A financial scandal that has left the National Weather Service short $36 million this year resulted from a “failure of management and oversight” by top leaders and “significant deficiencies” in how the service and its parent agencies manage their finances.
The assessment Thursday by the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the weather service, seemed only to frustrate House Republicans as they pressed for details about improper accounting methods the service used to balance its books.
At a hearing on Capitol Hill, House appropriators said they will hold off approving NOAA’s request to move $36 million from long-term projects to keep operating through September until Administrator Jane Lubchenco answers 65 more questions.
“We want to reassure the employees” that lawmakers will likely authorize the request to avoid furloughing staff members, said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who leads the panel that oversees NOAA’s budget.
But Wolf said lawmakers want to “send a message to other agencies” that moving millions of dollars between accounts without asking permission from Congress is a serious and potentially illegal abuse of authority. “It’s important to follow the law,” he said.
Senate appropriators this week gave NOAA a green light on the request, called a reprogramming.
Lubchenco said the money would be shifted out of a weather radio upgrade program into the salary account for local forecasters and other staff members.
She gave lawmakers some new details about the weather service’s longstanding practice of reallocating money without congressional approval. Three employees were involved in charging millions of dollars to a fund intended for technology improvements to pay salaries. The practice dated to 2006.
These capital programs had been overfunded and the salary account underfunded, Lubchenco said. She could not say why weather service officials went around Congress.
“I wish I knew why,” she said after the hearing.