ATF Misclassified Workers, Costing $9.7 Million
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wasted $9.7 million by intentionally misclassifying administrators and bureaucrats as law enforcement officers, according to a letter from the Department of Justice and U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
An investigation was opened after two whistleblowers alleged the ATF was “systematically and intentionally misclassifying upper‐level non‐law‐enforcement jobs as law‐enforcement positions and recruiting and filling these coveted, primarily supervisory jobs with only special agents or Industry Operations Investigators.”
Because of this, the whistleblowers alleged, those that were misclassified were eligible for additional benefits, including enhanced retirement benefits and law enforcement availability pay, perks only available to law enforcement.
After conducting the investigation, the Special Counsel substantiated the whistleblowers’ allegations. While the practice cost at least $9.7 million over five years, the Special Counsel noted that the true costs could be as high as $19.7 million, depending on the total number of people that were misclassified.
Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) wrote a letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz to request further investigation into this scheme. She writes that, “It is incumbent upon all public servants to act with the utmost levels of professionalism but when bureaucrats abuse the public trust it is the responsibility of watchdogs to hold the bad actors accountable for their malfeasance.”
It’s bad enough when massive agencies make honest mistakes with your tax dollars, but organized schemes to defraud taxpayers and enrich bureaucrats substantially harm public trust in institutions. After this investigation concludes, lawmakers need to seriously consider legislation to increase oversight to ensure schemes like this never happen again.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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