A “lack of clear OMB strategy and guidance” plus technical issues are hampering the Do Not Pay program, GAO has reported, with one result being that “reported savings from use of the DNP working system have been minimal.”
The DNP is a data matching system hosted by Treasury established as a means to address improper payments by federal agencies, estimated at nearly $137 billion a year (a figure that includes payments whose amount may actually be correct but for which certain required documentation is missing).
GAO found that the DNP working system offers only partial or no access to three of the six databases required by the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act of 2012, including one of the most important, the SSA master file of deaths. It further found that the 10 agencies it reviewed used the DNP system only in limited ways, the most common of which was to have Treasury compare disbursements with DNP databases.
“However, Treasury matches against only two databases, and because the matching is performed simultaneously with disbursement, agencies generally do not receive the results in time to prevent improper payments,” GAO said. “OMB and Treasury guidance do not fully address the limitations of the payment integration process or whether its use is required.”
Although OMB collects certain information about the use of the DNP working system, it has not developed monitoring mechanisms, such as goals or performance measures, it added.
