For the past three years, Thomson Reuters has surveyed state and local government workers to find out how confident they are in their efforts to investigate, detect, and prevent government fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) — as well as what their steepest job challenges are in terms of resources, staffing, and time.
This report looks at the investigation, detection, and prevention of FWA, as well as the future challenges that state, county, and local governments are facing in addressing this problem and the tools and resources at their disposal for this fight.
Last year’s survey happened to coincide with federal efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic, which heaped enormous pressure on state and local officials to execute federal mandates without much additional staff or monetary support. In addition to managing various business loan and grant programs, state and local governments were responsible for disbursing more than $650 billion in extended unemployment benefits during the pandemic, often while working under stay-at-home orders and other stressful working conditions.
With so much money being distributed so quickly, the danger of fraud was constant. Some fraudsters did successfully exploit weaknesses in the system, of course, but overall, front-line government employees did a remarkable job of maintaining the integrity of their offices and procedures under extraordinarily challenging circumstances.
As the country emerges from the pandemic and the...
Prosecutor Park Sang-yong has partially won a defamation lawsuit he filed against former and current lawmakers over the so-called "Ulsan District Prosecutors' Office drinking party and feces alleg...