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U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
Spending Taxpayer Dollars
Early Warning Report:
Some EPA Employees Found to
Be on Paid Administrative Leave
for Years
Report No. 15-N-0025
November 19, 2014
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Report Contributors: Robert Adachi
Leah Nikaidoh
Darren Schorer
Lei a Wong
Abbreviations
EPA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
FY Fiscal Year
GAO U.S. Government Accountability Office
OIG Office of Inspector General
OPM Office of Personnel Management
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November 19, 2014
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: Early Warning Report: Some EPA Employees Found to Be on
Paid Administrative Leave for Years
Report No. 15-N-0025
THE INSPECTOR GENERAL
FROM: Arthur A. Elkins Jr. u' '/ ^ l_V
TO: Gina McCarthy, Administrator
On October 21, 2014, you received a letter from a member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and
a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform requesting information
concerning administrative leave taken by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employees. This
request was in response to the U.S. Government Accountability Office report, FEDERAL PAID
ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE, Additional Guidance Needed to Improve OPM Data, issued on October 17,
2014. As a result of that congressional request, this early warning report is providing you with
information obtained during our currently ongoing time and attendance audit in connection with
administrative leave.
This report is for informational purposes only. No recommendations have been made, and a response to
this report is not required.
This report will be available at http://www.epa.gov/oig.
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Purpose
The purpose of this report is to provide early information obtained during our
time and attendance audit of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in
connection with administrative leave—where an excused absence is taken without
loss of pay or charge to other (annual or sick) leave. This report is for
informational purposes only and no recommendations are being made; any
recommendations in connection with administrative leave will be made in a
subsequent report on the EPA's time and attendance audit.
Background
On October 21, 2014, the EPA Administrator received a letter from a member of
the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a member of the House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform requesting information concerning
administrative leave taken by EPA employees. This request was in response to a
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, FEDERAL PAID
ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE, Additional Guidance Needed to Improve OPM Data,
issued on October 17, 2014.
The GAO report provided summary data for paid administrative leave for
24 federal agencies, including the EPA. The GAO selected five agencies for an
in-depth review of administrative leave policies and collected information on the
reasons why these agencies had large amounts of paid administrative leave; the
EPA was not one of those five agencies selected for in-depth review.
The GAO, however, identified that the estimated salary cost for EPA employees
on administrative leave for fiscal years (FYs) 2011 through 2013 was
$17,550,100. During that period, GAO identified 69 EPA employees who used a
month or more of administrative leave. There were 50 employees who had used
between 1 and 3 months of administrative leave and two employees who had used
administrative leave in excess of 1 year. The total amount of administrative leave
taken by the 69 EPA employees for FYs 2011 through 2013 totaled 4,711 days.
According to GAO, there is no general statutory authority for the use of paid
administrative leave, which is an excused absence without loss of pay or charge to
leave. However, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has provided direction
on the permissible use of administrative leave.
Scope and Methodology
As part of the OIG's audit of EPA time and attendance that is still in process, we
reviewed data for EPA employees who were on extended periods of
administrative leave in FY 2014. We compiled leave and salary information for
these employees. To determine the hours and amounts associated with EPA
15-N-0025
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employees' administrative leave taken without a loss of pay or charge to leave
accounts, we performed the following steps:
• Based upon the EPA time and attendance audit sample of four pay periods
in FY 2014 (two pay periods in November 2013 and two pay periods in
May 2014), we reviewed data for employees who had recorded
administrative leave.
• For these employees, we determined the duration of administrative leave
between FYs 2007 and 2014.
• We estimated the cost of administrative leave based upon the estimated
annual pay listed in the employee's Standard Form 50, Notification of
Personnel Action.
This report was not prepared in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. In particular, the report does not contain any findings or
conclusions in connection with internal controls or EPA's compliance with
administrative leave criteria. This report is for informational purposes only. The
departure from generally accepted government auditing standards had no impact
on the information provided in this report.
Results of Review
During our audit of EPA's time and attendance, employees in our sample had
recorded administrative leave during the months of November 2013 and/or
May 2014. We analyzed data for eight employees who had recorded significant
amounts of administrative leave. The total amount of administrative leave
recorded for these eight employees from January 3, 2010, to September 20, 2014,
totaled 20,926 hours and cost the government an estimated $1,096,868 (see
Table 1 below). Each of these employees was on extended administrative leave
for 4 or more months. For four of the eight employees, the administrative leave
covered more than a year.
