By CWO4 Cindy Luna-Ketter, PPC (mas)
On November 20, 2009, the President issued Executive Order 13520 on reducing improper payments and eliminating waste in Federal programs. The purpose of Executive Order 13520 was to reduce improper payments by intensifying efforts to eliminate payment error, waste, fraud, and abuse in the major programs administered by the Government. This order set out a comprehensive set of policies including public scrutiny of significant payment errors throughout the Federal Government, meaning information about improper payments is now published on the internet for the general public to view.
Every month PPC reports High Dollar Overpayments of $5000 or more to DHS. PPC is also required to provide supporting information on these overpayments including: how/why they occurred; what steps are being taken to prevent similar occurrences from happening in the future and; the status of recovery efforts.
Below are two recent examples:
- A petty officer was on Title 10 orders originally scheduled to end on 30 Sep 2012. The PO's orders ended early on 15 Feb 2012. The SPO did not receive required notification that the member's orders ended early and finally submitted the RELAD on 31 Jul 2012. The PO was paid for 5 1/2 months resulting in a $29,842.78 overpayment. The PO and his unit failed to report as required in that (1) the PO should have immediately reported that he was being paid after being released from active duty and (2) the unit failed to notify the SPO of early termination of orders.
- An officer was brought on ADOS scheduled for 1 Feb 2012 - 29 Jul 2012. During this period the SPO tried to submit 14 IDT drills during the months of May and June. Of course these drills did not process because member was supposed to be on ADOS through end of July. Upon finding that the drills did not process, the SPO followed up and discovered the officer's orders ended early on 4 May 2012. This resulted in a $20,703.69 overpayment to the officer. Fortunately the member had 14 IDT drills to offset the debt bringing it down to $8,724.42. Again, the officer should have immediately reported that his orders ended early and that he was receiving regular pay and allowances and the unit failed to notify the SPO of early termination of orders.
A number of the debts reported as High Dollar Overpayments are reserve debts due to early termination of orders. As per 3PM Article 11.A.11, SPO's should remind units that they are responsible for keeping track of reservists on active duty and must ensure their timely removal from that status to prevent their being overpaid.
PPC is also reporting these High Dollar Overpayments to members' commands questioning how and why the overpayment occurred and what steps were being taken to prevent a similar overpayment from happening in the future.
Members who are overpaid pay and allowances will be required to repay such overpayments plus interest. Collection actions may include garnishment of civilian wages or referral to the U.S. Treasury offset program.
Reducing overpayments will require a coordinated effort between the member, the unit, the SPO and PPC. Please submit your ideas for reducing overpayments and your best business practices to prevent improper payments to CWO4 Cindy Luna-Ketter. More to come!
Below is the link to view the High Dollar Overpayments for agencies under DHS.