NASA pays skyhigh cost for convention snacks

WASHINGTON - The nations space organisation paid the out-of-this-world cost of $66 a chairman a day for bagels, cookies and extract at a conference, a new inform found.

The theme of the NASA conference? It was a precision event for the shopping officials — the people who do the shopping with taxpayer funds.

During the three-day conference, the 317 attendees snacked"light refreshments" of soda, coffee, fruit, bagels and cookies at a cost of $62,611, according to a NASA Inspector General report. Thats $66 a day per person.

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And that wasnt the usually problem. The NASA monetary watchdog criticized the financially strapped space agencys spendingconferences in general. The examiner ubiquitous pronounced NASA didnt price-shop to get cheaper locations for conferences and that NASAs spendingfood and drinks was "excessive."

The organisation needs to come up with organisation manners and discussion costs, similar to the Justice Department, the examiner ubiquitous endorsed in the inform expelled late Wednesday.

NASA betrothed it would come up with improved discussion spending rules.

The precision discussion in Dec 2008 at a Hilton road house in Baltimore took the baked sweat bread for majority costly per chairman of the eight conferences examined. The discussion cost NASA a sum of $495,173 for 317 people, a cost of some-more than $1,500 per person. But the eye-opener was the coffee and break costs.

Another conference,aeronautics in Atlanta, outlayed $535,149 for 650 people. NASA supposing a little dishes for all attendees at a cost of $58,415. NASA could have saved scarcely $50,000 if the organisation gave per diem income to only NASA employees and contractors — instead of everybody in attendance — and told them to buy their own dishes for the 3 days, the examiner ubiquitous said.

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When asked because NASA spends so muchsnacks, a NASA orator referred to the agencys reply in the report, that didnt insist the costs but betrothed to do better. In that response, NASA emissary arch monetary military officer Terry Bowie shielded the use of shopping snacks at conferences, observant it would keep attendees from erratic away. But Bowie pronounced subsequent month NASA will conclude "reasonable cost limits" for snacks at conferences.

And whats reasonable?

That happened to be the subject of a event at the Baltimore discussion — how to establish a in accord with price.

"These are people who should have well known improved in the initial place," pronounced Tom Schatz, boss of the watchdog organisation Citizens Against Government Waste. "This is the doctrine that should have been schooled prior to the conference, not during or after."

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