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...and there are also sprayers that cost over $7K. Was that money spent on a sprayer? Almost certainly yes. Who could check this? For that, I'm just going to

...and there are also sprayers that cost over $7K. Was that money spent on a sprayer? Almost certainly yes. Who could check this? For that, I'm just going to repeat your own words back to you: > CPA's verify that the funds were indeed spent as reported And then ask again what possible incentive the accounting firm could have to lie.

sgjohnson 5y ago
Nobody at all suggested that the accounting firm has lied about anything.
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  So if the accounting firm didn't lie then the funds on the line item for the sprayer were spent on... a sprayer. Someone's gonna get a Pulitzer out of this thread!
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    Going for an excessively above-market-price model is waste of taxpayer money. If there have been specific requirements why the standard model would not be sufficient, these exceptions should have been documented.
    - throwawaygh 5y ago
      Assuming this money was in fact spent on a sprayer and roughly at market value, "why so fancy?" is a question for the supervisors.
      - virgilp 5y ago
        You're being intentionally obtuse here. You didn't prove anywhere that this was the market price, on the contrary, there are good reasons to believe it wasn't. Traditional way corruption works in my country is exactly that: the people who purchase goods using public money make a deal with the vendors, behind close doors: "I'll buy directly from you, and you can inflate your prices, but you kick back 25% to me". So the seller doubles the price, knowing they have no competition, pays 25% in kickbacks, keeps a nice markup (still sold the item 50% more expensive than they would otherwise). An accountant would find absolutely no fault anywhere: there's purchase orders, invoices, receipts, everything matches. They have no idea how much sprayers cost or how much a specific model should cost! An auditor, on the other hand, could ask exactly these sorts of questions (why was this a direct acquisition and not a public auction? what was the benefit of selecting this vendor? why can I find this model available at 1/10th of the price at a reputable retailer?) [edit] Look, I actually agree with your take (what this auditor is doing is sketchy, he is certainly not taking on "the establishment" with his saga, his motives look dubious). But that doesn't make the supervisors innocent. He can be shady, supervisors can be shady - these things are not mutually exclusive. For the life of me I don't understand why you defend the supervisors, contradicting yourself in the process[+] instead of focusing on your actual valid point. Yeah, he should get his auditor position; no, he's not fighting the establishment, he's just trying to gain popularity by creating outrage. [+] first say "find me one suspicious line item" then after several are found, you change the subject or try to pedal theoretically-possible-but-highly-improbable theories ("we can't be 100% certain the price was inflated! What if you found a similar thing at 1/10th of a price, surely that tiny town needed a premium sprayer that had to be very expensive").
        dang 5y ago
        Please keep personal swipes out of your comments here, regardless of what other commenters are doing. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - newaccount74 5y ago
    The accounting firm isn't going to check if the funds were spent on a sprayer. They are at most going to check if there's an invoice that goes along with the line item. Typically how corruption at small scale like this works is: 1) Person A has a budget of $5000 to buy some equipment 2) The equipment costs $2000 3) Person B sells them the equipment, but puts $5000 on the invoice 4) Person B then gives $1500 to person A and keeps $1500 for themselves. There's obviously no record of the last transaction, and there's no way an accounting firm is going to uncover it. They just make sure the invoices are correct. They aren't going to verify that the sprayer they got is indeed a $5000 sprayer.

sgjohnson 5y ago

Nobody at all suggested that the accounting firm has lied about anything.

throwawaygh 5y ago
So if the accounting firm didn't lie then the funds on the line item for the sprayer were spent on... a sprayer. Someone's gonna get a Pulitzer out of this thread!
- mschuster91 5y ago
  Going for an excessively above-market-price model is waste of taxpayer money. If there have been specific requirements why the standard model would not be sufficient, these exceptions should have been documented.
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    Assuming this money was in fact spent on a sprayer and roughly at market value, "why so fancy?" is a question for the supervisors.
    - virgilp 5y ago
      You're being intentionally obtuse here. You didn't prove anywhere that this was the market price, on the contrary, there are good reasons to believe it wasn't. Traditional way corruption works in my country is exactly that: the people who purchase goods using public money make a deal with the vendors, behind close doors: "I'll buy directly from you, and you can inflate your prices, but you kick back 25% to me". So the seller doubles the price, knowing they have no competition, pays 25% in kickbacks, keeps a nice markup (still sold the item 50% more expensive than they would otherwise). An accountant would find absolutely no fault anywhere: there's purchase orders, invoices, receipts, everything matches. They have no idea how much sprayers cost or how much a specific model should cost! An auditor, on the other hand, could ask exactly these sorts of questions (why was this a direct acquisition and not a public auction? what was the benefit of selecting this vendor? why can I find this model available at 1/10th of the price at a reputable retailer?) [edit] Look, I actually agree with your take (what this auditor is doing is sketchy, he is certainly not taking on "the establishment" with his saga, his motives look dubious). But that doesn't make the supervisors innocent. He can be shady, supervisors can be shady - these things are not mutually exclusive. For the life of me I don't understand why you defend the supervisors, contradicting yourself in the process[+] instead of focusing on your actual valid point. Yeah, he should get his auditor position; no, he's not fighting the establishment, he's just trying to gain popularity by creating outrage. [+] first say "find me one suspicious line item" then after several are found, you change the subject or try to pedal theoretically-possible-but-highly-improbable theories ("we can't be 100% certain the price was inflated! What if you found a similar thing at 1/10th of a price, surely that tiny town needed a premium sprayer that had to be very expensive").
      - dang 5y ago
        Please keep personal swipes out of your comments here, regardless of what other commenters are doing. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- newaccount74 5y ago
  The accounting firm isn't going to check if the funds were spent on a sprayer. They are at most going to check if there's an invoice that goes along with the line item. Typically how corruption at small scale like this works is: 1) Person A has a budget of $5000 to buy some equipment 2) The equipment costs $2000 3) Person B sells them the equipment, but puts $5000 on the invoice 4) Person B then gives $1500 to person A and keeps $1500 for themselves. There's obviously no record of the last transaction, and there's no way an accounting firm is going to uncover it. They just make sure the invoices are correct. They aren't going to verify that the sprayer they got is indeed a $5000 sprayer.