Pentagon reports $5B in improper payments to civilian workforce
By Jared Serbu and Scott Maucione
November 23, 2020 10:10 am
The DoD Reporter’s Notebook is a weekly summary of personnel, acquisition, technology and management stories that may have fallen below your radar during the past week, but are nonetheless important. It’s compiled and published each Monday by Federal News Network DoD reporters Jared Serbu and Scott Maucione
Most newly-detected civilian pay discrepancies were due to missing documentation
The Defense Department’s latest financial statement shows the Pentagon made nearly $5 billion worth of improper payments in its civilian payroll accounts last year, a massive increase from previous years in which the department reported almost none.
In its annual financial report, released last week, DoD said the startling increase was mainly because of a “new sampling plan and testing methodology†financial management officials began implementing in the civilian pay accounts in 2020. But at least so far, those new methodologies appear to have generated more questions than answers as they unearthed billions of dollars in previously-undiscovered potential payment irregularities.
For the overwhelming majority of the $4.916 billion discovered to be improper in the civilian pay arena — 99.1% — auditors aren’t able to say whether they represent overpayments or underpayments. Instead, the department simply doesn’t have the documentation to show whether the payments were authorized at all.
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/dod-reporters-notebook-jared-serbu/2020/11/pentagon-reports-5b-in-improper-payments-to-civilian-workforce/
