First part of editorial from The Salt Lake Tribune —
It’s hard to imagine that one person could be responsible for misspending millions of taxpayer dollars, leaving national park construction projects unfinished, subcontractors unpaid and contracts awarded with no regard for rules and policies.
Yet contracts for $17 million in construction projects at Grand Canyon National Park were awarded by the park’s contracting officer to Pacific General Inc. without the insurance bonds required by federal law to guarantee that the work is finished and subcontractors are paid.
The company, whose license had been suspended in Arizona for two years before it got the park contracts, went out of business after being paid but before completing a number of major projects and without paying subcontractors an estimated $2.5 million for the work they did.
It may be true that one man, who, not surprisingly, retired abruptly when the mismanagement was uncovered, was the primary culprit in this financial morass that has pushed some of 50 subcontractors near bankruptcy. But where were those who should have been overseeing him?
If oversight was as scandalously lacking at Grand Canyon as it appears, what might auditors find if they checked into the $94 million the Park Service extravagantly spent in overseas travel the past two years, or the major construction projects under way without congressional approval?