Federal Manager's Daily Report

Fort Meade, MD: Barbed wire and chain link fencing surrounds the complex that houses the National Security Agency outside Washington, DC. Image: Daniel J. Macy/Shutterstock.com

The National Security Agency paid retention incentives to more than 1,200 employees worth more that $13,500 on average in a 12-month period ending in March 2019 with only “limited administrative oversight,” an inspector general audit has found.

Problems included that the agency “could not provide evidence of defined documented goals, return on investment reviews, or employees who were offered and rejected individual retention incentives” and that it lacked the controls needed “to ensure that it was properly determining eligibility and incentives in a consistent manner.”

“Without more defined program goals and a documented process for evaluating success, the agency cannot determine whether the program is effectively expending agency resources in retaining key personnel, and doing so without risk to other work roles and programs,” it said.

The audit found that there was no guidance or training for managers to determine if an individual retention incentive was appropriate, which “led to questionable employee selection and discrepancies between suggested retention incentive amounts.” It said that in a sample of documents justifying the payments, 30 percent did not explain the employee’s unique skill, 39 percent did not explain that the employee was likely to leave or the basis for such a belief, 35 percent exceeded the agency-suggested market calculation without any explanation, and 75 percent of incentive renewal justifications were merely copied from previous years.

It also found cases of overpayments and cases of potentially improper payment of incentives under more than one program at the same time. It added that although incentives were paid to minority employees about proportionately to their representation in the workforce, the percentage of women receiving them was well below their representation.

The report said management agreed with its recommendations and is taking steps that the IG considers responsive.

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