Project Katrina

Imagine this situation. You work for ICF International. After Katrina hits you secure a government contract to provide a service to taxpaying citizens. You do the work on the contract but you make mistakes. Thousands of mistakes actually, that could total millions and millions of dollars. So what do you do? Well, according to MSNBC you attempt to get the citizens to actually pay for your incompetence :

Imagine that your home was reduced to mold-covered wood framing by Hurricane Katrina. Desperate for money to rebuild, you engage in a frustrating bureaucratic process, and after months of living in a government provided-trailer that gives off formaldehyde fumes you finally win a federal grant.

Then a collector announces that you have to pay back thousands of dollars.

For thousands of Katrina victims, this may be a reality.

A private contractor under investigation for the compensation it received to run the Road Home grant program for Katrina victims says that in the rush to deliver aid to homeowners in need some people got too much. Now it wants to hire a separate company to collect millions in grant overpayments.

The contractor, ICF International of Fairfax, Va., revealed the extent of the overpayments when it issued a March 11 request for bids from companies willing to handle “approximately 1,000 to 5,000 cases that will necessitate collection effort.”

The bid invitation said: “The average amount to be collected is estimated to be approximately $35,000, but in some cases may be as high as $100,000 to $150,000.”

It might be important to note that 2007 ICF International reported gross revenue of $727.1 million.

Update: Full disclosure, here is a detailed response from ICF. In a nutshell it isn’t their fault. I’ve read the response twice and was almost surprised not to see the comment of “How could have foreseen.”