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94–278 PDF 2016

S. Hrg. 114–419 

EXAMINING FEDERAL IMPROPER PAYMENTS AND 

ERRORS IN THE DEATH MASTER FILE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 16, 2015 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Staff Director 

PATRICK J. BAILEY, Chief Counsel for Governmental Affairs 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN. Minority Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

PETER TYLER, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 1 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 2 

Senator Lankford .............................................................................................. 24 

Senator Peters .................................................................................................. 27 

Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 29 

Senator Ayotte .................................................................................................. 32 

Senator Ernst .................................................................................................... 34 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 43 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 45 

WITNESSES 

MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 

Judy C. Rivers, Logan, Alabama ............................................................................ 4 

Sean Brune, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Budget, Finance, Quality and Management, U.S. Social Security Administration . 11 

Hon. Patrick P. O’Carroll, Jr., Inspector General, Social Security Administration ........................................................................................................................ 13

Hon. David Mader, U.S. Controller, Office of Management and Budget ............ 15 

Beryl H. Davis, Director, Financial Management and Assurance, U.S. Government Accountability Office; Accompanied by Daniel Bertoni, Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security, U.S. Government Accountability 

Office ..................................................................................................................... 17 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Bertoni, Daniel: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 17 

Joint prepared statement ................................................................................. 80 

Brune, Sean: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 61 

Davis, Beryl H.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 17 

Joint prepared statement ................................................................................. 80 

Mader, Hon. David: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 74 

O’Carroll, Hon. Patrick P.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68 

Rivers, Judy C.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 47 

APPENDIX 

Chart submitted by Senator Johnson .................................................................... 100 

Information submitted by Mr. Brune ..................................................................... 101 

Information submitted by Mr. Brune ..................................................................... 102 

Statement submitted by the National Association for Public Health Statistics 

and Information Systems .................................................................................... 103 

(1) 

1The prepared statement of Chairman Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

EXAMINING FEDERAL IMPROPER PAYMENTS 

AND ERRORS IN THE DEATH MASTER FILE 

MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:03 p.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, Lankford, Ayotte, Ernst, Carper, 

McCaskill, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. This hearing will come to order. 

First of all, I want to welcome all of our witnesses here. I appreciate your thoughtful testimony. The hearing’s title is ‘‘Examining 

Federal Improper Payments and Errors in the Death Master File.’’ 

And, in particular, we have a very interesting witness who has certainly been the victim of inaccuracies in our Death Master File 

(DMF): Ms. Judy Rivers from Logan, Alabama. And, Ms. Rivers, I 

have to say that when I read your testimony—and I would really 

recommend everybody reading the full testimony. It is quite the 

story. But I was struck by very early on you made the statement, 

‘‘It has often been said that Washington, D.C., is the capital of unintended consequences.’’ And we are going to be seeing that here 

today. 

But what I would like to say is that we are going to start off with 

Ms. Rivers testifying, and then I am going to offer every Senator 

a chance to ask one question, no statements, because then we have 

to move on with the rest of the panel. We are somewhat time-constrained. But we really want to hear Ms. Rivers’ story. It is a powerful testament of unintended consequences. 

But I have a written opening statement which I will enter into 

the record,1 without objection. 

And what I would really like to do is turn it over to our Ranking 

Member, Senator Tom Carper, who has really done yeoman work 

on this particular issue for—I will not say how many years, but you 

have certainly been dedicated to trying to correct the problem of 

improper payments in the Federal Government. So I think you 

probably have a few words to say, and I will turn it over to you. 
2 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks 

for pulling this together. And thanks to our witnesses for joining 

us today. 

As some of you know, the work that I have done on improper 

payments for the last decade or so, I have done with Tom Coburn, 

whose birthday was just this weekend. He is retired, and I know 

he is here in spirit with us today because he cares a lot about all 

the money that we are leaving on the table. 

Remember the story about Willie Sutton? They used to say to 

Willie Sutton, ‘‘Why do you rob banks?’’ He said, ‘‘That is where the 

money is.’’ Why do we go after improper payments? That is where 

the money is, and there is a whole ton of it, as we know. 

While our fiscal situation is improving, we still have a big budget 

deficit. It is about one-third of what it was maybe 5, 6 years ago, 

but it is still too much. We have a debt of about $18 trillion. At 

a time when many agencies are struggling with tight budgets and 

facing sequestration on the horizon, we just cannot afford to be 

making $125 billion in improper payments like we apparently 

made last fiscal year (FY). This latest improper estimate represents an almost $19 billion 

increase over the previous year. After the level of improper payments went down for a number of years, we saw an increase of $19 

billion. These payments come from over 70 programs at more than 

20 agencies in programs ranging from Medicare and Medicaid to 

the Department of Defense (DOD). And if we are going to get a better handle on our debt and our deficit—and, frankly, improve 

Americans’ impression of how we take care of their money—we 

need to sharpen our pencils and need to stop making the kind of 

expensive, avoidable mistakes that lead to wasteful spending, and 

make our agencies and programs vulnerable to fraud and abuse. 

Congress has already taken some steps that are helping agencies 

to address this challenge. Our improper payments problems were 

first addressed through legislation that originated in the House in 

2002. The Improper Payments Information Act required agencies to 

estimate the levels of improper payments made each year. 

In 2010, Dr. Coburn and I followed up on this effort with the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act (IPERA), which expanded the requirements for agencies to identify, prevent and recover improper payments. In 2012, Senators Susan Collins, Scott 

Brown, and I went further with the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act. Building off a very good initiative of the Administration, the law made permanent the ‘‘Do Not 

Pay’’ program, which is designed to screen all Federal payments in 

order to double check basic eligibility requirements. Simply put, 

‘‘Do Not Pay’’ allows a government agency to check whether someone should be paid before the government pays them. I think that 

is common sense. I hope to have a discussion with our witnesses 

from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—about how all of these legislative initiatives are working, or are not working, and what additional measures we should consider. 

We will also spend some time today discussing the specific problems of agencies making payments to people who are actually de-
3 

ceased. For example, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) 

Inspector General (IG) reported just 4 years ago that some $600 

million in improper payments were made to Federal retirees found 

to have died over the previous 5 years. However, such payments to 

dead people are not unique to this one program, and improving the 

collection, verification, and the use by Federal agencies of data on 

individuals who have died will help curb hundreds of millions, 

maybe billions of dollars in improper payments. 

I am actively working with Chairman Johnson, with the Administration, and with our colleagues here on this Committee to reintroduce legislation from the last congressional session to tackle 

the very frustrating problem of improper payments to dead people. 

Unfortunately, we have more work ahead. 

Last week, the Social Security Inspector General released a report stating that 6.5 million people have active Social Security 

numbers (SSN) who, based on the Social Security Administration’s 

(SSAs) own records, would be more than 112 years old. I think 

maybe in our country we have had just a handful of people actually 

live that long. Now we are told there could be 6.5 million? I am 

not sure where they are, or if they are out there. Maybe not. 

In fact, a few thousand of the records reviewed by the Inspector 

General seem to show ‘‘living’’ individuals with active Social Security numbers who were born before the Civil War. In the real 

world, public records show that only 35 people worldwide are 112 

or older. 

We will hear today from the Social Security Administration 

about their efforts to ensure accurate information about who is 

alive or dead. However, what should be extremely concerning to us 

is that inaccurate death data may lead to improper payments by 

many other agencies across the government and also creates greater vulnerability for fraud and identity theft. We will hear more 

about this problem and the opportunities for a solution from today’s witnesses. 

I want to make clear my view that the Administration deserves 

a lot of credit for many initiatives to curb waste and fraud, as Controller David Mader of the Office of Management and Budget will 

soon describe. But we need to do more, and we have to use every 

tool available to put our fiscal house back in order and give the 

American people the government that they expect and deserve. 

It is the right thing to do on behalf of the taxpayers of our country who entrust us with their hard-earned money. I often think of 

how the Preamble to the Constitution speaks of ‘‘a more perfect 

union.’’ We will never be perfect in this area, maybe in any area, 

but we should strive for perfection because everything we do we 

know we can do better. 

So in that spirit, I look forward to working with the Administration, with our Chairman, and with our colleagues on this Committee and outside this Committee to make real progress this year 

on reducing improper payments. 

Thank you so much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

It is the tradition of this Committee that we swear in witnesses, 

so if you would all stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear 

that the testimony you will give before this Committee will be the 
4 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Rivers appears in the Appendix on page 47. 

truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, 

God? 

Ms. RIVERS. I do. 

Mr. BRUNE. I do. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. I do. 

Mr. MADER. I do. 

Ms. DAVIS. I do. 

Mr. BERTONI. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Our first witness this afternoon will be Ms. Judy Rivers. She is 

a private citizen from Logan, Alabama. She has twice been mistakenly listed as deceased by the Federal Government. Today she will 

tell her story of the financial impact errors in the Death Master 

File have on innocent taxpayers. 

And, Ms. Rivers, I just have to again commend you for being 

willing to go public with certainly your trials and tribulations, and 

hopefully your story can help prevent this from happening to other 

Americans. So we look forward to your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF JUDY C. RIVERS,1 LOGAN, ALABAMA 

Ms. RIVERS. Thank you very much. 

First of all, good afternoon, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member 

Carper, and distinguished Members of this Committee. Thank you 

for inviting me to speak about my experiences with the Death Master File. 

My name is Judy Rivers, and I have twice been listed on the 

Death Master File. The first incidence occurred in 2001, and it was 

actually fairly painless because, first of all, I had no idea that it 

actually happened. I had a couple of identity theft situations. 

Someone forced some money through my bank, but I had never 

heard of the Death Master File. And we got those cleared up, and 

I just continued on. 

The second occurrence happened during one of the worst periods 

of my life. I had just spent 17 months taking care of two terminally 

ill parents, and I think I was probably at one of the lowest points 

of my life at that time. So this situation did not help anything. 

I could never have imagined I would reach the point of hopelessness, homelessness, financial destitution, loss of reputation and 

credibility, unable to find a job, an apartment, a student loan, or 

even buy a cell phone. Without a Social Security number, you can 

do nothing in the United States. 

Suspected as an identity thief became a way of life for me. During the last 5 years, every H.R. person I have interviewed with, police who have pulled me over for perhaps going a little too fast, the 

first thing they do is go through your records, put you through a 

file, and when you come up as deceased or that the insurance— 

they actually do not know if it belongs to you or not—then a lot 

of questions start, and it becomes extremely uncomfortable. 

I would like to make it clear that all of the problems I have had 

during the past 5 years are not only a direct result of the Death 

Master File. However, the Death Master File has been like a propagating hydra underneath all of my problems. So every single prob-
5 

lem that I had, the Death Master File and the fact that I did not 

have an identity made everything worse. 

It started when I was providing full-time care to my parents, as 

I said. When my parents passed away, their home was sold, and 

I had to relocate very quickly. In my entire life, since the age of 

17, I have supported myself, put myself through school. I have 

never not had a job, not worked, owned my own firm for 30-something years, and really have been very blessed in that area. So 

when I start looking for a job and an apartment and I am not able 

to get one, it is like, ‘‘Wait a minute, what is going on here? ’’ 

Everywhere I searched, everywhere I applied, I was turned 

down. Finally, I had to leave my parents’ home quickly, so I contacted an old friend and asked if I could borrow a spare room for 

a few weeks. That few weeks turned into 3 months. Unfortunately, 

his landlord asked me to leave at that point because I was not on 

the lease. 

So I again went apartment searching. Again, the question of my 

validity, my credibility, and because my Social Security number did 

not check out, I was unable to find an apartment anywhere. 

After searching for a period of 3 weeks and with no choice and 

something that I thought really only happened on television, I had 

to move into my car. I did some research on the Internet, got some 

basic information on how to do that, and the best places to park, 

such as a truck stop for protection. So my two puppies and I lived 

in my car for 31⁄2 months. During that entire time, I was constantly 

searching for a room, for an apartment. I kept going out further in 

the areas of Alabama, such as Logan, in order to find someone that 

probably did not check that closely, but I was still unsuccessful. 

