![\"tinker](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/tinker-afb-e1560966050516.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
‘One of the U.S. military\u2019s largest private-industry landlords falsified maintenance records, Reuters found, helping it secure incentive fees as families awaited repairs.<\/span> By M.B. PELL<\/strong> 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 \u201cmay become sick from chewing on pieces\u201d breaking away from the flooring.<\/p>\n The floor tiles and adhesive contained asbestos, a carcinogen, an internal company maintenance report shows.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cYou think your family is safe, and then you find out your kid is eating asbestos flooring. It makes me sick,\u201d Nick Ippolito said. \u201cIt seems like they\u2019re just out for the dollar.\u201d<\/p>\n Balfour Beatty, among the U.S. military\u2019s 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 \u201cperformance incentive fees\u201d for good service that it otherwise often would not have qualified for. The efforts left families in harm\u2019s way and persuaded Air Force brass to ignore warnings of trouble raised by military base employees.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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.<\/p>\n The rest of this debacle may be viewed here: Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nThe company\u2019s actions, a former employee said, were akin to \u201cbank robbery at a corporate level.\u201d’<\/span><\/p>\n
\nTINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Oklahoma \u2013 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\u2019s landlord, Balfour Beatty Communities, but \u201cnothing was done,\u201d a company maintenance report shows.<\/p>\n