Top lawmakers on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee are calling on a government watchdog to take a closer look at how agencies are addressing the “root causes” and improper payments and fraud.

The leaders of the Government Operations and Federal Workforce Subcommittee — Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and Ranking Member Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) — are asking the Government Accountability Office to examine what agencies to doing to prevent improper payments.

GAO estimates the federal government made $236 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2023. Since 2003, agencies allowed an estimated $2.7 trillion in improper payments to occur.

Agencies saw a surge in fraud and improper payments at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as they administered about $5 trillion in emergency aid.

For example, the Labor Department, in an August 2023 report, estimated improper payments accounted for 36% of spending for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program over the first year-and-a-half of the pandemic. Congress authorized the program to provide assistance to self-employed workers who weren’t eligible for standard unemployment insurance benefits.

“The subcommittee seeks to continuously evaluate whether agencies are getting better or worse at ensuring the levels of fraud seen during the pandemic will ‘never happen again,’” the lawmakers wrote. “Unfortunately, because of limited or unreliable information maintained by federal agencies, the subcommittee has been unable to adequately assess agencies’ progress.”

The subcommittee held three hearings on fraud and improper payments in the federal government.

At its most recent hearing last month, lawmakers heard from GAO’s chief operating officer, as well as current and former leaders of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee.

“Witness testimonies at our hearings made clear that continuing to do the same things to address improper payments is not working and will not address growing problems,” the lawmakers wrote.

Agencies are also seeing record levels of improper payments for programs not connected to the pandemic.

Improper payments for the Office of Personnel Management’s retirement services totaled $326 million in fiscal 2022 — the highest rate in five years — according to a recent inspector general report.

The Office of Management and Budget maintains a list of high-priority programs that make the most improper payments, as well as programs at the highest risk of improper payments.

These agency programs are required by law to report on the root causes of their improper payments. But Sessions and Mfume say the amount of improper payments within these programs “continues to grow.”

The lawmakers are asking GAO to determine whether the agencies on OMB’s list are getting to the “true root causes” of improper payments and fraud.

They’re also asking GAO to determine whether agencies have identified and taken corrective actions that would address these root causes. That includes making sure agencies have the data they need to prevent fraud.

The lawmakers are also asking GAO to identify what barriers prevent them from fully addressing root causes, such as an inability to assess data.

“We ask that GAO regularly update Subcommittee staff on the progress of this review and provide periodic briefings on known practices that have helped prevent improper payments and fraud,” the lawmakers wrote.

The Treasury Department, in an effort to fight fraud and improper payments, is taking steps to make sure agencies have access to valuable data.

Its Bureau of the Fiscal Service is working on a pilot to streamline how agencies onboard for its Do Not Pay database. It currently takes about two years for a customer to onboard and to be able to use data.

Treasury and the Labor Department announced a data-sharing partnership in May, to provide state unemployment agencies with access to Do Not Pay Working System data sources and services.

The department is partnering with the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) to ensure state unemployment insurance systems have access to Do Not Pay data, as well as data from the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File.

Treasury avoided $4 billion in fraud and improper payments in fiscal 2024.  Department officials are building on these fraud-prevention efforts, and expect to prevent $12 billion in improper payments annually by 2029.

Treasury disburses about 1.4 billion payments worth nearly $7 trillion to more than 100 million people each year.

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