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*. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	20-P-0194
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\ Office of Inspector General
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At a Glance
Why We Did This Project
The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's Office of
Inspector General conducted
this audit to determine
(1) whether the Agency is
properly forgiving debts owed
by its employees through its
waiver or compromise process
and (2) the activities that are
causing salary overpayments.
Federal law, 5 U.S.C. § 5584,
allows an agency to waive, in
whole or in part, claims against
a person arising out of an
erroneous payment of pay. The
agency claims officer is
responsible for reviewing
waiver requests and may
approve, in whole or in part, or
deny the requests.
This report addresses the
following:
• Operating efficiently and
effectively.
EPA's Office of the Chief Financial Officer Lacks
Authority to Make Decisions on Employee-Debt
Waiver Requests
What We Found
We found that the Office of the Chief Financial	The OCFO made
Officer improperly made decisions on 15 employee- unauthorized decisions
debt waiver requests totaling $53,539. As set forth for employee-debt waiver
in 5 U.S.C. § 5584, erroneous overpayments for	requests totaling $53,539.
salary, travel, transportation, or relocation expenses
or allowances to employees may be waived if it "would be against equity and
good conscience and not in the best interests of the United States." The agency
claims officer—who is located in the Office of General Counsel, not in the
OCFO—has the authority up to $100,000 to waive employee debts for erroneous
payments of pay and other allowances. Because the OCFO does not have
authority to approve employee-debt waiver requests, it should have instead
referred these 15 requests to the agency claims officer to issue the decisions.
Recommendations and Planned Agency Corrective Actions
We recommend that the chief financial officer (1) update policies and procedures
to require employee-debt waiver requests be submitted to the agency claims
officer for review; (2) submit any employee-debt waiver requests currently under
review by the EPA Finance Center directors to the agency claims officer for
processing; and (3) update policies and procedures to state that the EPA will
process debt compromise requests in compliance with 31 U.S.C. § 3711 and
Resource Management Directive System 2540-9-P2, as well as will maintain
required supporting documentation. We also recommend that the general counsel
direct the agency claims officer to review and render employee-debt waiver
decisions on the 15 debt waiver requests in question.
The EPA agreed with our recommendations. Recommendation 3 is resolved with
corrective action pending. Planned corrective actions for Recommendations 1, 2,
and 4 were not acceptable, and these recommendations are unresolved with
resolution efforts in progress.
Address inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391 or
OIG WEBCOMMENTS@epa.gov.
List of OIG reports.

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