Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

cowvin t1_jdgqnm0 wrote

For people who didn't read the article:

> Eckstrom has said the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report exaggerated the state's cash balances for a decade by double counting the money sent to colleges and universities. The mistake went unsolved until a junior staffer fixed the error this fall.

This sounds like straight up incompetence.

156

wagnus_ t1_jdhesq4 wrote

you really feel that's incompetence? that caliber of quantity is just, red flag alert across the board. that's gotta be deliberate fraudulent activity, no?

54

sometimes_Oblivious t1_jdhrvib wrote

I agree. It seems like he knew exactly what to "miscount".

21

[deleted] t1_jdjykie wrote

[removed]

1

AutoModerator t1_jdjykjt wrote

Sorry, but your account is too new to post. Your account needs to be either 2 weeks old or have at least 250 combined link and comment karma. Don't modmail us about this, just wait it out or get more karma.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

0

ajt9000 t1_jdilgrm wrote

Depends how it was counted. If it was a bug in a computer program or excel sheet doing the double counting its hard to attribute that to malice. Especially if many people used it.

7

TheOldGuy59 t1_jdvakdq wrote

In 40+ years in the IT industry both in the military and the private sector, I have NEVER seen a "bug" in a program that would do that to this degree. In every case it's been PEBKAC. People love to blame the computer but it's operator error, every single time. Error or malfeasance that they'll try to blame on the computer as an escape route to avoid prison time.

2

SlouchyGuy t1_jdhbimg wrote

I wonder if it's the usual story of juniors doing the job, giving the report to senior people who never bother to check or control anything

30

gopms t1_jdj6rad wrote

It is! I worked at a university and wasn't particularly experienced with accounting and finance but it was part of my new job. I read over all of the rules and guidelines and ran every report so I could get a handle on what was going on and found a glaring anomaly in the accounts when I went to reconcile them at the end of my first month. Money wasn't missing, there was basically a pot of money that hadn't been touched because no one seemed to know it was there and it had no oversight whatsoever. I pointed this out to the bigwigs in finance and they wouldn't believe me. I literally pointed to it on the finance report and they still wouldn't believe me. Multiple times I showed it to them. I used the money over the next couple of years to fund things that should have been funded but weren't and someone finally said "hey gopms where do you find the money for these things?" Me: "That pot of money I told you about multiple times!" They still didn't believe me! 5 years of me pulling rabbits out of hats to pay for things and finally someone said "no really, where is she getting the money from?" They were lucky that I was not stealing it from them

12

TheOldGuy59 t1_jdvbg90 wrote

I would have escalated this and continued to escalate this as far as I could so that it would never have come back down - shit rolls downhill. I'm assuming you have detailed documentation of every conversation you had with the Wigs to prove you told them? They love to ignore shit until something bad happens, then they look for scapegoats so they don't take the heat for their sloth. If you're not doing that I suggest you start doing it, CYA. I work for a major corporate conglomerate and you'd better believe I do it every single day. The crap I find all the time out there that would mean being terminated and blackballed if it was ever blamed on me is staggering, but execs and managers just get transferred to a new section so they can screw that one up too - the Good Old Boys Club in action.

​

I won't tell you where I work but I will tell you I'll never fly on an airplane ever again. I've seen the decisions made around here by execs who don't understand anything about what's going on and I don't trust that the same decisions are being made about aircraft components. You couldn't pay me enough to fly anymore.

1

djdefekt t1_jdhhz4v wrote

If you rtfa a junior found the error and was the whistle blower

8

SponConSerdTent t1_jdiaul6 wrote

If you drtfa, the real accounting errors were the redditors we met along the way

7

omgFWTbear t1_jdich4o wrote

Given my experience closely adjacent to similar things elsewhere, I think there are predictable questions of management from the top quashing corrections (which is separate from the article’s text that states the error began and end with the executive) and people fearing for their jobs not whistleblowing or just following orders.

2

Thecrawsome t1_jdiyyfm wrote

Artificially inflating how much money you have, and looking the other way when it's revealed? Probably more than incompetence. Time to start assuming malicious intent.

2

chucalaca t1_jdj7ed2 wrote

A decade and No audit was done? No oversight at all? Wonder how much has been embezzled over the last 10 years

1

TheOldGuy59 t1_jdvcfmv wrote

>State officials testified that Eckstrom ignored auditors' years long warnings of a "material weakness" in his office and flawed cash reporting.

​

He was ignoring the audits. Which makes me wonder even more, honestly. And the auditors should have escalated this if the guy was obviously ignoring their warnings for years - to the Lt. Governor, and the Governor at least. And the SC Secretary of State, etc. EVERYONE should have been on the line for this - hell, they should have notified the SC State Assembly! This is a failing on multiple levels where the Comptroller fails, but everyone else who refused to press the issue also failed.

​

I'm suspicious of "The Buck Stopped with Eckstrom" statement, no one is asking why the auditors didn't continue to escalate this up the chain of command until it was resolved.

1