My situation improved after I ran into an old friend named Mary 

Kate. Mary Kate had a business building, and the top of it she had 

converted to an apartment. And, knowing my parents very well and 

being sympathetic to my situation, she offered the apartment to 

me. I was in the apartment 2 hours later—after the approval. It 

was huge, it was empty, and I felt like I was living in a castle at 

that moment. No bed, no chair, no sofa, no nothing, because all of 

my furniture was still in Dallas where I was living when my parents became ill. She even brought me a few houseware items, some 

towels, et cetera, and I was one very happy person. 

During the period of time I lived there, I continued my search 

for a job. I continued my search for a student loan. I had reviewed 

what was available on the Internet and decided that I needed to 

increase my skills, particularly in the area of project management. 

So I applied to over 20 online schools and 3 physical schools for a 

student loan in order to take the courses and get my certification. 

Everyone turned me down. The information that I received when 

I asked why I was being turned down always included comments 

such as, ‘‘Your information cannot be verified’’; ‘‘Your Social Security number did not match’’; or ‘‘We cannot find your records.’’ 

Finally, becoming concerned, I went to my local SSA office and 

asked them to check my records to see if I was in the files and if 

everything was fine. They did a very fast check, said, ‘‘No, your 

records are all in order. Everything is fine, and, yes, you are alive.’’ 

I asked, ‘‘Well, could there have been a mistake in the past?’’ And 

I was informed at that time, ‘‘We cannot check the past. If you had 
6 

been listed at some time, when the new files are created on a weekly basis and sent out, your name would have been removed, and 

we do not retain those.’’ So there was really no way for them to 

tell me if I had been listed or if I had not been listed. But since 

everything was in order, it was fine, and I thought I was fine. 

My situation at that point went from bad to worse. The apartment building that I had lived in—and this was approximately a 

year and a half later—a fire code made it necessary for me to leave. 

As an office building, it only had one entrance and exit, which was 

not acceptable in the Walker County area at that time. 

Again, I went on an apartment search. No luck, so, unfortunately, one more time I had to move back into the car. It was beginning to become a habit. 

The next thing that happened to me, in March 2010, I was involved in a car accident. A lady hit me, rear-ended me while I was 

sitting at a red light. I did not feel anything, hear anything. I woke 

up in the hospital a few days later and was told that I had seven 

vertebrae that were in pretty bad shape. They also kept asking me 

all of these questions, and there was a lot of confusion about my 

insurance, whether I owned the car that I was in, whether I really 

was who I said I was. 

So I called an attorney, turned everything over to a legal firm, 

and said, ‘‘Whatever is happening, please get me out of this.’’ 

I went home—excuse me. When I say ‘‘home,’’ I mean a car. I 

went back to the car, started researching the DMF, and, frankly, 

trying to find anyone that could help me. During that time, I contacted the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Social Security Administration, the Fair Credit Reporting Agency (FCRA), everyone 

that I could think of and every name that came up in my searches 

for any information or any help. No agency could offer me any help. 

The first people that I spoke to that offered me any type of insight was Pam Dixon and Nina Olsen, both were of great help to 

me in providing information and also advice on what to do. Nothing 

to do, no apartment, still no job, still unable to find any kind of job. 

A couple at my church found out my situation and offered me a 

camper they had on their property in which to live. I graciously 

and humbly accepted the invitation and said, ‘‘I will only be here 

for a few months, and then I will be out of your hair.’’ Well, actually, I am still there. 

The good thing out of it is the fact that these people have become 

very close to me. They are very close to parents. They have taken 

me into their family, and I have really enjoyed knowing them. I 

will tell you that living in a camper, and especially with two puppies, is not a lot of fun, but I did that. 

The only work I have been able to obtain is work such as cleaning houses and caregiving. And, very candidly, coming from an executive position with a six-figure income, it is not something you 

like but something you do when you have to do it. 

One of the problems with the DMF, it is a bad database that 

paves the way for millions of dollars of identity theft, tax fraud, 

health care fraud, medical theft for both the living and the deceased, and the U.S. Government. It seldom goes away when it hits 

you, as with my experience. The problem is when you get one area 

cleared up, such as one credit reporting agency (CRA) or one bank-
7 

ing institution report, someone calls in for a report, and when they 

are on the phone—and I have listened to this happen—they say, 

‘‘Well, this woman has applied for 23 credit cards in a period of 4 

years. No one needs that many credit cards. She cannot be honest.’’ 

So then you are right back on the death list again, and nothing 

goes forward. 

So it is a matter of every time you get one spot solved, it pops 

up somewhere else. You get one school to approve a loan. Two 

weeks later, you get a notice because they have contacted other 

people, and they have denied the loan. 

So from a standpoint of trying to handle the entire situation, at 

this time have not figured out a way to control it. And I would like 

to say this: I had contacted all three CRAs, the major ones, the 

banking financial institutions that provide information. Only one 

company in a period of 3 years ever responded to me. They did not 

answer a phone call. They did not answer a letter. So I had no idea 

of what was going on and where. 

Finally, I contacted Mr. Ron Perholtz who started the DMF. Ron 

and his brother, Robert, had several conference calls with me. They 

checked their databases, and told me that I had been listed in January 2001. And, finally ChexSystems sent me a letter telling me 

that, yes, they had reported me as deceased, and the information 

they received was directly from the Social Security Administration 

and that I was listed as dead in 2008. They did not provide the 

month, however. 

So I found out where the information was coming from, but I did 

not find any way to stop it, even though I have been removed from 

the Death Master File. 

What I do not understand is in the research I have done, I have 

seen over 20 hearings in the Senate and in Congress on the Death 

Master File. So far I have seen nothing come out of any of these 

hearings. What I am hoping is that you will create a program that 

will, first of all, provide help for victims, because we have nowhere 

to go; second, that you will either stop distributing the database or 

find a way to toss it out, start over again, rebuild it, and do it correctly, and have zero mistakes. 

Thank you very much for having me here. I appreciate it. And, 

please, do something for the government and do something for the 

victims. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, thank you, Ms. Rivers. Very powerful 

testimony, and obviously that is the goal of this Committee hearing, to try and work toward solutions so this does not happen to 

another American. 

My question is: You have been removed from the Death Master 

File. Was that prompted by your action? Do you know when that 

occurred? Or have you just found out that it just happened? 

Ms. RIVERS. Actually, I only found out in the last couple of weeks 

that I was actually listed on the Death Master File in 2008. 

ChexSystems had—the one person that answered my letter—sent 

me a letter that was dated August 22. The reality is I was still 

sending them correspondence in October and further. In this letter, 

it stated that they had reported me as deceased upon information 

received from the Social Security Administration and that I had 

died in 2008. 
8 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, again, there was not a process of you 

working with the Social Security Administration where you filled 

out some forms and you knew that your name was removed from 

the Death Master File? 

Ms. RIVERS. Yes, sir. Although I presented paperwork to check 

my DMF status, the SSA stated I was not and never had been listed on the DMF or that I had ever been removed. 

Chairman JOHNSON. You did go through that process? 

Ms. RIVERS. I went through the process of completing forms several times in order to find out if I had been listed on the DMF. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But you only just found out that you have 

been removed? 

Ms. RIVERS. Yes, sir. I had the letter, but, unfortunately, since 

the letter said, ‘‘Send us all of your information, and we will do an 

investigation,’’ I actually missed the part that said, ‘‘We did report 

you as deceased in’’—they did tell me the year. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. 

Ms. RIVERS. ‘‘We did report you as deceased. Based on the information from Social Security, you died in 2008.’’ And then asked me 

to send them information and they would do an investigation. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, we will ask some of those question of our other witnesses. And, again, I would encourage everybody to read Ms. Rivers’ full testimony. It is a powerful story. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you so much for joining us. I apologize 

for what you have had to go through. 

Ms. RIVERS. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Somebody needs to, on a lighter note, I once 

asked a friend of mine, I said, ‘‘Tell me about this Death Master 

File. What is it?’’ And he said to me, with tongue in cheek, he said, 

‘‘It is a file in which you do not want your name to appear, because 

if it does you are dead.’’ Well, as it turns out, not always. Not always. You are living proof that it does not always happen that way. 

If you had to go through this all over, knowing what you know 

now, what would you do differently? And, again, what specifically 

would you suggest that we do? Every one of us has constituent 

services teams in our States, and their job is to help people with 

a wide variety of problems. We are called every day. And one of the 

issues that we deal with a lot is Social Security. If you had been 

in Delaware, a citizen of Delaware, and you called my office or Senator Chris Coons’ office or Congressman John Carney’s, we would 

have been all over this, all over this on your behalf. So just keep 

that in mind. But what would you do differently? What should we 

do differently, having heard your testimony? 

Ms. RIVERS. Right at this moment other than flying up to Washington and sitting in the Social Security Administration’s office 

until I found some answers, I do not know what I would have done 

differently. Having been in the marketing and communications and 

business development area for 35 years, when I found out what 

was happening, I sat down and created a marketing plan for myself. And I am very thorough in that area, a letter campaign to 

companies all over the United States. I contacted everyone in the 

system that I could think of. I searched for companies. I found that 

if I had experienced a major identity theft right at the beginning, 
9 

I would have been much better off because at that point I would 

have been alerted. I could have filed a police report and somebody 

would have started investigating. But at that point where there 

was no identity theft, very candidly no one really took it seriously 

and no one believed it. 

Senator CARPER. OK. The second half of my question was: What 

should we do differently? Those of us who serve here in Congress, 

we serve you and the people in all 50 States. What should we do 

differently? 

Ms. RIVERS. Regarding the DMF totally or just—— 

Senator CARPER. Just to try to make sure this kind of thing does 

not happen again to other folks in our country, given what you 

have learned. 

Ms. RIVERS. Well, as I mentioned, I think the database needs to 

be cleansed thoroughly. I think an agency should be put in charge 

of it that actually can control it. Also, I think the sources from 

which the information is obtained should be clarified. I think very 

strong regulations should be placed on the agencies that are distributing this information, because one of the regulations is verify 

the information before it is used. I was listed twice. No one ever 

contacted me. And of all the people that I have talked to, no one 

has ever contacted them. 

The first thing I would do immediately is develop a complete 

communications program for people, both living people that have 

been listed mistakenly and families of individuals that have been 

deceased and the deceased person has been used for tax fraud, 

identity theft, draining a bank account, et cetera. These people 

have nowhere to go either, and they hurt just as badly as I do. But 

there is not one website, there is not one place to call, there is no 

one that knows anything. I visited 18 separate Social Security offices. Out of those 18, only 12 knew what the Death Master File 

was. So even within the Social Security system, the word is not 

getting through. These people need to be trained to provide information. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Lankford, one question? 

Senator LANKFORD. Just a point of interest for me. How did you 

prove you are alive? What documents did you have to bring and the 

final shift on it when you finally had the opportunity to be able to 

explain to someone, ‘‘This is really me, I am still alive’’? What were 

you asked to be able to show to verify that? 

Ms. RIVERS. The Social Security Administration asks for your 

birth certificate, if you have it; driver’s license with photo or photographic ID. They would like to have copies of invoices or correspondence that you have received either at your place of business 

or your home, copies of check stubs. Every single thing that you 

have that would identify you as you and prove that it is you. And 

they are very thorough going through that material. 

All of that same material I included in every package I sent out 

to every company I contacted. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Peters, one question? 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
10 

Quite compelling testimony, Ms. Rivers. I also feel bad for you 

and apologize that you have gone through all of this. We have to 

get to the bottom of this. And I will say this is not the first time 

I have heard of this case. We actually had a case in Michigan earlier this year with a marine who was listed as dead twice and lost 

veterans’ benefits and had the Treasury Department close his account, a whole host of difficulty. So, unfortunately, there are others 

that are in this situation, not just yourself. 

The question by far is the timeline. You mentioned in your testimony that in 2008 is when you learned that you were listed as 

dead. But you also mentioned that you went to the Social Security 

Administration, and they told you everything was OK, not to 

worry. Where was that in the sequence of events? And when did 

the record actually get cleared? Or is this something that you get 

constantly put back on the list? If you could clarify that for me, 

that would be helpful. 

Ms. RIVERS. OK. Let me step back and clarify one thing. I did 

not learn that I was deceased in 2008. 2008 was when the problem 

started happening, but I was not aware of what was causing it. 

That is what caused me to go to the Social Security office. 

