Overpayments sometimes include government payment of premiums to cover ineligible persons under the FEHB program. Image: mikeledray/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffFraud against the federal retirement program is continuing, an inspector general report has said, with lack of reporting to OPM on the deaths of beneficiaries the most common means.
“These unreported deaths may allow payments to continue because of program vulnerabilities or intentional fraud on the part of bad actors. Sometimes, CSRS or FERS improper payments continue for years and cost tens of thousands of dollars before discovery,” says the IG’s latest summary of its investigative activities.
The report said that the estimated improper payments from the federal retirement program in fiscal 2022 reached some $326 million. While the term “improper payment” covers incorrect or incompletely documented spending that is not necessarily fraudulent, the report cited recent cases including:
* Continued payments until 2019 after a retiree’s death in 2001, resulting in an overpayment of more than $250,000, resulting in a settlement agreement calling for repayment over more than three years.
* Continued payments until 2019 after a survivor annuitant’s death in 2008, resulting in the recipient being sentenced to three years of probation and an order to repay more than $130,000.
* A similar case resulting in a guilty plea leading to a sentence of five years of probation and an order to repay more than $466,000.
Overpayments sometimes involve not only retirement benefits but continued government payment of premiums to cover ineligible persons under the FEHB health insurance program, it added. It cited one case in which OPM was able to recover overpayments after a tip to the IG’s hotline about payments continuing to a beneficiary who had died. In another, though, OPM had been notified of a beneficiary’s death but continued payments “due to an internal error” and the case was closed without seeking repayment.
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