SWINDLING SENATOR POCKETS SMALL CHANGE

The Norwich Bulletin reports that a Connecticut senator has resigned after 16 years in office and pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor larceny counts stemming from double-billing expenses incurred during six trips to legislative conferences between 2004 and 2007. Prosecutors said the former senator collected about US $2,800 in travel expenses from his political action committee after being reimbursed by the state. A preliminary audit of the former senator’s financial filings led to an investigation by the State Elections Enforcement Commission in January 2008.

Lessons Learned

This situation reminds internal auditors that travel expenses are a high fraud risk area, particularly when the claims can be processed by more than one area of the organization or by different organizations. In this case, expenses were reimbursed by both the political action committee and the state. When claims can be paid by different groups, it is important to have controls in place to ensure that claims are submitted only once. A simple control, for example, would be to require original copies of all receipts. A more effective control would be comparing claims submitted to both sources to ensure they are not duplicates.