The first time I found out that I had been listed as deceased was 

when, after my accident, the insurance company settled, I went to 

a new bank and opened an account. And they were happy to open 

an account and take my money. When I went back 3 days later to 

open a savings account, they ran me through the system. The bank 

manager came over and ran me through the system, and said, ‘‘We 

cannot help you today.’’ And I said, ‘‘Why not?’’ And she said, ‘‘Because information we have reports you as deceased.’’ I demanded 

to know who was reporting the information and also where it was 

coming from and supposedly what date I died. They absolutely refused to tell me anything. By laws and under FCRA, I thought that 

I was entitled to that information. However, the bank refused to 

give it to me, and later when I found our ChexSystems was the one 

that supplied that information, they still refused to provide me 

with anything. 

So April 2010 was when I actually found out I was on the Death 

Master File. 

Senator PETERS. And is that when you went to the Social Security Administration and—— 

Ms. RIVERS. Again. I had already been—— 

Senator PETERS. Several times? 

Ms. RIVERS. Yes, sir. 

Senator PETERS. And several times you had gone, and they had 

told you repeatedly you were OK. 

Ms. RIVERS. Each time. 

Senator PETERS. But it was clear you were not OK, as every time 

you turned around, it was not. So you were being given inaccurate 

information even though you were going into the office? 

Ms. RIVERS. Correct. 

Senator PETERS. Very good. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, Ms. Rivers, thank you for your testimony. I think every Member of this Committee offers an apology 

and certainly our commitment that we are going to work with the 

people in the agencies to try and create law, create legislation that 
11 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Brune appears in the Appendix on page 61. 

will prevent this from happening to another American. So thank 

you again for your testimony, and you are dismissed. Thank you. 

Ms. RIVERS. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Our next witness will be Sean Brune. He 

joins us today from the Social Security Administration where he 

serves as a Senior Advisor for Audit in the Office of Budget, Finance, Quality, and Management. Mr. Brune. 

TESTIMONY OF SEAN BRUNE,1 SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, OFFICE OF BUDGET, FINANCE, QUALITY AND MANAGEMENT, U.S. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. BRUNE. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member 

Carper, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to 

discuss steps to strengthen the integrity of Federal payments. I am 

Sean Brune, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner for Budget, Finance, Quality, and Management at the Social Security Administration. My remarks will focus on our collection of death information, its accuracy, and how we share it with other agencies. 

We collect death information to timely stop paying Social Security beneficiaries who have died and to begin paying benefits to 

survivors. Each year, we post about 2.8 million death reports, primarily from family members, funeral homes, and States. This information serves us well, preventing around $50 million in improper 

payments each month. 

Over the years we have significantly improved our death information collection process, and this information is highly accurate. 

Of the millions of reports we receive annually, less than one-half 

of one percent are subsequently corrected. Still, we continually 

strive to improve the accuracy of our records. 

Since 2002, we have worked with States to increase the use of 

electronic death registration (EDR). EDR automates the death reporting process by enabling States to verify the name and Social 

Security number of a deceased individual against our records before they issue a death certificate or transmit a report of death to 

us. Thus, death information reported through EDR is the most accurate possible. Currently, 37 States, the city of New York, and the 

District of Columbia provide death reports to us through EDR. 

We are also currently carrying out a major multiyear redesign of 

our death information system to make it more efficient and reliable. Accurate information is important not only for the administration of our programs, but because we share the information with 

other agencies and with the public. As a result of a lawsuit brought 

against us under the Freedom of Information Act, we must share 

death information we collect and maintain from non-State sources. 

We do so by distributing information through the Department of 

Commerce. In sharing this public file, subscribers are informed, 

and have been informed for many years, that SSA does not have 

a death record for all persons, that we cannot guarantee the veracity of the file, and that the absence of a particular person is not 

proof that that person is alive. 
12 

The Department of Commerce is authorized to share non-State 

death information on an immediate basis with entities that have 

a legitimate business purpose or a fraud prevention interest for 

such information. However, under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 

2013, the public may only access non-State death information that 

is at least 3 years old. Congress put this restriction into place to 

ensure that fraudsters could not use a deceased person’s personally 

identifiable information (PII) to seek a fraudulent tax refund. 

We are limited in our ability to share State death information. 

Specifically, under the Social Security Act, we may share State 

death information with agencies administering federally funded 

benefits. Thus, we share all of our death information, including 

State records, with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 

(CMS), the Department of Defense, and the Internal Revenue Service, among others. 

Treasury’s Do Not Pay portal is an important part of the Administration’s efforts to fight improper payments and allows Federal 

agencies to carry out a review of available databases with relevant 

information on eligibility before they release Federal funds. However, under current law, we cannot provide State death information 

to the Department of Treasury for purposes of Do Not Pay. 

To remedy this, the Fiscal Year 2016 President’s budget includes 

a legislative proposal that would authorize us to share all of the 

death information we maintain with Do Not Pay. We note that S. 

614, introduced by Ranking Member Carper, cosponsored by Chairman Johnson and recently considered by this Committee, also aims 

to address this gap. We would be happy to provide technical assistance to this Committee on its bill. 

We would also ask Congress to support the Department of 

Health and Human Services (HHS) request for funding to increase 

participation in EDR. Because death reports collected through EDR 

are highly accurate, we believe that universal adoption of EDR 

would be the single most effective step in ensuring that our death 

records are of the highest quality. 

Additionally, I would hope that you will support the robust package of program integrity-related legislative proposals, proposals 

that will help detect, prevent, and recover improper payments included in the President’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget proposal. 

Finally, I would like to recognize the work of our Office of Inspector General—most recently in an audit in which they looked at 

death information and decades-old records. We are pleased that 

they found no fraud in either the Social Security program or any 

other Federal program. We have agreed with 28 of the 31 recommendations that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) has made 

in this area over the past few years. As I explain in my written 

statement, these recommendations have led to enhancements in 

our systems. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss this very important issue. I would be happy to answer any 

questions you may have. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Brune. 

Our next witness is Patrick O’Carroll, Jr. He has been the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration since 2004. 
13 

1The prepared statement of Mr. O’Carroll appears in the Appendix on page 68. 

Mr. O’Carroll has 26 years of service for the United States Secret 

Service. Mr. O’Carroll. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. PATRICK P. O’CARROLL, JR.,1

INSPECTOR GENERAL, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Good afternoon, Chairman Johnson, Ranking 

Member Carper, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for 

the invitation to participate in this discussion. 

My office investigates hundreds of cases of Social Security number misuse every year, but recently one incident stood out from the 

rest. A man opened two bank accounts with Social Security numbers that belonged to people born in 1886 and 1893. We can safely 

assume these people, who today would be 129 and 122 years of age, 

are deceased. 

However, according to SSA’s database of Social Security number 

holders, these people are alive. They are living in the sense that 

SSA does not have dates of death for either person on their number 

holder records. 

Our auditors followed up and found out these two records were 

anything but unique. We recently reported that 6.5 million people 

whose Social Security records indicate that they are over 112 years 

old do not have a date of death on their Social Security number 

record. Without a date of death in SSA’s database, these people do 

not appear on the agency’s Death Master File. 

I should note that none of these aged number holders are improperly receiving Social Security benefits, and overpayments are 

not occurring. But these inaccuracies create a significant void in 

SSA’s death data that is available to the public. We have recommended that SSA update the records and resolve the discrepancies we identified in our report. 

This audit is relevant to today’s discussion on improper payments because benefit-paying agencies like HHS and the IRS, and 

other public and private entities, use the Death Master File to 

verify deaths and ensure payment accuracy. 

Additionally, as the Committee knows, the Improper Payments 

Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act of 2012 included a Do 

Not Pay provision which requires Federal agencies to review lists 

of deceased or ineligible individuals before making payments. The 

Death Master File is one of those lists. To identify and prevent its 

own and other agencies’ improper payments, SSA must collect and 

maintain accurate death records. It is equally important to ensure 

living individuals are not listed as deceased in SSA’s records. 

There are less than 1,000 cases each month in which a living individual is mistakenly included on the Death Master File. SSA said 

it moves quickly to correct the situation when errors occur. The 

agency reports that it has not found conclusive evidence of past 

data misuse. However, we remain concerned because these errors 

can lead to premature benefit termination and Social Security underpayments and cause financial hardship and distress to those affected. 

I have addressed in my written statement recent actions that 

limit the sharing of personal information on SSA’s death records 
14 

and will delay the public release of death data through the Death 

Master File. We believe these actions could mitigate some of the 

issues I just mentioned. 

SSA must accurately process the death reports it receives to terminate payments to deceased beneficiaries and avoid overpayments. In several audits, we have estimated SSA has paid millions 

of dollars to beneficiaries after their deaths. 

Based on our audit work and recommendations, SSA now 

matches and corroborates its payment records with its number 

holder records every month and exchanges data with HHS to identify deceased beneficiaries based on their enrollment in, but nonusage of, Medicare. These initiatives have improved SSA’s ability 

to process benefit terminations due to death, recover overpayments, 

and refer allegations of deceased payee fraud to our office. 

Last year, we investigated over 600 people for deceased payee 

fraud. These are cases of individuals who conceal someone’s death 

to illegally collect their Social Security benefits, with criminal convictions of about 150 people and $55 million in recoveries, restitutions, and projected savings. 

In one example, a woman collected her mother’s Social Security 

and Federal Civil Service benefits for 35 years after her mother 

died. SSA identified this case through the Medicare Non-Utilization 

Project and referred it to us to investigate. Last year, the woman 

pled guilty to government theft and was sentenced to 18 months 

of house arrest. She was ordered to repay about $350,000 to the 

SSA and OPM. This is a high investigative priority. Cases of deceased payee fraud can lead to significant government recoveries 

and savings, and Federal prosecution efforts help deter others from 

committing this crime. 

Before I conclude, I want to acknowledge that our auditors’ and 

special agents’ outstanding work on this topic has recently garnered national media attention. We are pleased that our efforts are 

making an impact and promoting overdue discussions on these 

issues. But I speak for my entire staff when I say we do not do this 

work to make news headlines. We do this work, and we will continue to do it to ensure the integrity of SSA’s programs and to promote public confidence in Social Security and the Federal Government. This is and always will be our sole mission. 

We will continue to work with SSA and your Committee to address the issues discussed today. Thank you again for the invitation to testify, and I will be happy to answer any questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. O’Carroll. 

Our next witness is Mr. David Mader. He is the current Controller of the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Mader held 

various positions at the IRS from 1971 to 2003 and then 10 years 

in the private sector before rejoining the Federal service. Mr. 

Mader. 
15 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Mader appears in the Appendix on page 74. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. DAVID MADER,1 CONTROLLER, 

OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 

Mr. MADER. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member 

Carper, and distinguished Members of the Committee, for inviting 

me here today to discuss the Federal Government’s ongoing efforts 

to prevent, reduce, and recapture improper payments. I appreciate 

the opportunity to provide an update on this important topic. Our 

partnership with the Congress, consultation with GAO, and the important support of the IG community over the years has been vital 

to our efforts. 

Addressing improper payments is a central component of this administration’s effort to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. When 

the President took office in 2009, the improper payment rate was 

5.2 percent, an all-time high. Since then, the Administration, working together with the Congress, has made progress by strengthening the accountability and transparency through annual reviews 

by Inspectors General and expanded requirements for high-priority 

programs such as the requirement to report supplemental measures and program information on paymentaccuracy.gov. As a result 

of this concerted effort, in 2013 we reported an improper rate of 

3.53 percent. 

During fiscal year 2014, we experienced an improper payment 

rate increase in major programs including Medicare Fee-for-Service, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Medicaid, and Unemployment Insurance. Over the same period, other major programs experienced improper payment rate decreases, including Medicare Part 

C, the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP), 

and Public Housing/Rental Assistance. As a net, these changes resulted in a governmentwide improper payment rate of 4.02 percent, 

or $125 billion. Notwithstanding this, agencies recovered roughly 

$20 billion in overpayments through payment recapture audits and 

other methods in 2014. 

While progress has been made over the years, the time has come 

for a more aggressive strategy to reduce the levels of improper payments that we currently are seeing. That is why the Administration has proposed to make a significant investment in activities to 

ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent correctly, by expanding 

oversight activities in the largest benefit programs and increasing 

investments. 

