Waste of the Day: EPA Missed Obvious Payment Inaccuracies
This story was originally published by Real Clear Wire.
Topline: The Environmental Protection Agency “did not follow standard operating procedures” for reviewing its spending and underestimated its improper payments in 2022 and 2023, according to Jan. 29 audit from the EPA inspector general.
Key facts: Improper payments are those sent by the government for the wrong reason, the wrong amount or to the wrong person. Every year, federal programs review a sample of their payments to estimate how much was spent improperly.
In 2022 and 2023, the EPA reviewed 751 payments from its two state revolving funds, which help states pay for clean drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. They determined that only 31 of the payments were improper.
That was inaccurate, according to the latest audit.
The inspector general reviewed just 20 payments the EPA had marked as proper and found that 19 of them were actually improper, as defined by the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019. They totaled $63.2 million.
The payments included payroll invoices that were missing employees’ names and had hourly rates that did not match any employee on record. The EPA also approved attorney and engineer invoices that did not have timesheets or any description of what the attorneys and engineers worked on. There were also construction invoices that did not have signatures showing the projects were approved by city officials.
Federal agencies are required to submit an annual list of programs that are at risk of high improper payment rates. The EPA said its state revolving funds were not at risk in 2022 and 2023, but the audit claims the EPA “did not have accurate information” to support that assessment.
Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.
Background: The EPA’s $63.2 million in potential errors is a small amount in the larger context of all improper payments, which typically cost the government more than $200 billion every year.
This is far from the first time auditors under Donald Trump’s administration have flagged improper payment issues from Joe Biden’s administration.
The EPA kept no records of the math behind its 2024 improper payment estimate, and it appears to have forgotten to review $222 million in grants for potential mistakes. The Department of Housing and Urban Development — which has never published improper payment estimates of its two largest rental assistance programs — gave $5.8 billion in rental assistance in 2024 that was not properly reviewed for potential fraud.
However, the Office of Management and Budget has yet to release data showing how much was lost to improper payments in 2025. The report is typically released in mid-November but is still unavailable as of Feb. 3. The White House has not returned two inquiries from Open the Books about the missing data.
Summary: If the government cannot ensure it is spending its money properly, the least it can do is accurately report its mistakes
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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