A Treasury Department watchdog report finds a software flaw led to the agency failing to collect $472 million in debts owed to over 28 agencies.
The July 7 audit from the Treasury inspector general’s office stems from an anonymous whistleblower complaint sent to the Office of Special Counsel in September 2019.
The whistleblower told OSC that Treasury had not acted on uncollected debts owed to the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
An initial report found Treasury did not service 11,000 OSHA debts worth $91.5 million because of defective software at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
The 1996 Debt Collection Improvement Act gives the bureau the responsibility to carry out governmentwide debt collection. Under the legislation, OSHA must refer any debts over 180 days past due to Treasury for collection.
The IG’s latest audit, however, revealed the scope of the problem to be far more widespread, impacting many agencies and causing nearly half a billion dollars of debts to go uncollected.
“Creditor agencies are unaware that impacted debt was not serviced timely, and do not have accurate data to update delinquent debt records. This impedes government collection efforts and increases the potential that the associated debts will not be collected timely,” the IG audit states.
The Treasury IG found the Bureau of the Fiscal Service didn’t communicate to 28 agencies that it didn’t initiate “timely collection efforts” on debts they referred to...
; ; ; agreed to pay $17.07 million to settle federal allegations of illegal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices on Friday, marking the Justice Department's first resolution unde...