Over the years the Administration has worked with the Congress 

on legislation regarding this topic, and these laws have provided 

agencies with new tools and techniques to prevent, reduce, and recover improper payments. 

The President’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget provides the opportunity 

to build on this congressional support and administration activities 

to reduce improper payments. There is compelling evidence that investments in administrative resources can significantly decrease 

the rate of improper payments and recoup many times their initial 

investment. 

Examples of proposals in the fiscal year 2016 budget include: a 

robust package of Medicaid and Medicare program integrity proposals; strategic reinvestments in the IRS; a robust package of So-
16 

cial Security program integrity proposals; a proposal to expand the 

Department of Labor’s initiative to conduct Reemployment and Eligibility Assessments and Reemployment Services; and improving 

further the accuracy of the Death Master File by sharing across 

multiple agencies. 

And this began long before we knew what the improper payment 

rate was going to be for the Office of Management and Budget 

issued an appendix to its circular on internal controls entitled, ‘‘Requirements for Effective Estimation and Remediation of Improper 

Payments,’’ and agencies were instructed to re-examine improper 

payment strategies on a number of fronts governmentwide. These 

new guidelines were issued in October 2014 and provide strategies 

for agencies and Inspectors General on key improper payments. 

In addition to these governmentwide initiatives, on February 26, 

2015, the Director of OMB sent letters to agency heads in four organizations—Department of Labor (DOL), HHS, SSA, and Treasury—that have the largest priority programs. This direction requires the early implementation of the Appendix C requirements 

that I just mentioned by April 30 of this year. 

The direction further requires that each agency conduct the following analysis and present it to OMB: one, provide a comprehensive corrective action plan for each program in question; two, review new categories for reporting improper payments; and, three, 

provide analysis linking the agency efforts in establishing internal 

controls to the internal controls that they have for improper payments. 

Under this administration we have focused on the increased use 

of technology and sharing data to address improper payments. The 

effective use of data analytics also provides insight into methods of 

improving performance and decisionmaking capabilities. 

Examples of agencies currently using data analytics to prevent 

improper payments include the CMS’ Fraud Prevention System 

and DOL’s Integrity Center of Excellence. 

Improper payments remain a priority to this Administration. Although progress has been made, much more remains to be done, 

and we need your help. We look forward to working with the Congress to pass the President’s 2016 budget, and we expect additional 

progress as we execute against our new improper payments guidance during this fiscal year. 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify, and I look 

forward to your questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Mader. 

Our next witness is Ms. Beryl Davis. Ms. Davis is the Director 

of Financial Management and Assurance at the Government Accountability Office. Ms. Davis. 
17 

1The joint prepared statement of Ms. Davis and Mr. Bertoni appears in the Appendix on page 

80. 

TESTIMONY OF BERYL H. DAVIS,1 DIRECTOR, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND ASSURANCE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; ACCOMPANIED BY DANIEL BERTONI, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY 

Ms. DAVIS. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here 

today to discuss improper payments and the use of death data to 

prevent payments to deceased individuals. 

In fiscal year 2014, Federal agencies estimated that improper 

payments totaled $124.7 billion. This represents a significant increase of almost $19 billion from the fiscal year 2013 estimate. The 

increase can be attributed primarily to increased error rates in 

three major programs: Medicare Fee-for-Service, Medicaid, and the 

Earned Income Tax Credit. These three programs accounted for 

about 65 percent of the 2014 estimate. 

Nevertheless, improper payments are a governmentwide problem. The $124.7 billion estimate was attributable to 124 programs 

across 22 agencies. Twelve programs had estimates exceeding $1 

billion. One large program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), with outlays of more than $16 billion, did not report 

an estimate, citing statutory limitations. 

Senator CARPER. Say that again, please. 

Ms. DAVIS. TANF, with outlays of more than $16 billion, did not 

report an estimate, citing statutory limitations. 

In the Financial Report of the U.S. Government for 2014, GAO 

reported the issue of improper payments as a material weakness 

in internal control because the Federal Government is unable to 

determine the full extent to which improper payments occur and 

reasonably assure that appropriate actions are taken to reduce 

them. 

Inspectors General are required to report annually on their agencies’ compliance with criteria in improper payments legislation. In 

December 2014, we reported that 10 agencies did not comply with 

all of the criteria for 2013, as reported by their Inspectors General. 

The two most common areas of noncompliance were publishing and 

meeting improper payment reduction targets and reporting error 

rates below 10 percent. 

There are a number of strategies that agencies can employ to reduce improper payments, including analyzing the root causes of improper payments in order to design and implement effective preventive controls. 

One major root cause for improper payments is insufficient documentation. For example, HHS reported this is a primary root cause 

of improper payments for home health claims in its fee-for-service 

program. 

Another driver for many programs, such as the Earned Income 

Tax Credit Program, is agencies’ inability or failure to verify eligibility requirements, including recipient income or the number of 

dependents. 

One example of preventive controls to address underlying root 

causes is eligibility validation through sharing of data, such as the 
18 

SSA death data. The Do Not Pay initiative is a Web-based centralized data matching service that allows agencies to review multiple 

databases, including certain death data maintained by SSA, to determine payment eligibility prior to making payments. SSA is 

uniquely positioned to collect and manage death data to help prevent improper payments at the Federal level. 

SSA maintains two sets of death data. Its full death file, which 

is only available to certain eligible entities, contains data from 

many sources, such as funeral directors, family members, other 

Federal agencies, and States. The Death Master File, which is 

available to the public, is a subset of the full file because it does 

not contain death data from States. 

While reviewing death data can be a useful tool for agencies, 

there are opportunities for SSA to improve the accuracy and completeness of these data. We have reported that SSA’s procedures for 

collecting, verifying, and maintaining death reports could result in 

untimely or erroneous death data. 

For example, we reported in November 2013 that SSA did not 

independently verify death reports for all Social Security beneficiaries or any non-beneficiaries before including them in death 

records. 

When data is not verified, there is an increased risk that such 

data will be inaccurate or incomplete. This can result in other Federal benefit-paying agencies using these data to make improper 

payments. 

In our November 2013, we identified several types of errors with 

SSA’s death data. For example, we found instances of records 

where the date of death preceded the date of birth and records 

showing recorded ages at death between 115 and 195 years of age. 

We recommended that SSA conduct a risk assessment to identify 

the scope and extent of these types of errors, ways to address them, 

and the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of doing so. 

Our report also noted that SSA lacked written guidelines for determining agency eligibility to access the full death file. We recommended that SSA develop and publicize guidance to more systematically determine access eligibility and, thus, better inform 

agencies as to when they might be eligible for access to more complete death data. 

Because death data can be a useful tool in data matching to prevent improper payments, continuing efforts are needed to help minimize the risks posed by inaccurate and incomplete death data and 

ensure that agencies receive appropriate access to these data. 

As a final point, we would like to emphasize that with outlays 

from major programs expected to increase, it is critical that actions 

are taken to reduce improper payments. There are considerable opportunities for agencies’ auditors and other members of the accountability community to work together with Congress in ensuring 

that taxpayers’ dollars are adequately safeguarded and used for 

their intended purposes. 

Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, Members of the 

Committee, this completes my prepared statement. I, along with 

my colleague, Mr. Bertoni, who does work on the Death Master 

File, are happy to answer any questions. 
19 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. Davis. I was actually going 

to point out the fact that Mr. Bertoni has joined the panel here. 

He is the Director of GAO’s Education, Workforce, and Income Security team, and he might assist in answering questions. 

I will start questions with Mr. Brune. Prior to coming here today, 

did you take a look at Ms. Rivers’ case just to find out exactly what 

the status is with her current status? 

Mr. BRUNE. Senator, the news media did not share the case with 

us beforehand. I did know that Ms. Rivers was testifying today. I 

did not look at the specifics of her case. I think it would be unwise 

to discuss that in an open forum. But I would be happy to answer 

questions about the scenario. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Fair enough. How many people are you 

aware of are in Ms. Rivers’ position? 

Mr. BRUNE. Fewer than 9,000 a year have that circumstance 

happen to them. Usually, Senator, we learn of the occurrence by 

the individual reporting it directly to us. We advise the individual 

that we can correct their record if they visit our office. As Ms. Rivers identified, we request that an individual bring several proofs of 

identity with them, including a State-issued form of identity, a 

birth certificate if they have one, so that we can correct the record. 

And when the individual leaves our office, we issue them a letter 

indicating that there was an error and that it has been corrected. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So the name may be removed from the 

Death Master File, but the effects continue to linger, correct? Can 

you just describe what happens there with credit agencies and 

banks and credit card companies? 

Mr. BRUNE. Sure. The Social Security Administration shares the 

public Death Master File—as Ms. Davis just indicated—that does 

not include State data, but still contains around 84 million 

records—with the Department of Commerce. Commercial entities 

can procure that file from the Department of Commerce. It is widely used across not only the government but the commercial sector 

as well. 

The Department of Commerce requires parties that receive that 

information to subscribe to updates, but sometimes some entities 

who have looked at a Death Master File have not looked at the 

most current Death Master File. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So how often do you update your Death 

Master File with Commerce? 

Mr. BRUNE. Weekly. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Weekly. And how often are the commercial 

entities required, supposedly, to update those files? 

Mr. BRUNE. It depends on the contractual arrangement that an 

entity has with the Department of Commerce. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Can you describe how somebody who is listed on the Death Master File, how identity thiefs can create fraud 

with those names? I can understand the Master File is published 

and people can quickly try and claim a tax refund with that Social 

Security number, which is why now the law states that that information is going to be held for 3 years. But how else is that fraud 

committed? 

Mr. BRUNE. Well, I think our Inspector General might be in a 

better position to answer that. 
20 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. O’Carroll. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Yes, Chairman. One of the ways that we are 

finding that the fraudsters are doing it is they will go to one record 

that is out there, for example, a State record listing all the deceased people in it. And then they will go, and they will take a look 

at the Death Master File and see if a person is alive in one record 

and then dead in the other record. And then what they will do is 

they will claim to be that person and then go after their benefits. 

So that is one method of it. 

And as we know, in other cases, they will adopt the name and 

the information of the person and then file for credit and default. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. Brune, is there a law that prevents you 

from doing this? Why do not we just purge the Death Master File 

from anybody over a certain age? 

Mr. BRUNE. Let me first say, Senator, that the records from 

which we extract the Death Master File we procure largely from 

the States. The primary reporters are State Bureaus of Vital Statistics, the individual’s family members, doctors. The database contains over 100 million records. We have collected this information 

since SSA began, approximately 80 years ago. 

The recordkeeping processes, as you might imagine, have evolved 

over 80 years. In most cases, our current program policy requires 

evidence of death. The risk in just doing a blanket update or blanket change in data is that it is highly likely that we would create 

another scenario just like Ms. Rivers, because in the IG’s report 

they identified—in that group of 6.5 million records—that there 

were, in fact, living individuals. The reason that is, is because oftentimes individuals who are auxiliaries on the record—spouses, 

children, et cetera—are listed under a wage earners number and 

thus are connected in our databases. But the way we connected 

them in years past is not as accurate as it is right now. So it is 

possible that while the primary number holder—the wage earner 

may be deceased, there are records linked to that that are records 

of individuals that are not deceased. 

So the primary reason we do not do that is that we want to prevent any inadvertent additions to the DMF of individuals who are 

still alive. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. O’Carroll, we are talking about how 

many people over 112 that you identified? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. 6.5 million, Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Right. On the Numident file, correct? That 

is where we need to purge these. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. This is where we want to put in a date of 

death, basically, correct? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Correct. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But how many people actually are living 

today that are over 112? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Well, in one of SSA’s databases it will show 

them as deceased, and then in another database it will show them 

alive, and there are 1.4 million of them. And we have not set any 

number in terms of the actual living. We use the estimate similar 

to Mr. Brune’s of about 1,000 a month living people are listed on 

the Death Master File. 
21 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, again, those would be much younger 

people, so I am still not getting a good answer to my question. Why 

do not we just purge the Numident—or list on the Numident a date 

of death for people that are over—I do not know, let us start with 

150. Then maybe next month we knock it down to 140, then 130, 

and have some protection for somebody that just might—again, 

when we are talking about 6.5 million records out there, obviously 

there are about 6.499999 million of those people that really are 

dead and are not going to be affected by this. But why do not we 

do that to prevent the type of fraud that this type of situation occurs or allows? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Well, correct, Chairman, on that. One of our recommendations is just as you are saying with purging it. One 

thought is that SSA could just make a notation on each of those 

files of people over 112 years of age like they do for other reasons. 

