The Biden administration faces a new congressional investigation after an agency that distributed tens of billions of dollars from the American Rescue Plan failed to prevent $127 million from going to deceased participants in a US pension fund. Teamsters.
The House Education and Workforce Committee sent a letter Tuesday to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), demanding records related to the agency’s “mismanagement” and “overpayment” to the pension plan. union, according to a copy of the letter obtained exclusively by El cargo.
“As part of this investigation, the Committee requests documents and information related to PBGC’s disbursement of these payments and its plan to recover these important taxpayer funds,” said Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions. Bob Good (R-Va.) wrote.
“Taxpayers rightly expect agencies like PBGC to take the necessary steps to ensure their funds are protected and spent wisely. Instead, PBGC’s reckless disregard for prudent measures is a case study in waste and abuse. “The Committee intends to conduct robust oversight of PBGC’s negligence, including potential testimony before the Committee.”
House Education and Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) is investigating the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC) “overpayment” to the Teamsters pension plan. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
A Nov. 1 memo from the PBGC Office of Inspector General found that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters pension fund received money for 3,479 deceased members from the $35.8 billion allocated from President Biden’s 2021 American Rescue Plan.
The federal auditor revealed that PBGC did not consult the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File (DMF) before distributing the dollars to the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund, which includes nearly 350,000 members and is one of the largest multiemployer plans in the country.
The Biden administration distributed tens of billions of dollars to the agency through the American Rescue Plan, but failed to prevent $127 million from going to deceased Teamsters’ funds. REUTERS
The agency attributed the error to “limitations” in the accuracy of some of its providers in a Nov. 2 statement responding to the memo, and said it would not seek to recover any funds since none were paid directly to individual pensions.
“As early as 2018, PBGC OIG advised PBGC that using the DMF is essential to avoid overpayments as a result of funding deceased annuities,” Foxx and Good said in their Jan. 16 letter.
“PBGC’s failure to incorporate the DMF is inexcusable.”
The PBGC Office of Inspector General found that the Central States Pension Fund received money for 3,479 deceased members from the $35.8 billion allocated from President Biden’s American Rescue Plan. AP
“Surprisingly, in its response to the report, PBGC stated that this payment ‘should not be subject to recovery actions,’” they added.
“In the same vein, the Central States Pension Fund states that it does not owe and does not intend to return taxpayer money. By all appearances, PBGC intended to transfer taxpayer money to the Central States Pension Fund in an unauthorized windfall and refuses to recover this money.”
At a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Nov. 14, International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien told lawmakers he “assumed” the government would recover the misspent funds.
International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien told lawmakers he “assumed” the government would recover the misspent funds. REUTERS
“I will go on record as saying that if someone was given something they were not entitled to, they should pay it back,” O’Brien added.
Foxx and Good also said that “mismanagement casts doubt on PBGC’s implementation of the broader program, the $91 billion Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program,” saying Central States had sent a follow-up letter to the inspector general’s office that implied he would use the money “as his personal slush fund” to help him “achieve his statutory goal of remaining solvent through 2051.”
Inspector General Nicholas Novak previously told The Post that there was no recovery feature available to PBGC as part of the American Rescue Plan, through which the Biden administration provided more than $80 billion to other multiemployer pension funds.
Panel members requested that documents and answers to their questions on the matter be returned by Jan. 30.
A PGBC spokesperson previously denied that the agency had “improperly” paid funds to pension plans and that any deceased participants were immediate beneficiaries.
PBGC representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn