Photo by anokarina

Justice Department auditors are revising their math after issuing a report last month that claimed the Department spent $16 a muffin at one of their conferences at the Capitol Hilton in D.C.

The report garnered quite a bit of attention, describing exorbitant spending at conferences. It concluded that the department “did not adequately attempt to minimize conference costs as required by federal and DOJ guidelines.”

The DCist commentariat early on flagged that the figures looked a bit misleading, and shortly after, Mother Jones debunked the $16 muffin myth:

So did DOJ really pay $16 for muffins? Of course not. In fact, it’s obvious that someone quite carefully calculated the amount they were allowed to spend and then gave the hotel a budget. The hotel agreed, but for some reason decided to divide up the charges into just a few categories instead of writing a detailed invoice for every single piece of food they provided.

Now, Justice Department auditors announced they have reached the conclusion that no one paid $16 apiece for the notorious pastries.

On Friday, acting Justice ¬Department Inspector General Cynthia A. Schnedar issued a revised report on the department’s conference expenditures. Her new finding: The muffins were part of a continental breakfast that also included items such as fruit, coffee, tea, juice and other pastries.

The new report does not break out a cost for the muffins alone, but a Hilton spokesman has said the entire breakfast cost $16 per person, including taxes and gratuity.

“The department did not pay $16 per muffin,’’ Schnedar’s office wrote, saying that the office regretted the error and that the original conclusion “brought significant negative publicity to the Department and the Capital Hilton.’’

The new audit attributed the error to the Justice Department itself. The report said that Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which sponsored the 2009 conference, had documents showing that the muffins were not as expensive as initially reported. That office “inadvertently” did not give the documents to the inspector general during the audit, the auditors said.