Back to school

About 500 federal human resource managers and security professionals got a primer on how to spot bogus educational credentials during two half-day training seminars offered this week by the Office of Personnel Management.

"This isn't a new issue, we've been finding federal employees with bogus credentials for ages and been dealing with it," said Kathy Dillaman, deputy associate director for OPM's Center for Investigation Services. The center conducts background investigations and adjudication services for agencies.

Bogus college credentials became a hot button topic when Laura Callahan, a senior director in the Homeland Security Department's chief information officer's office, was put on paid leave in June after allegations surfaced that she had acquired her degrees from an unaccredited diploma mill in Wyoming. Such businesses offer college degrees for little or no course work.

If an applicant is discovered with fake credentials, the government can debar them from applying for federal employment for up to three years, according to Steve Benowitz, OPM's associate director for human resource products and services. Agencies can take administrative or disciplinary action against an employee who used fake credentials to join the federal workforce, including firing the employee.

At least two types of credentials fraud have shown up over the years in the federal government, according to Dillaman: "Individuals who buy fake degrees from real institutions, and then true, clear-cut diploma mills. These [degrees] run the whole gamut, up to and including the medical profession, which is by far the most troubling."

One area where things can get sticky is the training courses employees take through various private sector firms. Many aren't required to be accredited, according to Benowitz. "Most of the training the government sends employees to are one-time courses," Benowitz explained. "These generally are fine organizations, they provide the government and its employees the product that they said they would and we support that."

But agencies should be on the alert for employees who may be working in cahoots with a diploma mill to get the government to pay for a fake degree, Benowitz warned.

"If there are employees that might be acting with diploma mills to essentially pay for bogus degrees by paying for one class at a time, that, in my mind, is fraud, because the government is paying for something it didn't get," Benowitz said. If the employee and the diploma mill are in concert to defraud the government, an agency inspector general can investigate and can demand repayment, Benowitz said. "It's up to the agency whether to take administrative or disciplinary action against the employee."

On Monday, OPM Director Kay Coles James sent a memo to agency and department heads advising them to verify that the courses and degrees they are paying for are legitimate.

In the weeks since the Callahan flap, several readers have written GovExec.com wondering if their institutions of higher learning might be considered a diploma mill by OPM standards. OPM doesn't have a list of acknowledged diploma mills or accredited universities, but there should be no mistaking the difference between a real university and a diploma mill, according to Benowitz.

"There is no reasonable person who would assume that by paying $5,000 and writing a two-page paper I can get a [doctoral degree] backdated 11 years," Benowitz said. "You are going to have to convince me that anybody would think this was a legitimate degree."

The General Accounting Office is currently studying how widespread the use of diploma mills to obtain bogus credentials is in the federal government.