Military Owner Mistreated Service Members Even After Investigation Began, Senate Panel Says


One of the largest private housing contractors in the military continued to mistreat service members living in its housing units despite an investigation, according to a bipartisan report released by a Senate subcommittee Tuesday night. morning.

The company, Balfour Beatty Communities, which operates housing communities on 55 military bases across the country, finally pleaded guilty to defrauding the military late last year.

He was ordered to pay more than $65 million in December 2021 after pleading guilty to defrauding the Army, Air Force and Navy by filing false reports for performance bonuses between 2013 and 2019.

In its 51-page report, the Senate Department of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) says Balfour continued to commit many of the same misconduct after 2019, even when he knew he was being investigated by the Department. of Justice. Justice.

“The types of inappropriate behavior uncovered by PSI at Balfour after 2019 bear striking similarities to the types of conduct Balfour admitted to in his December 2021 plea for actions he took between 2013 and 2019,” the panel wrote.

The committee released the report by Tuesday morning. audience, where service members, military spouses and housing advocates are scheduled to testify before the panel. Representatives from Balfour Beatty Communities are also scheduled to testify.

Balfour has not seen the report in its entirety, PSI officials told reporters Monday ahead of Tuesday’s hearing. The company has seen excerpts from the interviews the subcommittee has conducted.

PSI officials stressed that Tuesday’s report and hearing were just the first steps, and that the panel will continue to look into this issue.

PSI’s report focuses on alleged misconduct that occurred at Fort Gordon-Georgia and Sheppard Air Force Base-Texas.

The subcommittee obtained more than 11,000 pages of records, interviews with more than a dozen military relatives and former Balfour employees, as well as reports from the Department of Defense and advocacy groups, and families.

The report, among other things, found that Balfour staff frequently ignored or delayed responding to urgent requests from military families to address conditions such as mold and leaking roofs at Fort Gordon. In several cases, these delays led families to seek care for skin conditions and respiratory symptoms.

The panel also found inaccuracies and omissions in Balfour’s internal job order database, which the military services use in part to determine the company’s performance award fee.

For example, the panel found several instances in which Fort Gordon and Sheppard families reported mold in their homes, but the Balfour work order database cited mold-related requests as other issues such as “internal repairs.” ” or “paint”.

The panel found that in 2020 and 2021, the company still had incomplete and inaccurate data in its database for repairs at Sheppard and Fort Gordon.



Reference-thehill.com

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