Union Calendar No. 270
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 1827
[Report No. 106–474]
A BILL
To improve the economy and efficiency of Govern-
ment operations by requiring the use of recovery
audits by Federal agencies.
NOVEMBER 17, 1999
Reported with an amendment, committed to the Com-
mittee of the Whole House on the State of the Union,
and ordered to be printed
IB
Union Calendar No. 270
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 1827
[Report No. 106–474]
To improve the economy and efficiency of Government operations by requiring
the use of recovery audits by Federal agencies.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MAY 17, 1999
Mr. BURTON of Indiana (for himself, Mr. ARMEY, and Mr. OSE) introduced
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Government Reform
NOVEMBER 17, 1999
Additional sponsors: Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. GOODE, Mr. DOOLITTLE, Mr.
MCHUGH, Mr. TERRY, Mr. SOUDER, Mr. ENGLISH, Mrs. MYRICK, Mr.
SHAYS, Mr. WALDEN of Oregon, Mr. GOODLING, Mr. LATOURETTE, Mrs.
KELLY, Mr. SCHAFFER, Mr. LAZIO, Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas, Mr.
KNOLLENBERG, Mr. GILMAN, Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin, Mr. METCALF,
Mr. CALVERT, Mr. STEARNS, Mr. TURNER, and Mr. FOLEY
NOVEMBER 17, 1999
Reported with an amendment, committed to the Committee of the Whole
House on the State of the Union, and ordered to be printed
[Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the part printed in italic]
[For text of introduced bill, see copy of bill as introduced on May 17, 1999]
A BILL
To improve the economy and efficiency of Government oper-
ations by requiring the use of recovery audits by Federal
agencies.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Government Waste Cor-
rections Act of 1999’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following:
(1) Overpayments are a serious problem for Fed-
eral agencies, given the magnitude and complexity of
Federal operations and documented and widespread
financial management weaknesses. Federal agency
overpayments waste tax dollars and detract from the
efficiency and effectiveness of Federal operations by
diverting resources from their intended uses.
(2) In private industry, overpayments to pro-
viders of goods and services occur for a variety of rea-
sons, including duplicate payments, pricing errors,
and missed cash discounts, rebates, or other allow-
ances. The identification and recovery of such over-
payments, commonly referred to as ‘‘recovery audit-
ing and activity’’, is an established private sector
business practice with demonstrated large financial
returns. On average, recovery auditing and activity
in the private sector identify overpayment rates of 0.1
percent of purchases audited and result in the recov-
ery of $1,000,000 for each $1,000,000,000 of pur-
chases.
(3) Recovery auditing and recovery activity al-
ready have been employed successfully in limited
areas of Federal activity. They have great potential
for expansion to many other Federal agencies and ac-
tivities, thereby resulting in the recovery of substan-
tial amounts of overpayments annually. Limited re-
covery audits conducted by private contractors to date
within the Department of Defense have identified er-
rors averaging 0.4 percent of Federal payments au-
dited, or $4,000,000 for every $1,000,000,000 of pay-
ments. If fully implemented within the Federal Gov-
ernment, recovery auditing and recovery activity have
the potential to recover billions of dollars in Federal
overpayments annually.
(b) PURPOSES.—The purposes of this Act are the fol-
lowing:
(1) To ensure that overpayments made by the
Federal Government that would otherwise remain un-
detected are identified and recovered.
(2) To require the use of recovery audit and re-
covery activity by Federal agencies.
(3) To provide incentives and resources to im-
prove Federal management practices with the goal of