Job Costing and Ethics
Chuck Moore supervises two consulting jobs for the firm of Price and Waters, LLP, which is a consulting firm that helps organizations become more efficient. One of the consulting jobs is for the U.S. Department of Defense and the other is for General Motors, Inc. Chuck received the monthly cost reports about three weeks after month end. The General Motors job contained bad news. After getting up his nerve, Chuck called his boss the following week to pass on the bad news. “The General Motors job is only half done, but we have already spent all of the $1 million that we expected to spend on that job,” he said. “However, we have spent only $500,000 of the $800,000 that we expected to spend on the U.S. Department of Defense job, even though we are 90 percent done with the work.”
His boss told Chuck, “Assign the rest of the costs needed to complete the General Motors job to your U.S. Department of Defense job. We’re under budget on that job and we get reimbursed for costs on government jobs.”
Required
a. What should Chuck do?
b. Does it matter that Chuck’s consulting firm is reimbursed for costs on the government jobs? Explain.