The Internal Revenue Service’s tuition assistance program
costs too much to run and keeps inaccurate records,
according to an audit by the Treasury inspector general
recommending it be discontinued.
The Human Resources Investment Fund is designed to
increase the IRS internal candidate pool by promoting
career development, but the IG report – 2005-10-070 –
said the program spent $4.4 million to pay about 30 full
time employees and administer $2.8 million of tuition
assistance in fiscal 2002 and 2003, and is not
“cost-effective.”
The IRS reported that of the 3,389 employees turned
down for the program in fiscal 2002 and 2003, 1,680
applicants were denied for lack of funds. The audit comes
as the fiscal 2006 IRS budget is before Congress and
critics could spin the report to say the agency needs
better management, not necessarily more money.
Further, the audit found that statistics on the number
of promotions and career moves of participants were
“inaccurate or misleading,” a conclusion also reached
by the program office which led it to discontinue
reporting those measures.
The program’s 95-percent pass rate was based on information
employees self-reported, but that was for less than half
of the courses approved for assistance. Employees did
not report on the remainder so the office cannot tell
which employees are due to reimburse the agency for
failing or not attending.
Program management agreed it should pursue reimbursements
from employees, and said if analysis of fiscal 2002 and
2003 course results leads to profitably recovering funds,
it would do the same for fiscal 2000 and 2001.
