The Senate Finance Committee is preparing to launch a broad, bipartisan inquiry into the Social Security Administration’s watchdog division, officials said, as lawmakers grow concerned that management failures are compromising its oversight mission.
The committee is likely to concentrate on allegations of retaliation against whistleblowers, plummeting morale, staff attrition, hiring decisions and a declining number ofinvestigations into fraud in the massive disability benefits program, one of the inspector general’s core missions, congressional aides said.
Social Security, an independent federal agency that has historically faced limited oversight from Congress, faces new scrutiny of its $200 billion disability program following several articles in The Washington Post. Senate Finance Committee investigators in both parties summoned senior attorneys on the staff of Inspector General Gail S. Ennis to a briefing earlier this month to learn more about the tumult inside her office, which includes some 500 auditors, criminal investigators and attorneys, several participants said.
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“The committee has grown increasingly concerned about the performance of the Social Security Inspector General’s office over the past year, especially allegations of whistleblower retaliation,” Taylor Harvey, a spokesman for committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), said in an email. “Chairman Wyden will continue working to ensure the office is able to perform its critical watchdog role in...
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. (WSMV) - A Tennessee doctor has pleaded guilty to committing millions of dollars’ worth of Medicare fraud through her Brentwood optometry practice. Helen Boerman, 48, pleaded guilt...