The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives intentionally overstated the duties of dozens of employees, labeling them as law enforcement agents so it could pay them more money, costing the government tens of millions of dollars.
Investigators said the overpayments have been going on since at least 2003. They identified more than 100 jobs in human resources and other administrative areas that were misclassified as criminal investigators.
Looking at just one five-year period, they said, the government wasted roughly $20 million on the overpayments.
ATF officials disputed the exact numbers, but admitted to the overall nature of the scam. Officials said they are still trying to clean it up, having reassigned some employees while cutting others’ pay.
But the employees won’t be asked to pay back any of their unearned money. ATF has decided to waive the debt, arguing the employees themselves acted in “good faith.”
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel revealed the scam in an alert to President Biden and Congress this week, closing out a years-long probe with a warning that ATF isn’t in the clear yet.
“While I find the report to be reasonable, progress toward full resolution has been slow, which may be attributable to the long-standing nature of the problems and the entrenched culture reinforcing ATF’s practices,” Special Counsel Henry J. Kerner said in a statement as he released the findings.
Investigators said the overpayments were intentional and blamed leaders at ATF, which is part of the Justice Department.
The leaders showed a “disregard” for the law, investigators said.
Mr. Kerner said ATF’s internal affairs division is investigating how the illegal policy was adopted, and he hoped those involved will face consequences.
The Washington Times asked ATF what discipline has been meted out but the agency didn’t respond to that question. Instead, it provided a broad statement saying it has “taken extensive corrective actions,” including reclassifying employees.
“ATF and the [Justice] Department are committed to expeditiously resolving the few remaining issues, in a manner that, consistent with applicable laws and regulations, maximizes public safety,” the agency said.
The overpayments stem from how the government classifies jobs.
Positions labeled criminal investigators are eligible for enhanced compensation under what’s known as Law Enforcement Availability Pay, or LEAP.
Two whistleblowers came forward to say ATF had been cooking its books to upgrade some positions to law enforcement jobs, even though the jobs didn’t need those skills. The whistleblowers said the ATF would only recruit and hire applicants with law enforcement credentials for those jobs.
The special counsel’s office and the Office of Personnel Management both began reviews, with OPM ultimately taking the lead on sniffing out what happened.
OPM probed five years of records and found 91 jobs getting law enforcement pay for duties that didn’t meet the standard.
ATF self-reported another 17 positions, though it also disagreed with 30 of the positions that OPM flagged, saying those jobs actually did need law enforcement skills but the job descriptions had never been updated to reflect that.
Overpaid jobs included posts in ATF’s recruitment, professional development, public affairs and congressional affairs divisions, as well as at its training academy.
OPM said the errors were so persistent and egregious that in late 2020 it suspended ATF’s ability to classify law enforcement jobs, saying all such decisions must be approved by OPM.
The suspension remains in effect and OPM is still worried about how slow ATF is moving to unwind the situation, the special counsel said.
OPM did not respond to an inquiry Thursday.
ATF blamed its slow progress in cleaning up the mess on the complexity and length of the classification problem.
As of March, 36 people had been reassigned and 14 had retired.
Using ATF’s calculation of 70 wrongly classified positions, the overpayments for the last five years totaled about $10 million. Using OPM’s total of more than 100 positions, the overpayment surges to nearly $20 million.
The special counsel’s office said actual losses could be “much higher” because the bogus classifications had been “common practice” long before the start date for the review.
The special counsel said it was satisfied with OPM’s steps, though it noted that the whistleblowers still think the ATF is getting away with mischief. They believe investigators missed many misclassified positions.
The whistleblowers also complained about the decision not to make the overpaid employees pay back their money.