If you have to get a replacement Social Security number as a battered spouse, for security reasons, they put a notation or a 

SPINCODE and it shows that you have two Social Security numbers. What we are recommending is that they just put a record like 

that on all the people over 112 years of age, so that way, one, it 

would reflect the SSN as inactive but also, if accidentally somebody 

who had a birth date of, let us say, 1957 and it was keyed in as 

1857, when they realize that they are losing benefits, it would be 

easy for SSA to remove the code. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So can the Social Security Administration 

do that themselves administratively, or do you need Congress to 

pass a law to allow that to happen? 

Mr. BRUNE. Senator Johnson, we are currently in the analysis 

phase of doing just that. The audit was issued approximately 10 

days ago. The good news is Mr. O’Carroll and his team have looked 

at this topic previously, so we had begun an analysis prior to the 

audit’s release. So far we have been able to electronically verify 

data and update 200,000 records based on prior audits. We are currently initiating the review of those 6.5 million records. We are 

hopeful that there is information in our data set that will allow us, 

maybe not to confirm the actual date of death but to confirm that 

an individual is deceased and that individual’s SSN can be marked 

as such. 

Chairman JOHNSON. When you complete your analysis and you 

need a legislative fix for this, please come to us as quickly as possible. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks very much. Again, our thanks to all of 

you. Mr. Bertoni, nice of you to join us. We appreciate it. I am 

going to ask you a question. We are not going to let you just sit 

here and just look good. 

Mr. BERTONI. Sure. 

Senator CARPER. We are going to ask you to give us some good 

advice. 

I want to go back a little bit in time. I never thought much of 

improper payments until 2002, and I think it was a House member 

who proposed that we at least start requiring agencies to note what 

improper payments are and, second, begin reporting them. And 

every year after that, 2003, 2004, 2005, I noticed there was an increase in the level of improper payments, and I did not feel good 
22 

about it because the number just kept going up. And somebody finally said, well, the reason why they are going up is more and 

more agencies are actually getting on board and beginning to report improper payments. 

I am still not convinced the Department of Defense fully reports 

their improper payments. You may be a better judge of that than 

I am. 

But around 2010, we reached a point where Dr. Coburn and I 

sensed that maybe most of the lion’s share of agencies were actually reporting their improper payments. And we added a reform. 

Not only did we want agencies to figure out—to record their improper payments, and report them. That was the 2002 law. We said 

we also want the agencies to stop making improper payments. We 

also said we want them to the extent they can recover monies, we 

wanted them to recover monies. 

Did somebody report that last year—I thought I heard $20 billion 

was recovered. 

Mr. MADER. $20 billion, sir. 

Senator CARPER. $20 billion. That is a good amount of money. 

And our next step was to say we want to help the administration 

on Do Not Pay, the Do Not Pay list, which was part of, I think, 

our 2012 legislation. 

Last Congress, we tried to go further and go after payments to 

dead people and that sort of thing. And we did not get our legislation through the House, because of the objection of one Subcommittee within the Ways and Means Committee, and so we are 

going to take another run at it. 

I was stunned when I saw the number, the improper payments 

number, for 2014, because we had seen during a number of years 

that the number was going down beginning in 2010, 2011, 2012, 

2013. And then it pops up by about $20 billion in 2014. 

Our friend Mr. Mader has given us, I think, a very good to-do 

list—I mentioned this to the Chairman—a very good to-do list on, 

I think, pages 2 and 3 of his testimony. I will not go through it all, 

but it involves program integrity work in a variety of areas. And 

it involves actually spending some money at the IRS to give them 

the tools that they need. I think we have a lot of people who do 

work on the Earned Income Tax Credit filings. I think about twothirds to three-fourths of the people who help people file for the 

EITC are people that are not CPAs. They might be very good people, but they are not really regulated by the Treasury. They may 

not have the kind of credentials that we might hope. 

I want you to drill down on that point. There is a lot of talk here, 

a lot of important discussion on the Social Security aspects of this 

and paying people that are dead and having folks listed that are 

150 years old. I want you to drill down for us on the EITC. I want 

you to drill down on the credentials of the folks that are literally 

helping most people file for the EITC and what the problem is here 

and what we should do about it. 

Mr. MADER. Thank you, Senator. Well, I think—— 

Senator CARPER. Because it is a lot of money. As I recall, it is 

a lot of money. 

Mr. MADER. It is a lot of money, and I think it is important to 

at least step back and remember that the Earned Income Tax 
23 

Credit Program was passed under President Reagan back years 

and years ago. 

Senator CARPER. I think he called it the ‘‘best anti-poverty program in the country,’’ and he was probably right. 

Mr. MADER. And last year, actually 26 million American families 

benefited from that program, so I think it is a program that over 

the decades has proven its value. And I think, Senator, you touched 

on—and, actually, Ms. Davis touched on it, too. It is a program 

that has a high degree of complexity in that it is really based on 

claiming dependent children at a certain income level. And, with 

separations, with divorces, establishing the custodial parent, making that determination, and then also as Ms. Davis testified, actually verifying the income when you are making that credit adds to 

the complexity of that program. 

But I think you touched on an area that the Administration has 

been asking for help of the Congress over the last couple years, and 

that is the fact that well over 50 percent of these 26 million EITC 

payments are actually done by third-party providers who are not 

CPAs, they are not enrolled agents, they are not individuals who 

are authorized to actually represent you or I in front of the Internal Revenue Service. They are just preparers. 

And having dealt with this issue for a number of years at the 

IRS, I am struck by the fact that as a society we seem to register, 

regulate, and license electricians and plumbers and health care 

workers, yet we do not want to regulate individuals who actually 

have a partnership with the IRS in administering the tax administration and this important credit in a very fair way—fair to the 

taxpayers and fair to the government. 

So I think in the President’s budget he once again asks for a series of initiatives, whether it be resources or some assistance in 

regulating and licensing these preparers. 

Senator CARPER. I would just say to my colleagues, I would just 

invite their attention to your testimony, and I think it maybe starts 

on pages 2 and 3. But it says, ‘‘Examples of proposals that are in 

the 2006 budget include,’’ and you give us five or six really good 

ideas for—I call it a ‘‘to-do list.’’ I like to say GAO gives us a good 

to-do list every other year, the high-risk list, and you have given 

us a really good to-do list, and I hope we take it seriously. I plan 

to. 

Let me just ask each of you, starting with you, Mr. Bertoni, you 

heard this other testimony. You heard the testimony of the opening 

witness. Give us one thing—say if you do nothing else, Committee, 

Senate, do this to address this problem. 

Mr. BERTONI. I think the first step is to really look at cleaning 

up the data in the file. There is a lot of noise in that file. When 

I hear things like we receive millions of reports annually, less than 

one-half of one percent are corrected, that gives me a real concern 

that this is being brushed off in some ways. We know there are 

issues. We know there are problems. And it is easy to say that 

when you are not looking at large blocs of cases. If you are not 

verifying reports from family members, if you are not verifying reports from funeral directors, if you are not verifying reports from 

folks who are non-beneficiaries, and last, you are not verifying reports where some piece of the data does not match the Numident 
24 

record, that is a significant potential amount of potential nonmatches that you might have to correct down the road had you 

done those verifications. 

And to tee off Pat’s report, you cannot fix 6.5 million reports if 

you do not know about it. So we have to look at the integrity of 

the data, clean it up, whether it is a lookback or whether it is prospective, but there is a lot of noise in this file that needs to be 

taken care of before it can be a much better program integrity tool. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you very much, all of you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Lankford. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. I 

will get a chance to talk through several things. 

Let me just make a quick comment, Social Security Administration. This has been an ongoing issue for a while that several of us 

have talked about dealing with Social Security disability. I know 

this Committee for a while has dealt with it. I have dealt with it 

for quite a while as well. I have a letter that is still outstanding 

with SSA dealing with the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking from 

February of last year dealing with just getting a full record, medical record that has to be submitted. I am not going to bring that 

up today, but just saying that is a letter that is outstanding. We 

know that that is coming, are still watching for that and anticipating that to be able to come soon. So I am not going to try to 

ask you a question directly because that is not related to this hearing, but I did want to tell you we are still waiting. 

Mr. Mader, let me ask you a question. Is the Social Security Administration the right place to be able to manage the Death Master 

File? It seems like that has kind of grown up organically as a place 

that is going to be gathered. Is that the right spot, according to 

OMB? Or is there a better place to be able to manage that file? 

Mr. MADER. Senator, we believe that Social Security is the organization that is best suited to collect this data, and I think as my 

two colleagues from Social Security have testified, they are receiving the information both directly from families, from funeral 

homes, from States, but I think what we have is a process and a 

system that needs to be expanded. As both gentlemen testified, we 

do not have every State that has access in using the electronic system, which clearly improves the quality of the data. 

So I think a lot of the fixes that we talked about today need to 

be put in place. 

Senator LANKFORD. But fixable in that current structure and 

leave it in SSA? 

Mr. MADER. Yes, I believe so. Yes, sir. 

Senator LANKFORD. The Social Security Administration, do they 

feel like this is part of their mission to be able to keep up this file, 

this is important? Because obviously it is being shared with multiple agencies, multiple entities are looking to the Social Security 

Administration to get that information. 

Mr. BRUNE. Senator, it is important to understand that we do 

need the death information to administer our programs. The use of 

our death information, because it is consolidated across multiple reporting sources and it is, in fact, very reliable, has grown in value 
25 

over time, and so now those records are being used for purposes 

they were not intended for when they were actually collected decades ago. A date of birth and a date of death from several decades 

ago, nobody envisioned that in this day and age that it would be 

available electronically to multiple parties outside the agency. 

Senator LANKFORD. But is that something the agency sells at 

this point? What is the asset there? 

Mr. BRUNE. We provide the information to the Department of 

Commerce. Commerce distributes it. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Is there a cost to that from Commerce 

or a cost to Commerce or to other agencies that they pay to be able 

to get that information? 

Mr. BRUNE. Yes, there is. We are reimbursed for our cost to generate the file. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. What about to private entities? 

Mr. BRUNE. Commerce deals with the private entities. 

Senator LANKFORD. Does that come back to the Social Security 

Administration to reimburse them? Or—— 

Mr. BRUNE. No. 

Senator LANKFORD [continuing]. Come back to Commerce? 

Mr. BRUNE. Commerce. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Do States charge us to be able to get 

that information? 

Mr. BRUNE. Do States charge us? 

Senator LANKFORD. Yes. 

Mr. BRUNE. It depends on their purpose. If they are administering a federally funded benefit, they are entitled to the data. 

Senator LANKFORD. But when you get the death information 

from States, do they charge the Social Security Administration for 

that information? 

Mr. BRUNE. We pay the States to provide us death information. 

Senator LANKFORD. That is what I am asking. So then how much 

are we paying the States for that? 

Mr. BRUNE. It depends on whether they provide it via electronic 

death registration. Today that price ranges from is $3.09 to $0.86 

per record, depending on how quickly we receive it. The reason we 

offer a premium there is—it comes to us now pre-verified. So the 

State has run the name and number against our record and confirmed that it is a match. We also get the reports more timely. 

Senator LANKFORD. So give me an approximate cost there? We 

are talking $3 a person to be able to get that information—— 

Mr. BRUNE. Generally, $3 a record, correct. And for those that 

send the information via non-electronic death registration means, 

it is under $1 reimbursement. 

Senator LANKFORD. And then what does SSA do with that then 

to be able to verify? It has not been verified. You bought the information for $1 from the States. Then is it $2 cost to be able to go 

and verify those records? 

Mr. BRUNE. We annotate our records that it is an unverified report, and we would have to verify the information in order to process it for our benefit purposes. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. So then once it is processed, is there a 

public and an internal on this Death Master File? I am trying to 

figure out the process here. We are now paying to get the records. 
26 

We are selling those to Commerce who is then selling it to agencies 

and other private individuals to recoup the cost here. We have a 

lot of money and a lot of names that are moving at this spot and 

to be able to verify that. So once we go through the verification— 

how much does it cost to verify someone that is a non-verified 

name coming from a State? 

