When dead, twotimes billed: GAO concerns COVID funeralservice awards

The Federal Emergency Management Agency might haveactually been double-billed for the funeralservices of hundreds of individuals who passedaway of COVID-19, the Government Accountability Office stated in a brand-new report Wednesday.

The GAO determined 374 individuals who passedaway and were noted on more than one application that gotten an award from the COVID-19 Funeral Assistance fund. That amounts to about $4.8 million in help that might haveactually been inappropriate or possibly deceitful payments, the report stated.

FEMA representative Jaclyn Rothenberg stated Wednesday that this was not an example of massive scams and the quantity of funeralservice help determined as at-risk was reasonably little, with FEMA’s “multi-layered internal quality controls and scams controls” resulting in inappropriate payments of less than 1%.

“Unfortunately, scams, especially identity theft, is typical. FEMA has manages in location to discover circumstances and can and will prosecute anybody who would use for help fraudulently,” Rothenberg stated in a declaration.

FEMA informed the GAO that some duplicative applications were improperly granted funeral help due to processing mistakes, not scams, and advantages were not infact paid twotimes in some of the cases, the report stated.

The cases haveactually been sentout to the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General to thinkabout whether to launch any scams examinations, stated Chris Currie, who leads GAO’s work on emergencysituation management and catastrophe action and healing, and Rebecca Shea, who supervises GAO audits to determine scams, waste and abuse.

Shea stated they might not verify whether FEMA did or did not pay twotimes in all of the cases. She stated she believes fraudsters mostlikely