Government Pension Auditor Has Failed an Audit

The Center for Public Integrity reports:

Last November, the federal corporation charged with protecting Americans’ retirement funds issued an ominous public warning: the amount of pensions at risk inside failing companies had more than tripled during the recession.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s announcement signaled it might need tens of billions of new dollars to rescue traditional pensions paid by U.S. firms whose economic collapse left them unable to meet their retirement obligations to workers.

At the same time, however, the federally chartered corporation was receiving some bad news of its own: for the first time it was going to flunk an independent audit of the way it manages its finances.

On Nov. 12, 2009, PBGC’s outside audit firm and the corporation’s own internal watchdog jointly informed the federal body it was being cited for a “material weakness” in its internal financial controls, the accounting equivalent of an F grade.

(Via Drudge)