Mr. BRUNE. Well, it is not a discrete unit cost that is easy to 

come to—— 

Senator LANKFORD. Is there an average cost? I am sure that it 

is going to cost more for others, but does SSA have an average cost 

on that? 

Mr. BRUNE. Well, usually what we do is we have one of our technicians contact a family member and confirm the death. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. According to the OIG report—and I 

want to be able to ask you about this, Mr. O’Carroll found 180,000 

individuals who died while receiving disability payments but were 

not recorded in the Death Master File. Obviously, they are already 

in the Social Security disability process as well. There were e-verify 

requests for those deceased individuals and more than 90 voter registrations in that group that were already dead. 

So help me understand this process. As you see it at this point, 

we have verified records from States. SSA is verifying them when 

they are coming in, yet we have 6.5 million that are over 112 years 

old, and we have individuals that are on Social Security disability, 

180,000 individuals that you found that are already dead. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Well, Senator, that is our biggest concern when 

we take a look at living people over 112 years of age, when we did 

our audit on it, there were 13 people in the United States. By the 

time we finished our audit, there were 109. And we figured there 

are about 35 people over 112 in the whole world. 

So, anyway, all those valid Social Security numbers that are out 

there, if somebody takes those numbers, then they can start misusing them, and our biggest concern on it, is that they will be ending up using—our concern on it is that when that information gets 

out there, somebody can impersonate another person, they can 

vote, they can get driver’s licenses, et cetera. 

Senator LANKFORD. So are these names that have never been 

submitted by a State so they have not been verified by SSA because no one has ever turned those names up the first time? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Most of the 112 are from years ago, back in the 

1970s, when people came in and reported themselves—— 

Senator LANKFORD. What about these on disability, that you 

found these individuals that are already deceased that are also on 

the disability roll? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. We are finding with that issue on it—we are 

finding people that are listed as deceased and getting benefits. The 

Numident, which is the record that we are talking about today, the 

one that is used for the Death Master File, is one file at SSA. And 

then the other file, the Master Beneficiary Record, is another file. 

So when somebody calls in and says that there is a deceased person, to immediately stop the benefits from going out, SSA puts it 

right on the payment record and stops it. But they may not put it 

on the Numident—and Sean could probably describe it a little bit 

better. It gets confusing when you are talking auxiliaries and dif-
27 

ferent things like that. So then the Numident does not list the person as being deceased, and that is where the big issue is. Two different records. 

Senator LANKFORD. And they are opening bank accounts, they 

are voting. All these different things that you found as you went 

through this process on these false Social Security numbers then 

are people that have died or their number is still being used. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Correct. And it gets even more complicated in 

terms of that—as I said before, when somebody knows that SSA 

thinks that a person is alive, but they know the person is dead, 

they might even try to get Social Security benefits. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. I have exceeded my time. I yield back. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for your testimony, and after listening to Ms. Rivers, 

we have raised a lot of interesting issues here today. 

As I mentioned to Ms. Rivers after she testified, this is not an 

unusual situation that I have run against given the fact that we 

had a marine veteran in Michigan just recently that was highlighted in the media for his trials and tribulations related to the 

fact that he was improperly listed as being deceased a couple 

times, to the point of losing his Veterans Affairs benefits; the 

Treasury Department shut down his bank account; his credit score 

was ruined as well when he was trying to purchase a house, and 

it took him several months to get through that process. And so this 

is an anguishing issue for many folks, and you mentioned, Mr. 

Brune, that about 9,000 individuals you believe each year are in 

this situation? 

Mr. BRUNE. Correct, Senator. 

Senator PETERS. So my question is: How do they get on that list? 

Of those 9,000, what is usually the event that is triggering them 

getting on that list? 

Mr. BRUNE. There are two primary events. One would be data 

entry error and the second would be erroneous information by the 

reporter, whoever that reporter might be. 

Senator PETERS. The reporter? 

Mr. BRUNE. Correct, the individual who reports death. So we get 

reports from family members, from doctors, as I mentioned, also returned mail marked ‘‘Deceased’’ from the Postal Service. We get reports from the Treasury and CMS as well. 

Senator PETERS. So a report from the Postal Service. You are not 

getting a death certificate. You are having the Postal Service saying, someone did not get their mail? 

Mr. BRUNE. Correct. Returned mail marked as ‘‘Deceased’’ is an 

unverified report and would need to verify that before we took any 

action. 

Senator PETERS. So you would not just say, a person is not collecting their mail, let us put them on the death list? 

Mr. BRUNE. Correct. We would possibly suspend benefits, but we 

would not terminate the benefit. 

Senator PETERS. How long does it take to fix these, normally? Do 

you have any kind of analysis of those 9,000 individuals? 
28 

Mr. BRUNE. Well, the process is for an individual who is on the 

death master file incorrectly to visit one of our offices, provide evidence of their identity. We can do that through a scheduled appointment so the individual does not have to wait. And usually it 

takes an hour or two to complete. 

Senator PETERS. But the problem is that even if that is done, 

then the information is not Proactively communicated to the commercial vendors, banks, others that may want this information, 

which I think Ms. Rivers was in that trouble. Is there a way to do 

that proactively? Because otherwise, we are just relying on the 

service to go back and constantly check the list, and oftentimes, an 

individual does not know they are on this list as well. 

They just are having a situation like Ms. Rivers has, that things 

are not going well, and even though there is seemingly no explanation for it, and yet there is no proactive measures on the part 

of the Social Security Administration to say, we made a mistake. 

We have to try to fix it for this individual because we know this 

individual is going to be going through an awful lot of heartache. 

Mr. BRUNE. Correct. The measure we take, Senator, is to share 

the updated file the following week with the Department of Commerce. So the mistake is corrected the subsequent week. The record 

would be identified as being deleted from the death master file that 

is shared with the Department of Commerce. 

You asked specifically about the commercial entities. There may 

be value in sharing the full death file, as the Ranking Member and 

the Chairman have proposed in their legislation with a do-not-pay 

portal and if commercial entities could use that portal, they would 

have access to the information. 

Senator PETERS. Now, going to the, which I think is the other 

fascinating part of this hearing, are the 6.5 million people at 112 

years old. Mr. O’Carroll, now, in your testimony, you said these 

folks are not receiving Social Security payments; they just simply 

still have a valid Social Security number out there, and that there 

is no data in terms of date of death. 

At some point, these individuals probably received Social Security checks and then they stopped getting Social Security. Why 

does not that trigger something? If not picking up your mail is 

enough to get you on the list, what stopped them, once they 

stopped receiving a Social Security check, we can probably assume 

they are no longer alive. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Well, the interesting part, Senator Peters, is 

that many of these are from the 1970s when people were coming 

into SSA offices and saying a person had died who was not getting 

benefits at the time, a family member, a widow, children, or dependents like that, that is where a lot of these records were created. 

So the person did not have the benefit from SSA, was not of 

record with SSA, and that is pretty much the crux the problem. 

They are old records with little ways for SSA to catch it. 

Senator PETERS. Because they never were receiving a check—— 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Correct. 

Senator PETERS [continuing]. To begin with. So is that why it is 

the 112-year figure? What is the situation of 100-year-old individ-
29 

uals and 105-year-old individuals and 110? Is there something 

about 112? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. What happened was is that we had gotten word 

from a financial institution that the two accounts were set up, 

which is in my testimony. But anyway, at that point, our auditors 

looked and they figured out what was the highest age of record, 

and that is where we came up with 112. And as I said, there are 

about 35 people in the world that are 112. 

Senator PETERS. But do you see these same kind of numbers of 

someone who is 105 years old, a large number? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Well, what is interesting on that one is, is that 

what SSA had been doing and we do is that when a person reached 

100 years of age, they would reach out to try to verify that the person was there. That was called the Centenarian Project. We were 

getting fairly good information on that. We were saving about $8 

million a year by doing that. 

I mentioned in my testimony—it would make more sense to start 

taking a look at people who are not using Medicare for long periods 

of time in that age group. So then we had two criteria, the age and 

the fact that they were not seeing a doctor. And in that group 

there, we are seeing about four or five times better results than we 

were getting by just using the age limit. 

But yes, everybody is aware of that and we keep taking a look. 

We have had different projects that we have worked with SSA looking at, as an example, 90-year-olds. 

Senator PETERS. And where are we on the Medicare project? How 

many of those records are—and what is the cutoff for Medicare? 

How long without benefits of Medicare? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. We have been using 3 years on that one. That 

seems fairly good. In fact, what we are looking at right now, because it has been so successful, we are doing an audit, taking a 

look at Medicaid and see if we can also identify additional deceased 

people that way. 

Senator PETERS. Thank you so much. 

Senator JOHNSON. Senator McCaskill. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. Last year during a hearing on 

this subject, I learned that we were selling these lists to other government agencies, which is hard for me to wrap my arms around 

that policy, and I think we were told by Ms. LaCanfora that this 

was required by law. Is that correct? 

Mr. BRUNE. That is correct, Senator. We are required to seek reimbursement for our costs. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So let us assume that we could do something legislatively. Would you see any reason why we could not put 

a secure website up with this information that was properly 

encrypted and properly pass-coded that would share this information? I mean, we have hundreds of millions of dollars going out the 

door at other agencies and they are trying to budget paying you for 

information. 

I mean, all of this is being gathered in the public domain. It 

seems bizarre to me that we are not focusing on a priority of a policy that would make this information available to others easily and 
30 

at as little expense as possible since the taxpayers are paying the 

bill no matter where this is occurring. 

Mr. BRUNE. Yes. We would agree and in our testimony, we supported the goal of the Ranking Member’s bill, also in the President’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget to make the full death file available 

to the Do Not Pay Portal, which provides that a complete set of 

records, over 100 million records, to all Federal agencies for all 

Federal payments. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, it would be great if we could get that 

done. OK. Now, here is the other thing that really gets me. If you 

get data in, you are putting it in the system and selling it without 

verifying it if there is not an SSA recipient, correct? 

Mr. BRUNE. That is correct. We do not verify records for nonbeneficiaries. but we do not sell the information, we are merely reimbursed for the cost of preparing the file. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So you get a record and you put it in the 

system for another agency to buy, but because it is not an SSA recipient, you are not going to the trouble of verifying? 

Mr. BRUNE. We have no program purpose to do so. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So is it clearly delineated to them what 

records are verified and what are not? 

Mr. BRUNE. It is marked in our Numident as unverified report. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Now, are they, to your knowledge, maybe 

the IG would know or maybe GAO would know, are these other 

agencies then going and verifying? Mr. Bertoni. 

Mr. BERTONI. No, I do not think there is any additional 

verification. The agencies pay for a dataset. It might be an annual 

set plus monthly updates or weekly updates. They are getting information that they believe to be true and correct and there is no 

additional verification. 

Mr. BRUNE. Senator, I would add that in our distribution of the 

file—in my statement, I clearly articulated the intent of the file is 

for Social Security purposes. We know that because it is aggregated 

across jurisdictions and it is comprehensive for the most part, that 

it is of value to others. But we tell folks right up front, it does not 

include every record, that we cannot confirm the veracity of the 

file, and that they should, in fact, verify it if they are going to use 

it for a business purpose. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, what if they wanted to pay you to 

verify it? Could you not verify them all and then just charge them 

for it? You are already charging them for it. 

Mr. BRUNE. Under current law, we believe we are verifying all 

the records that we should be verifying for our program purpose, 

for those that do not—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. So the law would have to be changed in 

order for you to verify everything? 

Mr. BRUNE. Correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. No? Daniel says no. 

Mr. BERTONI. I do not believe so. They have a pecking order in 

terms of what the agency believes to be the most accurate reports. 

Reports from States are deemed the most accurate. They are preverified and those are deemed not to be—they have to have a 

verification. There are also reports from family members and funeral directors that are believed to be highly accurate, that I be-
31 

1The information submitted by Mr. Brune appears in the Appendix on page 101. 

lieve the agency has decided, per policy, not to verify. I do not 

think that is in the law. 

Mr. BRUNE. That is agency policy, correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. BERTONI. Just one example. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Have you figured out what it would cost you 

to verify them and then recover those costs when you sell them? 

