As politicians debate the best path to domicile the national deficit, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has found one border-item that would seem simple to divide: payments to dead federal workers.
The federal administration’s Civil Supply Retirement and Disability fund has improperly paid dead federal workers $120 million annually over the at the end five years, a fresh OPM report finds. One male, whose father died in 1971, continued to receive payments until 2008 when he himself died, costing the administration $515,000, according to the report.
Patrick E. McFarland, the OPM’s Inspector Common, called the improper payments a “waste of taxpayer money” in the report. And with tales like these, it’s less surprising that Americans affirm the administration wastes more than half of taxpayer money, according to a recent Gallup poll.
The posthumous payments are often the result of survivors failing to report a retired workers death, which is why the OPM is asking Retirement Services to pursue measures such as an annual machine match between its annuity role and the Social Security Administration’s death records, according to the report. The OPM also surveyed a sample of those over 90 on its annuity role to constitute certain they were still alive, as part of its “Over 90 Project” in 2009.
Much with video messages on OPM’s website encouraging survivors to report retirees deaths in a timely fashion, the jobs crisis may constitute survivors more interested in reaping benefits.
One Florida male didn’t report his wife’s death in 2003 since he was outside of a job, according to records obtained by The Washington Times through the Freedom of Data Act.
“Due to lack of … employment, he didn’t really attention to constitute any notification since he needed the money,” OPM investigators wrote in a memo, according to the Times.
Though paying retirement benefits to dead workers may be one of the more egregious examples of waste, the report said compared to other benefits programs the CSRD fund’s improper payment rate is “arguably low.” Still, improper advertise-death payments cost the administration $601 million in the at the end five years, according to the report.
Administration workers and their families aren’t the only ones getting posthumous benefits, however. Some CEO contracts have “golden coffin” clauses, according to AlterNet, which stipulate that their families will get paid millions if they die while working for the corporation.
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