Air Force landlord falsified records to boost income, documents show
Sort of an Air Force Fat Leonard, CBS News and Reuters has found one of the military’s largest housing contractors apparently misled the Air Force to qualify for millions of dollars in bonus payments. The FBI is now investigating.
Balfour Beatty Communities manages some 40,000 homes on 55 military bases across the country; its performance bonuses are estimated to be worth about $800 million over the life of the contracts. At Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, those bonuses are at least partially based on data provided by Balfour Beatty, but some of that data had been falsified.
‘One of the U.S. military’s largest private-industry landlords falsified maintenance records, Reuters found, helping it secure incentive fees as families awaited repairs.
The company’s actions, a former employee said, were akin to “bank robbery at a corporate level.”’
By M.B. PELL
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Oklahoma – When Paige and Nick Ippolito moved to a row house on this air base in 2015, the floors in the kitchen, living room and hallway were warped. They told the base’s landlord, Balfour Beatty Communities, but “nothing was done,” a company maintenance report shows.Nick, a Navy petty officer second class stationed at Tinker, worried their baby daughter might lose a finger in the jagged flooring. After a water leak further broke up the floor, a company technician noted in a maintenance log that the eight-month-old “may become sick from chewing on pieces” breaking away from the flooring.
The floor tiles and adhesive contained asbestos, a carcinogen, an internal company maintenance report shows.
The official Balfour Beatty maintenance logs available to the Air Force indicate the company promptly addressed the problems. The leak, for instance, was fixed in 20 minutes, the records purport to show. In fact, the logs were faked. The family said that repair took over a week. The Ippolitos endured the other hazards for months.
“You think your family is safe, and then you find out your kid is eating asbestos flooring. It makes me sick,” Nick Ippolito said. “It seems like they’re just out for the dollar.”
Balfour Beatty, among the U.S. military’s largest housing providers, systematically falsified its Tinker Air Force Base maintenance logs for years, Reuters found through a review of company records, Air Force reports and interviews with former workers. The fake entries made the company appear responsive to tenant complaints and unsafe conditions, helping it secure millions in “performance incentive fees” for good service that it otherwise often would not have qualified for. The efforts left families in harm’s way and persuaded Air Force brass to ignore warnings of trouble raised by military base employees.
The Navy Enlisted housing AW1Ed and family occupied both in Maine and Maryland was old, but well maintained and a good deal compared to off-base. I can’t imagine how the conditions at Tinker went on without the knowledge of superiors, unless perhaps some of that bonus money found its way into uniform pockets. Follow the money.
The rest of this debacle may be viewed here: Reuters
I’m willing to wager that none of this surfaced until someone higher than E-6 was inconvenienced.
I’d bet that that person had to be in the O category in order to be taken seriously.
They would not do anything for E9s either. Why I always lived off post.
Here at Ft Wainwright they had a problem with the contractors running the post housing called Birchwood. They were charging Soldiers moving out for repairs, like replacing carpet, and never doing the work that they charged for. Birchwood is no longer part of Ft Wainwright.
effing bastards. It’s crap like this that is why we can’t have nice things.
Hang the son of a bitch. “To encourage the others.”
Balfour Beatty Communities..
“The Stinker of Tinker”
Fuckers, I hope every one involved in that shit gets what they deserve.
This is more common than anyone wants to admit across all contracting in and out of the DoD.
The greatest argument for outsourcing some operations is that it is not core to operations. Which is why I wondered why we still needed government housing at all. Give everyone their BAH and let them buy or rent like anyone else. I’m even for getting out of the barracks business.
But, you can imagine the warm reception my ideas got at installation leadership meetings…LOL
I thought I heard the Army did that. They have an “Apartment Manager” who manages the residence. Units can’t conduct business in the facility anymore, but can schedule the use of common rooms. Health, and Welfare Inspections have to be scheduled months in advance, and by then are not surprises.
Gone are the days where the squad would gather in a members barracks room to get the “poop” at the end of the day and drink “soft drinks” from the “Squad” fridge!
This just happened with Army and Corvias Housing. Corvias was using BAH as a bonus for their company. Asshole owner decided not to improve housing in shitty place like Fort Polk. Also decided to use the BAH money to rebuild a 18th century Mansion in Ireland.
This dude fleeced Army so bad, that it is forcing commands to fold under AMC.
Embarrassing what these leaders have allowed these vulture companies to get away with.
Post housing at Dugway Proving Ground was contractor managed when I worked there from 89′ – 96′. Vinnel did a good job primarily because their office was staffed with retired military or retired military spouses, mine being one of them. They took great care of a couple of thousand housing occupants.
“Thank you for your service”
Who’s going to jail? Nobody?
Mission accomplished.
“Who’s going to jail? Nobody?”
ONLY as long as the “Big Bubba” Contractor has the proper amount of Politicians and Bureaucrats bribed, blown or extorted with the proper graft!
Weren’t the DOD civilian overseers warned this would happen? Take responsibility and accountability from the services and give to civilians, along with millions and millions of dollars, and then people are surprised when the civilians say, “FY. We got paid.”