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*. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	18-p-oo36
^ AJk \ Office of Inspector General	Novembers, 2017
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- At a Glance
Why We Did This Review
The Office of Inspector General
(OIG) conducted an audit of the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA's) subsidy
programs for employee parking.
The objective of this audit was
to identify and analyze risks in
the programs.
In 1984, Congress adopted the
Deficit Reduction Act, which
identifies employer-provided
parking as a fringe benefit (i.e.,
compensation beyond direct
wages and salaries). However,
there is no law that requires
federal agencies to provide this
fringe benefit to their
employees. In addition, Office
of Management and Budget
(OMB) Memorandum M-17-22
directs agencies to examine the
total cost of their personnel—
including employee-related
costs such as salary, benefits,
employee services and office
expenses—to achieve
workforce reductions and cost
savings.
This report addresses the
following:
• Operating efficiently and
effectively.
EPA Paid $1.5 Million for Subsidized and Unoccupied
Parking Spaces Over a 2-Year Period
Send all inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391
or visit www.epa.gov/oiq.
Listing of OIG reports.
What We Found
Only EPA headquarters (based in Washington, D.C.)
and Region 4 (based in Atlanta, Georgia) subsidized
employee parking. These offices paid over $840,000 to
subsidize employee parking from January 1, 2015,
through December 31, 2016. In this time period, none of
the other EPA regional offices provided their employees
with subsidized parking, which is not a required
employee benefit.
The EPA paid
$840,000 for
subsidized parking
and $690,000 for
unoccupied parking
spaces over a
2-year period.
In addition, we found that internal controls for subsidized employee parking could
be improved in three areas: the allocation of "unusual hours" parking spaces, the
verification of carpool participants, and the reconciliation of EPA parking records
with monthly reports that detail the actual use of parking spaces.
We also found that, from January 2015 through December 2016, 29 percent of the
parking spaces that headquarters leased for its employees and 27 percent of the
parking spaces that Region 4 leased for its employees remained unoccupied. The
EPA paid approximately $690,000 for these unoccupied parking spaces.
EPA staff stated that federal laws allowed the agency to provide parking subsidies
to employees. However, Executive Order 13693 touts federal air quality goals,
and no law requires subsidized parking to be a mandatory employee benefit.
Consequently, the EPA was using valuable resources to subsidize employee
parking when the funds could be put to better use in mission-critical programs.
Recommendations and Planned Agency Corrective Actions
We recommend that EPA headquarters and Region 4 comply with OMB
Memorandum M-17-22, Comprehensive Plan for Reforming the Federal
Government and Reducing the Federal Civilian Workforce, and decide whether
the costs of providing subsidized parking are justified. If not, we recommend that
the EPA eliminate or reduce the parking subsidy. The two offices should also
verify the validity of carpools, determine the appropriate number of spaces
needed, and return unneeded parking spaces to the U.S. General Services
Administration. In addition, we recommend that EPA headquarters review monthly
parking records to determine actual parking spaces required and used.
EPA headquarters and Region 4 concurred with all of our recommendations and
provided corrective actions with milestone dates, including no longer offering
reduced-rate parking to headquarters employees or free parking to Region 4
carpool participants. Recommendations 1 through 5 and Recommendation 9 are
completed. The proposed corrective actions for Recommendations 6 through 8,
when completed, will meet the intent of the recommendations.

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