Federal agencies are consistently failing to address issues of improper payments, which have cost the government almost $1.4 trillion in 14 years, according to a Dec. 7 Government Accountability Office report.
Inspectors General reported 14 of the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies for failing improper payment requirements in 2017, with nine of those agencies having programs that were noncompliant with legislative improper payment requirements for the past seven years straight.
Improper payments happen when an agency pays the wrong recipient, pays the correct recipient the wrong amount of money, or does not create the necessary documentation to prove that the payments were correct.
“Agencies with any program reported as noncompliant for three or more consecutive years are required to notify Congress of their program’s consecutive noncompliance and submit a proposal for reauthorization or statutory change to bring that program into compliance. GAO found that three agencies with one or more programs reported as noncompliant for three or more consecutive years, as of fiscal year 2016, did not notify Congress or submit the required proposals,” the report said.
“The Departments of Labor and the Treasury submitted proposed legislative changes in response to their programs being previously reported as noncompliant but did not notify Congress of the programs' continued noncompliance as of fiscal year 2016. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has not notified Congress despite prior GAO and USDA IG recommendations to do so.”
The Office of Management and Budget issued updated guidance in June 2018 on reporting requirements for those programs that had been found noncompliant for three years or more, but according to the GAO report, that guidance did not include quality information that “could be useful in updating Congress on their compliance efforts.”
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GAO recommended that OMB update its guidance to include quality measures, such as the root causes of the improper payments, corrective actions, measurable milestones for improvement and designated senior officials responsible for improper payment reform.
OMB did not provide comment on the recommendation.
Jessie Bur covers federal IT and management.
