a network of ecological observatories across the continent, is solely funded by the National Science Foundation.

The report found that spending at the group has gotten out of control.

"Given the present lack of controls, there is virtually no accountability over the contingency funds ... NSF does not have sufficient safeguards over the significant and unsupported contingency costs included in NEON's award budget," the report said. Two days ago, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, held a hearing to examine misuse of taxpayer dollars by the National Ecological Observatory Network Inc. (NEON). Chairman Smith said, “Federal agencies must be held accountable for their waste and misuse of taxpayer funds. And the NSF needs to be held accountable for how they spend taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. The basic responsibility of any government agency is to act in the national interest. The NSF needs to meet that standard.”

The hearing noted thatThe NSF entered into a long-term agreement with NEON to develop and operate the project’s national network of fixed and mobile sensors. An audit by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) identified more than $150 million in unsupported or questionable costs in the NEON proposal. It concluded that there was not a “fair and reasonable basis” for NSF to enter into a contract. Nevertheless, NSF did not wait for the audit results. It instead finalized an agreement based on NEON’s original cost proposal.

Committee members questioned how the NSF managed to approve, without any change, a $433 million proposed construction budget for which the DCAA auditors found $150 million was unsupported or questionable.

The NSF’s Inspector General testified that unallowable costs formed the basis for two fraud referrals that were ultimately sent to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) for possible prosecution. But the DOJ declined to accept the case.

Audits have also raised questions about cost proposals that were accepted by NSF for several major projects. These include the Ocean Observatories Initiative, the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope, NEON and, currently, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. NSF spokeswoman Martha Rubenstein, Head and CFO at the Office of Budget, Finance and Award Administration (BFA) in a letter to the Inspectors Generals Office uses standard bureaucratic speak to leverage avoiding criticism of oversight responsibility, like we haven't heard this before within the Obama administration. She said: "The payment of a small but appropriate management fee has been a long standing practice at NSF in limited circumstances .... NSF is now undertaking a comprehensive evaluation of the fee practice. ..."

FoxNews reported that, "NEON Board Chairman James Collins also defended the organization. 'NEON, Inc. has always spent all funding in strict compliance with our understanding both of the guidelines provided to the organization and the law,' he said in a statement."

Peter Boddie, Colorado Blogger "Pundit Pete" lives just down the road from me in Boulder, Colorado and noted to this writer that it might be interesting to visit Neon's Christmas Party this year. He identified the following upcoming events linked at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco, CA on the NEON website:COOPEUS Roadmapping Workshop: Planning the future of international research infrastructure interoperability
December 17, 2014 - 10:30 to 5:00

American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting
December 15, 2014 to December 19, 2014 - NEON staff will present posters and participate in organized sessions throughout the conference. NEON will also have a booth in the exhibit hall where staff will be available to provide information and answer questions. Peter suggested that concerned citizens near the meeting would "drop by during the conference and pop up in a session with a tough question for a NEON staff member about wasting public money." I agree! It's our money that NEON is wasting.

When I attempted to visit the NEON website which is "Solely funded by the National Science Foundation" (our tax dollars), the site was offline for maintenance until until December 8.

I am also a website designer. And in my previous military career, I was the administrator of a $2.2 Billion (1988 dollars) international government program. No reputable business or quasi-government organization needs to take down their informational website for maintenance. They simply perform the required changes and upload those change over the former website pages. All security is done at the servers.

As this website is "solely funded" by the government, this action is even more questionable. Why is this website, operational at the time of the Fox News report and Congressman Smith's hearing, now off-line. What could NEON or lord forbid, the NSF have to hide after the recent audit? Could NSF be questioning NEON's funding? We don't know.

But, we should. Perhaps Congressman Lamar Smith will ask the NSF and NEON why this government funded website needed to be taken down? What changes were made on and to the website? And, how much was spent by NEON and the NSF on the San Francisco trip and promotions?

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