The EPA has policies and procedures for administering leave benefits through its
EPA Leave Manual 3165. According to the leave manual, first-line supervisors
are authorized to approve the various types of leave for the employees whom they
supervise, unless they are notified in writing that the authority is retained at a
higher organizational level. Agency officials authorized to approve leave are
required to administer leave in compliance with the EPA leave manual.
Chapter 9 of the leave manual states that administrative leave is synonymous with
an excused absence. An excused absence is an absence from duty without loss of
pay and without charge to the employee's leave account (i.e., annual and sick
leave). The distinction is that an employee, while on excused absence (as opposed
15-N-0025
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to formal leave, such as annual leave or sick leave), is not acting within the
employer-employee relationship.
The leave manual identifies a variety of circumstances where administrative leave
can be authorized, including absence for voting, participation in funeral
ceremonies, blood donations, sitting for examinations, and hazardous weather
conditions. The leave manual also provides that one authorized use of
administrative leave is when an employee's removal or indefinite suspension is
proposed, and the employee's continued presence at the work site during the
notice period would constitute a threat to public property or the health and safety
of coworkers or the public. However, the leave manual does not provide any
guidance as to an acceptable amount of administrative leave or list other
personnel matters that would qualify for administrative leave.
We examined the agency's payroll records1 to determine the extent of the
administrative leave recorded for the eight employees who were on extended
administrative leave for 4 or more months. The total amount of leave recorded
and the estimated costs associated with the leave are shown in Table 1:
Table 1: Administrative leave information for sampled EPA employees2
Employee
No.
Administrative
leave hours
Period when leave
was taken3
Total estimated
cost
1
1,820
07/28/13-09/20/14
$69,593
2
5,883
01/03/10-09/20/14
300,671
3
767
01/12/14-09/20/14
35,226
4
6,300
05/09/10-09/20/14
351,300
5
3,916
01/16/11 -01/11/14
239,600
6
1,050
03/09/14-09/20/14
61,145
7
300
09/08/13-01/11/14
15,385
8
890
04/06/14-09/20/14
23,948
Total
20,926
$1,096,868
Sources: OIG analysis and EPA's Compass Financial Data Warehouse.
During the process of collecting data, we became aware of two payroll codes used
by one employee that raised additional concerns because of the large amount of
time charged closely preceding this employee's extended administrative leave.
The suspect time charges included hours charged for dispute resolution
(payroll code EMRDR) and general labor management (payroll code EMRGL).
The charges included 1,231 hours at a cost of $57,636. According to the
EPA Office of Administration and Resources Management, these labor categories
are used to track official time for union representation as identified in Title 5
U.S. Code §7131.
1 EPA employees did not always have a timesheet prepared and approved in EPA's payroll system. Therefore, the
amounts of administrative leave recorded for employees with missing timesheets could be higher than reported in
the table.
2 We only included the administrative leave hours identified in EPA's payroll system if the employee charged such
leave regularly for an extended period of time (more than four consecutive pay periods).
3 Recorded administrative leave may not have been taken for the entire period cited.
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Briefing With the Administrator and Agency Response
We briefed the EPA Administrator on October 30, 2014, on the leave and salary
information we compiled. The Administrator subsequently requested the
background information on the employees for follow-up by the EPA's Office of
Administration and Resources Management. We provided the requested
information on November 3 and November 5, 2014.
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Appendix A
Distribution
Office of the Administrator
Deputy Administrator
Assistant Administrator for Administration and Resources Management
Agency Follow-Up Official (the CFO)
Agency Follow-Up Coordinator
General Counsel
Associate Administrator for Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations
Associate Administrator for Public Affairs
Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for Administration and Resources Management
Director, Office of Administration, Office of Administration and Resources Management
Director, Office of Policy and Resource Management, Office of Administration and
Resources Management
Deputy Director, Office of Policy and Resource Management, Office of Administration and
Resources Management
Audit Follow-Up Coordinator, Office of Administration and Resources Management
15-N-0025
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