U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) recently requested that the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) identify every federal employee who wrongfully received unemployment payments during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, recover the money, and then fire those employees.
As the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, Sen. Ernst is particularly interested in PRAC’s oversight of programs administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA), such as the ongoing project by PRAC’s Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence, which has already identified tens of thousands of federal employees who applied for and received small business loans for which they were not eligible, according to a Jan. 27 letter Sen. Ernst sent to PRAC Chairman Michael Horowitz.
“I would encourage you to conduct a similar review to determine how many unscrupulous bureaucrats wrongfully took advantage of the federal pandemic unemployment and lost wages assistance programs,” wrote the senator. “There is ample evidence that thousands of federal employees working for various federal agencies may have fraudulently applied for and received payments from these programs.”
For instance, Sen. Ernst pointed out that nearly 2,000 U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees may have received more than $2 million in fraudulent COVID-19 unemployment benefits, according to a review she cited from the DHS Office of Inspector General.
At the same time, employees of other federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, Amtrak, the Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration, and the U.S. Postal Service also fraudulently collected unemployment payments, despite being on the federal payroll, according to her letter.
“It is appalling for anyone fortunate enough to have the reliability of a government paycheck to take advantage of financial assistance intended to provide a lifeline to Americans who lost their jobs or were unable to work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Sen. Ernst wrote. “These misbehaved bureaucrats have also tarnished the reputation of the other dedicated civil servants, many of whom worked long hours in essential jobs during the pandemic.”
The senator plans to review forthcoming findings from the PRAC Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence regarding the number of federal employees who wrongfully received SBA loans once its project is completed, her letter says.