Book Description

In fiscal year 2006, the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) program paid over $1.8 billion in wage loss compensation to federal employees who were unable to work after being injured on the job. Under the Comptroller General's authority to conduct evaluations on his own initiative, GAO examined (1) how effectively the Department of Labor's (Labor) Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP) manages the risk of improper FECA compensation payments; (2) what vulnerabilities to improper payments, if any, exist in OWCP's procedures for making FECA wage loss payments; and (3) how well OWCP ensures the recovery of identified FECA overpayments. To address these issues, GAO reviewed OWCP documents, analyzed data obtained from OWCP, reviewed a random and projectable sample of FECA claims files, visited five OWCP district offices, and interviewed OWCP headquarters and district officials. The Secretary of Labor should direct OWCP to, among other things, develop a strategy to ensure that the agency's efforts to prevent and monitor improper payments are properly balanced with its other priorities, take steps to reduce the most common causes of improper