Today, the powers that be decreed that any claims for travel reimbursement in the Department of Corrections—that were submitted within a certain period of time—will be approved with no verification. Unless a CalATERS claim fails the “smell test” of an auditor the claim will be approved and any supporting documents will be audited at a later date. This is supposed to be implemented on a department-wide basis.
This initiative seems to originate from the State Controller’s Office as a way to fix the fact that the CalATERS program cannot handle the load or number of users from CDCR. The number of man-hours wasted on this program would likely pay for one that could do the job.
Meanwhile the “hard freeze” on travel is still in effect.
Update 02-24-2010 free pass period seems to be primarily for January 2010. Per email today goal is shedding 3,000 claims ASAP to reduce load on system.
This seems like a Band-Aid for systemic program design failure.