The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is opening an investigation into whether OMB has violated the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 including by threatening the OPM IG.
According to a committee announcement, chair Edolphus Towns, D-NY, and federal workforce subcommittee chair Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., received information that OMB may have taken actions to undermine the budgetary independence that Congress provided to IGs in the IG Reform Act of 2008.
It said OPM IG Patrick McFarland wrote to them stating, "I am alerting you about a very serious matter that represents an attempt to thwart an authority provided to us by the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 and that creates a risk of compromising our operational independence."
A budget provision in the act states that the comments of an affected IG shall be included in the White House budget submitted to Congress if the IG concludes that the budget would "substantially inhibit" him from performing his duties.
McFarland alleges that OPM received a "not so veiled threat from OMB" that if the IG exercised its statutory authority to advise Congress that the proposed budget was inadequate, OMB "will make life miserable" for the OPM IG, according to the committee.
It said Towns and Stephens would thoroughly investigate the incident, and that they already sent letters to OMB director Orszag and the chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, Phyllis Fong, requesting immediate assistance with the investigation.
The committee said it was also reviewing whether the allegations at OPM are isolated or part of a larger pattern.
