Budgetary restrictions could weaken the ability of agency IGs to investigate whistleblower retaliation complaints and to audit agency programs, the head of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, the central IG body, said at a recent House hearing.
Michael E. Horowitz, IG at the Justice Department, said that while his office for example strives to improve its own productivity and efficiency, “substantial reductions in personnel would likely require us to reduce the number of audits, investigations, and reviews that we conduct, and could impact how we would proceed with the audits, investigations, and reviews that we would be able to perform.
“Many of my colleagues in the inspector general community share similar concerns with respect to their own offices. Given our strong track record of producing measurable and substantial results for the taxpayers, I hope that careful consideration will be given before effectively reducing our oversight budgets,” he said.
He noted that the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012 created additional whistleblower responsibilities for IGs, as did an FBI whistleblower law enacted last year.
“Accordingly, we are dedicating ever increasing resources to handle our substantially increasing docket of whistleblower retaliation cases. However, our ability to fulfill these additional responsibilities and our growing docket of cases in a timely fashion requires sufficient staffing. The OIG was already struggling, as evidenced by our FY 2017 budget request, with finding the staffing needed to handle these matters given the growth in the number of complaints we are receiving. Limitations on the OIG’s ability to hire staff will make it difficult for the OIG to maintain the same level of oversight work while also carrying out the additional whistleblower responsibilities,” he said.
