Government Operations: Need to Improve Internal Controls to Curtail Fraud and Abuse in the Rrb Unemployment and Sickness Insurance Program: H

GAO assessed the Railroad Retirement Board's (RRB) controls for preventing and detecting fraud and abuse in its Unemployment and Sickness Insurance (SI) Program.

The program paid out about $1.4 billion in benefits during the last 5 years to 1 million qualified rail workers who became unemployed or were absent from work due to sickness. GAO found that, although 38 states collect wage records against which RRB could detect instances of persons working in nonrail employment while collecting unemployment or sickness benefits, RRB does not attempt to make such detections. Further, RRB does not have procedures to notify a rail employer that a claimant has filed for unemployment benefits. GAO also found that RRB makes no attempt to identify the prevalent problem of employees' claiming benefits using another person's record. GAO noted that RRB internal controls over sickness claims are also vulnerable to fraud or abuse.