Senate Passes Bill to Curb Improper Payments
January 18, 2013
On December 20, 2012, the Senate passed the House’s version of the “Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act” (H.R. 4053) without amendments. If signed by the president, the bill would create more stringent procedures to help detect, prevent, and recover improper payments to contractors and program beneficiaries. Those measures include:
- Requiring high-risk programs to make annual, publicly available reports to their inspectors general;
- Requiring agencies to review their pre-payment and pre-award procedures to ensure that certain databases are reviewed before releasing funds; and
- Establishing a “Do Not Pay” initiative.
The bill was presented to the president for signature on December 30, 2012.