Mr. BRUNE. I would have to get back to you for the record on 

that cost.1

Senator MCCASKILL. Would that not make sense if you are in the 

business of verifying? So it seems like to me you guys are doing 

this verification and you know what it costs you because you are 

charging people for it, but you are not doing it—if there is not an 

SSA recipient and then that agency is getting it, which heightens 

the likelihood of an improper payment. 

Mr. BRUNE. Senator, this boils down to a fiscal law question. Essentially, the agency is not permitted to spend trust fund dollars 

or a limited administrative expense account on items that do not 

have a program purpose. And that is the basis on which we do not 

verify non-beneficiary reports. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I completely get that, but you understand 

the common sense argument. Tell me you do. 

Mr. BRUNE. I do. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. Good. 

Mr. BRUNE. We will get back to you on the costs. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. I just got worried for a minute. Senator 

Ayotte and I have a bill, Senator Coburn and I had a bill. This is 

an agency, we call it, let me Google that for you, because this is 

an agency that the vast majority of the information that they are 

supposed to be distributing is easily available online, and they are 

the distribution source for your public death master file. 

Have you all given some thought, if we get rid of the National 

Technical Information Service (NTIS), which we should because it 

is a waste of money, what your alternative distribution method 

would be? 

Mr. BRUNE. We have not considered an alternative distribution 

method because at present, NTIS does serve as that data clearinghouse for the Federal Government. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And the money goes into a revolving fund 

which keeps them in existence, which we get back to the beginning 

which is, this is agency which has outgrown its usefulness and purpose, and for some reason, we have a really hard time shutting 

down agencies like that. So I am determined, and I think most of 

my colleagues on this Committee share my determination about 

this agency. 

So I would think you should begin pricing out what NTIS is making off selling your lists. Maybe you could use that money to verify 

for the other agencies. 

Mr. BRUNE. Understood. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. 

Senator JOHNSON. We will be supportive of that effort. Senator 

Ayotte. 
32 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. Yes. Let me just say that I completely, wholeheartedly agree with my colleague, Senator McCaskill, on this. So 

I wanted to ask, just to understand this information sharing piece, 

in order for you to share information, it sounds to me, because of 

the limitations that are put on what you can do with regard to the 

trust fund, that we are going to need some legislative action there 

to have a broader information sharing across agencies, correct? 

Mr. BRUNE. Senator, the response I have provided to Senator 

McCaskill was relative to verifying records for which we did not 

have a program purpose. But we would need additional authority 

to do non-mission work, yes. 

Senator AYOTTE. But as I also understand it, that we are also, 

as we look at this challenge that we are facing in terms of the DMF 

list, this issue, we are also not sharing among States, right? So do 

States share with us? I know they are sharing with us in terms of 

vital records, we have heard, but do we share with States what we 

know? 

Mr. BRUNE. We do. We share all our death information with 

those State agencies that have a responsibility for administering 

federally funded benefits. 

Senator AYOTTE. Of any kind? 

Mr. BRUNE. Yes. 

Senator AYOTTE. OK. And so, one of the things that just seems, 

as I look at this whole thing, as we look, we are not communicating 

amongst each other, and then there is also the amount of money 

that is at stake here. A lot of us talk about wanting to address sequester. We could do it if we got improper payments to a much 

more reduced level. 

These resources that we are talking about, whether it is to defend the Nation or NIH or all the things that we would like to do, 

I mean, this is very big money. And so, I am looking at this thinking, How do we also not only share information with each other, 

what steps do we need to take to verify it further? And then there 

is a lot of publicly available information, it seems like, we are leaving on the table to help verify for us. 

I mean, I would love to get certainly Mr. O’Carroll and Ms. 

Davis’s impression. Is there not some publicly available information that we are not necessarily cross-checking with? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. That is correct, Senator. What we did was an 

audit a few years ago and in the audit, we went to SSA and we 

looked at a sample of 58 records that were suspended showing that 

no payment was going out for some reason of caution. And then we 

went through the 58 and we found that 57 were deceased. And the 

way we found it was, it was probably in about thirds. For one-third 

of them, SSA had been able to find out about, had the information 

in their records, and it was just a question of cleaning it up. 

And then for another one-third, we were able to get death certificates from the States and other ways like that. And then for the 

other third, we used other databases that were available just to 

identify the person as deceased and be able to get the information 

that way. So yes, I find third-party databases are very useful. 

Senator AYOTTE. So do we need legislative proposals—in order to 

incorporate information that is already available and third-party 
33 

information, and also when I heard Mr. O’Carroll’s example, I also 

think that apparently the States, what they are doing, is submitting the vital statistics to the Social Security Administration. Apparently it does not have the same level of accuracy as it should, 

too. 

So do you need legislative proposals to be able to consult thirdparty information or is it a resource issue or is it all of the above? 

And also, what is it that we need to do from the States’ perspective? If we knew that you could get the death certificate for certain 

individuals, apparently their vital records office would have not 

submitted that if it did not get into your system properly. 

Mr. BRUNE. Senator, two points. The dataset that Mr. O’Carroll 

just mentioned, the 58 number holders in suspense, those recommendations were just sent to the agency last Friday. We believe 

that there are policy adjustments we can make to look at thirdparty datasets, and we agreed with that recommendation. We will 

be pursuing it. 

The agency’s position is that full funding of electronic death registration would go a long way to ensuring the integrity of these 

files. Many of the files that you mentioned are in jurisdictions 

where our experience is they are not using electronic death registration. Their paper processes are out of date. 

Funding these jurisdictions to move to Electronic Death Registration would make the information more accurate because electronic 

death registration verifies against Social Security before the death 

certificate is issued, before a report of death is made. And so, that 

would be the approach, I think. That appropriation falls under the 

Health and Human Services Department. 

Senator AYOTTE. Why is it that this has not been a bigger priority of the Federal Government? I mean, this is a lot of money 

that we are leaving on the table that is fraudulently going out the 

door that could be used for real things that we need to do? As I 

look at the big picture here, why have we not made it a bigger priority? 

I guess I would direct it to the Inspector General, Mr. O’Carroll, 

and from your work that you have done, I would like to hear your 

impressive GAO, Ms. Davis. Why is this not a bigger priority? You 

have been working on these issues for years and you have been 

coming to Congress and this is a huge issue. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Agreed, Senator. We are in a unique position as 

the SSA OIG because we represent the Council of the Inspectors 

General as liaison with OMB on this thing. I have to say, there has 

been a lot more emphasis on identifying improper payments, curbing improper payments, and probably the biggest improvement is 

the Do Not Pay list, which is making all the government agencies 

compare this information so that, as an example, OPM will not be 

sending out a pension check to somebody that another agency 

thinks is deceased. 

And I guess the only other issue that I asked for some help on, 

and I mentioned this before in another hearing, is that data matching between agencies is handicapped in so many different ways, 

where one agency is not allowed to provide its data because of the 

Computer Matching Act. 
34 

And that is probably the biggest issue now, where one person is 

receiving a benefit from one agency and then should not be receiving a benefit from another agency. We cannot do that kind of audit 

work. 

I cannot match our data with, let us say, for example, Department of Labor to find the people that are on worker’s compensation 

and are also getting disability benefits from SSA. Or when they are 

disqualified for worker’s compensation letting SSA know that they 

have improved. So that type of data matching, I think, would be 

extremely useful in trying to prevent improper payments. 

Senator AYOTTE. My time is up, but just so I understand, is that 

just a law change or it is a system like a computer system change, 

meaning from the hardware, the fact that we have agencies not 

communicating with each other? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. It is a law change and there is a bill out there 

now that has included it. 

Senator AYOTTE. All right. 

Senator JOHNSON. Senator Ernst, if you are ready. 

Senator ERNST. Yes, thank you. 

Senator JOHNSON. Just in the nick of time. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Senator Johnson. I appreciate it and 

thank you, everyone, for your testimony today. I do appreciate it. 

Bottom line, up front, this is a situation we have to fix. I do not 

think anybody disagrees with that. 

So what I would like to ask, Inspector General O’Carroll, if you 

would please—what I will do, I will read this quote that came from 

the management at SSA, and this was in response to the IG’s findings and recommendations. The recommendations would create a 

significant manual and labor intensive workload and provide no 

benefit to the administration of our programs. 

I think we have talked about this. I heard some mention of this. 

But do you feel an accurate and reliable death master file is the 

responsibility of the SSA? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. The easy answer on that is yes, that I think that 

any data that SSA is providing to the government, to the public 

has to be accurate. That was pretty much the reason why we identified the 6.5 million. When you are doing audits and things like 

that, you are looking for large outliers and that is what this group 

was, a large outlier. 

So yes on that. I understand if you ask Sean, what he is going 

to say is that none of them are getting benefits from SSA and that 

SSA’s primary responsibility is the benefit. 

But my point is that, and I think a good reason for this hearing, 

is that if there is the attention put on it by Congress, that SSA 

needs resources or whatever it needs to fix it, that is very important because as I said before, so many other different benefits in 

the States, in the government, plus voter registration and driver’s 

licenses, everything else, all depend on the Death Master File and 

this is the only thing that is out there to prevent fraud. 

Senator ERNST. Yes, thank you. I would agree and I think this 

is a good start and yes, it is an easy answer to say yes. But we 

do know now we need to move forward and correct the deficiencies 
35 

that are out there. There are so many improper payments that are 

going out, not to mention some of the issues that have been 

brought up with those not receiving payments, but we also have 

fraudulent voter registrations, we have illegal use of numbers for 

employment or for government assistance, so many other issues 

that come with this. 

I do believe that you have delivered around 70 recommendations 

to the Social Security Administration over the past number of 

years. Can you please tell us, how many of those have been implemented over the years? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Yes. Of the 70 that we have recommended—well, 

first, there are two steps to that. The first step is an agreement, 

and we are getting about 93-percent agreement from SSA. But out 

of that 70, probably about 50 have been enacted. 

In fairness, some of them, as Sean just mentioned, were in the 

last 6 months. We have issued maybe four or five audits with a lot 

of different recommendations that they have not really had time 

enough to implement. But as an example we watch that very closely. We go back every few years and take a look to see if they agreed 

with something, whether or not it was implemented, and if it was 

not, we bring it to their attention. 

Senator ERNST. And then with these recommendations and any 

others that are coming out, can any of you please to the panel, really give an overall cost estimate, man hours, additional time, any 

of those parameters that might be necessary to make sure that corrections were implemented? 

Mr. BRUNE. Senator, the recommendations that Mr. O’Carroll 

just mentioned that we agree with, we are committed to making 

those changes within our appropriation. I did want to highlight 

that several of the Inspector General’s recommendations have, in 

fact, improved our process. We find high value in following the advice that the Inspector General has given us. 

I did want to close by underscoring the fact, as we stated earlier 

in Mr. O’Carroll’s testimony as well as mine, the 6.5 million old 

records that Mr. O’Carroll looked at identified zero improper payments. In totality, death information for Social Security’s purposes 

is very accurate. Less than one percent of our benefit over-payments are resulting from death. 

Our processes have improved tremendously over the years. In the 

last decade, our processes have grown substantially more robust. 

We are getting more accurate information more timely and we are 

able to intercept over 50 million benefit dollars from becoming 

over-payments before they even get issued. So $50 million a month 

does not go out the door because of the accuracy and timeliness of 

the death reports we receive. 

Senator ERNST. And that is a good thing. However, you cannot 

dispute that there are still 6.5 million numbers that exist out 

there, and even though they may not be drawing benefits on those 

numbers, it is still an issue whether it is voter registration or some 

other fraudulent use of a number. So that is a concern. 

Mr. BRUNE. Correct. And I was just talking to Mr. O’Carroll before the hearing. We have committed, in our audit response, to look 

at those records before the end of the fiscal year—to do a full anal-
36 

ysis of what can be used from those records to add dates of death 

or a death indicator to our database. 

Senator ERNST. Very good. Mr. Brune, if you were a lawmaker 

for a day, what would your recommendation be? Just bottom line, 

very easy. What would your recommendation be to this Congress? 

Mr. BRUNE. Fund all States to use electronic death reporting. 

