Mistaken disability payments might have allowed feds to double-dip
Watchdog finds 1,500 employees likely received improper benefits on top of a salary; SSA chief says report is inflammatory.
About 1,500 federal employees could have been improperly earning a government salary while at the same time receiving disability payments, a Government Accountability Office official told senators during a hearing on Wednesday.
The watchdog matched a database of Social Security disability recipients against a list of federal payroll records and found a crossover of 24,500 individuals. Most of these workers were paid less than the disability limit of $1,000 per month and were likely in compliance with program rules, according to GAO's report.
But, 1,500 government workers exceeded those limits and might have been improperly receiving payments, GAO told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The erroneous payments could have totaled $1.7 million per month, the watchdog found.
A separate data match GAO conducted found 62,000 other individuals in 12 states obtained commercial driver's licenses after receiving disability payments. Everyone who holds a commercial driver's license must undergo a medical exam -- a test investigators said would be difficult if someone was truly disabled.
"Given the magnitude of these cash benefit payments, it is important for [the Social Security Administration] to have effective fraud prevention controls in place to minimize fraudulent and improper payments," said Gregory Kutz, managing director of forensic audits and special investigations at GAO.
GAO selected 20 people for additional analyses -- 18 federal employees and two holding a commercial driver's license. In all 20 cases, investigators found payment mistakes; those errors included five cases of alleged fraud and 11 instances of potential fraud, Kutz said. Some of the individuals admitted their fraud to investigators citing serious illnesses or a need for money, Kutz said.
Eighteen of the 20 individuals also received $250 in added benefits through a payment program the Recovery Act funded, GAO said.
While Kutz said the cases "were a slam-dunk," the Social Security Administration downplayed the findings as anecdotal and inflammatory.
"You need to remember these are people with serious mental and physical disabilities," SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue said. "Very few are out to defraud the government."
SSA and GAO have engaged in a war of words behind the scenes about the investigation. That feud exploded publicly on Wednesday.
Astrue argued GAO's methodology was flawed. Before the report was released, he took his complaints to GAO interim Comptroller Gene Dodaro.
"There has been a lot of tension with GAO," Astrue told the subcommittee. "They grossly oversimplified fraud."
The commissioner suggested many of the individuals the report cited do not have the mental capacity to engage in fraud. SSA, in consultation with the Justice Department, has investigated six of the 20 cases and found no indication of fraud, Astrue said.
The report found that a California Transportation Security Administration screener received more than $100,000 in overpayments after she become a full-time federal employee in 2003. In addition, a West Virginia laundry worker for the Veterans Affairs Department received an estimated overpayment of $39,000 while receiving disability payments for back disorders and mood disorders, the report said.
And, an Arizona SSA worker might have received $11,000 in overpayments after she was hired by the agency in 2007, investigators found. The SSA Office of Inspector General opened an investigation of the employee.
Subcommittee lawmakers said Congress deserved much of the blame for failing to provide SSA with adequate funding and oversight.
"This is not SSA's problem," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who requested the GAO audit, along with Sens. Thomas Carper, D-Del., and John McCain, R-Ariz. "This is Congress' problem."