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*. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	17-P-0374
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At a Glance
Why We Did This Review
We conducted this audit to
determine whether the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) had established
and implemented internal
controls for the Voluntary
Leave Bank Program to
prevent and detect fraud, waste
and abuse in the program.
The EPA established its
Voluntary Leave Bank
Program, managed by the
Office of Administration and
Resources Management, in
1988. The leave bank provides
assistance to federal
employees who would be
facing a significant financial
hardship due to a medical
emergency. Participating
employees can receive leave
contributions from the leave
bank when they have
exhausted their accrued leave
hours and are experiencing a
medical emergency. As of
June 30, 2016, the EPA's
voluntary leave bank balance
was 249,789 hours, which we
valued at about $10.8 million.
This report addresses the
following:
• Operating efficiently and
effectively.
Send all inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391
or visit www.epa.gov/oiq.
Listing of OIG reports.
EPA Needs to Increase Oversight of Leave Bank Program
to Improve Efficiency and Reduce Risk of Misuse
The stewardship of
leave bank resources is
vulnerable to fraud,
waste and misuse
because the EPA has not
implemented adequate
internal controls.
What We Found
The EPA did not adequately manage the Voluntary
Leave Bank Program to assess the solvency or
efficiency of the program, adequately safeguard
personal employee information, or minimize the
potential for misuse. The EPA did not routinely
monitor the bank balance or the bank's solvency.
Further, the EPA did not periodically assess
whether adjustments were needed to the maximum
number of hours that employees could use, or to the minimum number of hours
an employee was required to contribute annually. Also, the Leave Bank Board
did not routinely assess and verify medical certifications to approve an
application and determine how many hours should be provided. Inaccurate
timekeeping data incorrectly showed that leave bank recipients used more than
the allowed 280 hours per leave year and conflicted with the payroll system.
These conditions occurred because the EPA Office of Administration and
Resources Management did not develop and implement official policies and
procedures to administer the leave bank and govern the actions of the Leave
Bank Board. Also, the timekeeping system did not have working controls to
prevent employees from entering more than the leave bank hours allowed. As a
result, the EPA cannot adequately determine whether the leave bank program is
solvent; determine whether the hours in the bank exceed needs; adequately
protect against fraud, waste and abuse; or provide supervisors with reliable
information to properly verify employees' time.
Recommendations and Planned Agency Corrective Actions
We recommend that the Assistant Administrator for Administration and
Resources Management develop and implement official policies and procedures
for administering the program, conduct a risk assessment of the program, and
gather and analyze the required Voluntary Leave Bank Program data and provide
the results to leave bank managers for use in decision-making. In addition, we
recommend that the Assistant Administrator for Administration and Resources
Management and the Chief Financial Officer work together to develop and
implement a method for supervisors to view real-time data of employee leave
bank and leave transfer balances, and issue guidance and train supervisors on
the leave bank and leave transfer programs and their roles and responsibilities
for approving timesheets of employees using the leave programs.
The agency concurred with our six recommendations. The agency has completed
corrective actions for three of the recommendations, and we consider the
planned corrective actions for the other three recommendations to be acceptable.

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