The adoption rate has been steady since 2002 when we started. We 

only have 37 States and two jurisdictions. We need all States, all 

jurisdictions in every State using electronic death reporting. It is 

the most effective, accurate report we receive. 

Senator ERNST. OK. I do appreciate that. Thank you so much for 

your testimony today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER [presiding]. You are welcome. Thank you. Would 

you say that again? [Laughter.] 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. I told the staff, please do not tell him I did this. 

I caught myself. I want to go back, if I could, the question I am 

going to ask, similar to what Senator Ernst just asked, and that 

I started asking earlier Mr. Bertoni. If there is one thing, only one 

thing we were to do, what would it be? You are the only one I got 

to pick on. Senator Ernst just said it, came back and sort of followed up on that, which is good, but I am going to ask it before 

we finish this one thing. 

I want to come back to the portion of your testimony, Mr. Mader, 

where you went through a series of items, series of ideas, I think, 

are contained in the President’s 2016 budget. And a number of 

them involved program integrity. Some of them involved funding, 

providing resources for the IRS. Would you just step through those 

for us again? And I am going to ask our other panelists to respond 

briefly to those, which ones they think make sense. 

Mr. MADER. I think, Senator, we touched on EITC. There are a 

series of program integrity initiatives across HHS and, in fact, in 

the current budget in 2015, actually, we were fortunate to receive 

funding for one of those. There are program integrity initiatives 

across DOL and I think they have demonstrated, in a pilot program with the States—because recognizing that unemployment insurance is a block grant to the State—but they have demonstrated 

using New York State as the key to doing some very creative analytics, and again in 2016, we have asked for continued funding of 

those initiatives. 

So I think across in my testimony, there are about half a dozen 

that we mentioned, and that actually was probably the top six. We 

could provide a few more for the record. But those are, I think, 

going back to the Senator’s comment, I think that if there was one 

thing I could ask for, maybe two, is get to Treasury the full death 

master file because that is the place that we are running all of the 

civilian payments past, and having the most accurate set of data 

would be a real benefit. So that is the one ask. 

The other ask is—and I strongly believe that in order to save 

money, we need to make an investment, and a 16 investment in 

those half a dozen or so program integrities, I believe, and I think 

the Administration strongly believes, that we will see benefits in 

driving not only the rate, but the total amount of improper pay-
37 

ments down if we are allowed to make those kinds of enhancements. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you. Mr. Brune, Mr. O’Carroll, any 

comments on what we just heard from David, especially with that 

first request? 

Mr. BRUNE. Senator Carper, I believe that funding EDR would 

be the first best step as all that data, hopefully, eventually, pending your bill, goes into Do Not Pay. We want to make sure it is 

as accurate as possible on the Social Security Administration’s end. 

We are going to certainly take a look at those very old records, see 

how we can make sure they are as accurate as possible. But prospectively, getting all jurisdictions to use electronic death registration would be the way to go. 

Senator CARPER. In terms of the timing, I seem to recall 5 

months. I might be confusing the testimony I have heard. There is 

a delay, we need 5 months until late October. Can someone help 

me with this? Am I imagining this? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. The delay on the release you are talking about, 

Senator? 

Senator CARPER. I think so. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Yes. One of the bills that came out of Committee 

is that it will be 3 years before death data goes public. And we applaud it because it was based on one of our audit findings, that if 

you give extra time to a person who has been reported dead, they 

can come into SSA and get it fixed before it goes out into the public. And I have to say, that is probably the best thing that has happened with death reporting. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Anybody else want to give us a killer idea, 

maybe something that has already been mentioned once or twice, 

maybe not? 

Mr. BERTONI. I think the Improper Payments Information Act, 

the fact that we have Do Not Pay establishes metrics that holds 

agencies accountable. I think when you are measuring that, it is 

going to hold agencies accountable to make it a priority. I also 

think the electronic verification at the State level, I think it is 

proven that those death reports are highly accurate, and moving in 

that direction, I would agree with Mr. Brune that that is prudent. 

And I think it would allow them, SSA, to really look at their 

other verification processes and perhaps move some resources over 

to those other areas. And I go again to verification of reports from 

family members and funeral homes. We looked at some data of 82 

corrections in 2012 and 2013, and we pulled a small case sample 

of 46 cases. In 35 percent of those cases, those folks were, in fact, 

alive, but they were erroneously—— 

Senator CARPER. What percent? 

Mr. BERTONI. 35 percent of the 45 cases that we looked at, they 

were erroneously placed in the file. And, if when you look at the 

source of those reports, it was family members and funeral directors. Those are typically regarded as being highly accurate and not 

subject to verification. So if you free up resources, that they do not 

have to, focus on the States who are verifying electronically, perhaps you can look at some of these other policies and do maybe do 

some additional verifications. 
38 

Senator CARPER. Ms. Davis, I have not picked on you very much. 

How about sharing something with us? 

Ms. DAVIS. Well, if I could look at a bit higher level, at the overall improper payments estimate this past year, which was almost 

$125 billion, there were actually three drivers of the increase of 

$19 billion and those three drivers were Medicare, Fee-for-Service, 

Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit program. 

When you look at those increases individually, Medicare, Fee-forService was almost $10 billion, Medicaid a little over $3 billion, 

and then the Earned Income Tax Credit program was a little over 

$3 billion as well. You look at those and you have 65 percent of 

your entire estimate of improper payments. 

What is of concern is that these programs, in particular the 

health care programs, are growing. For example, HHS has estimated or predicted that over the next 3 years, that the Medicare 

and the Medicaid programs are going to expand program outlays 

by about 8 percent annually over the next 3 years. 

So if you take that and you compare it or analyze it against the 

rate increases, there are some concerns, definite concerns. Again, 

to be a little bit more specific, the rate for the Fee-for-Service program was 10.1 percent last year. It is now 12.7 percent. The Medicaid also went up almost a whole percentage point. 

The Earned Income Tax Credit, over the past 5 years, has been 

running about 25 percent. Last year it was a little over 24 and now 

it is over 27. So if you look at these programs and the facts that 

the rates, error rates in these programs are increasing, and the 

compound that with a possibility that program outlays are going to 

increase, it is going to be difficult to get a handle on these overall 

governmentwide improper payments. 

Senator CARPER. Great. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON [presiding]. Thanks for holding down the fort 

here. Not only is our Ranking Member highly interested in this 

issue, but he is also a pretty good sprinter. I saw him in the hallway. I have only got a couple questions left. I really want to kind 

of explore the EDRs and the differences between the States and the 

data that comes from those. 

I do not know who is the best person to talk to about that. Is 

that you, Mr. O’Carroll? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. I will let Sean do the first one. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Do you have a stats in terms of the accuracy of the information coming from States with EDR versus those 

that do not have EDR? 

Mr. BRUNE. Yes, we do, and there are really two dimensions, 

both of which I think are important to us and of value in the conversation about improper payments. One dimension is timeliness of 

reporting, and within the EDR arena, we average a report within 

5 days of the date of death and within 24 hours of when the State 

becomes aware of it. That is very timely. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, those are in the exact form that you 

want it in, correct? 

Mr. BRUNE. Correct. 

Chairman JOHNSON. It totally matches your database? 
39 

1The information submitted by Mr. Brune appears in the Appendix on page 102. 

Mr. BRUNE. Correct. And then for the record,1 I could provide 

you what amount of those inquiries do not match when they send 

us a name and SSN combination, what does not match before they 

report. Now, I want to make sure that I mention that process is 

that the first step before anything is sent to us is the name and 

SSN match. If that occurs, then we will get the rest of the information. And if it does not occur, it goes back to the reporter in order 

to double check and make sure they have the correct information, 

that they did not mis-key something. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So again, from the States that do not have 

EDR, are you also getting those from their offices of vital statistics 

or is that where you are getting things from financial institutions, 

Postal, I mean, all the others? 

Mr. BRUNE. All of the others. And we could get multiple reports, 

Senator, even in an EDR State, and it is important to recognize 

that in those States that have adopted electronic registration, every 

jurisdiction within the State does not use it equally. And so, some 

jurisdictions, counties, or municipalities may be at 100 percent utilization, others might have a very low rate or not use it at all. And 

so, there is much more work to be done. 

And part of that, I think, is the reflection of the fact that at the 

local level, these records were maintained in different formats and 

the quality of that data varies. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So you do not have the localities within a 

State submitting the information to some kind of central data center and then have those electronic records forwarded to Social Security? You are getting these from multiple sources within a State? 

Mr. BRUNE. It is up to the State how they send us the information. Usually it does come from a State bureau of vital statistics, 

but how those entities are organized at the State level varies. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But again, so the 37 States you get that 

from, they come from a centralized vital statistics office within the 

State? They may be getting the information from multiple sources, 

but they accumulate it and there is just one contact for Social Security within those 37 States? 

Mr. BRUNE. That is generally true, but it can vary depending on 

the State. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So what has been the hang-up in the 13 

other States? I mean, just resistance? Is it funding? I mean, the 

other 37 States, do they fund their electronic death records or registries themselves? 

Mr. BRUNE. I would say that funding is definitely part of the 

equation and I think that some States recognize that they have 

more work to do, that the State of their records would require a 

lot of effort in order for them to get the records to a point where 

they could send it to us reliably in the electronic format that we 

request. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. I am all for States’ rights, but this 

might be something that we maybe need to work on. Ms. Davis, I 

did want to talk about exactly how we calculate total number of 

improper payments and also verify. My staff is telling me it is 

about 90 percent of those improper payments really are over-pay-
40 

ments, correct? Or is it about that? What is your information in 

terms of over-payments versus under-payments, because we talk 

about improper. What is the mix? 

Ms. DAVIS. We have not done recent work to determine the actual mix. I will say, though, that the majority are over-payments, 

and there are a number of items, of course, that are classified as 

improper payments because there is insufficient documentation. 

Chairman JOHNSON. The calculation of the 1-point or $124.7 billion, that is all through statistical sampling, correct? 

Ms. DAVIS. Correct, statistical. I mean, let me qualify that statement. It is statistically valid sampling methodologies, but OMB, 

the OMB Director can approve an alternate methodology. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, those are my final questions. I 

guess I would like to just go over the panel if there is a particular 

point you want to make, one point relatively brief, to close out the 

hearing. I will start with you, Mr. Bertoni. 

Mr. BERTONI. I would say to the extent that the DMF and the 

Do Not Pay initiative, at some point, will be made to the full file. 

I think you are running out of time. Every day as more States 

come onto the electronic system, there are going to be fewer and 

fewer records in there and that file is going to become less useful 

and potentially less accurate. 

So if that is going to happen, it should be concurrent or in tandem with increasing the accuracy of death data in general. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Mr. Brune. 

Mr. BRUNE. Senator, we are fully committed to maintaining as 

accurate death data as we can. We are dependent upon the States 

to report that information. We think fully funding the electronic 

death registration is the first step to that. We also support aim of 

the Ranking Member’s bill to make all our death information available through the Do Not Pay portal, and would be happy to provide 

technical assistance on that bill. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Appreciate that. Mr. O’Carroll. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Chairman, once again, my biggest one is that we 

asked for an exemption to the Computer Matching and Privacy 

Protection Act for IGs. But by the same token, it should go to the 

IGs and the parent agency. So as an example, when we do an audit 

and we can find that there is an issue of one agency making payments when another agency is not making payments, we can then 

have the parent agencies make those matches. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Thank you. Mr. Mader. 

Mr. MADER. I think supporting the various program integrity initiatives in the President’s budget. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Ms. Davis. By the way, I really 

appreciate these brief statements. Ms. Davis. 

Ms. DAVIS. The improper payments legislation requires Inspector 

Generals to perform annual reviews of compliance with the criterion on IPERA and there are a number of issues that they have 

identified over the last several years. Implementing the recommendations that are made by these Inspectors General would go 

far in helping to reduce improper payments. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, again, I just want to thank all the 

witnesses for your thoughtful testimony, your thoughtful answers 

to our questions. Ms. Rivers, thank you for sharing your story, and 
41 

again, this Committee is dedicated to making sure this is not just 

a hearing, but something comes out of this. So we want to work 

very closely with all the agencies so we can, again, prevent the type 

of situation that Ms. Rivers has had to deal with. 

The hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until March 

31t, at 5 p.m. for the submission of statements and questions for 

the record. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 6:08 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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