US agency charged with making sure taxpayer dollars aren’t wasted says it’s running out of time

WASHINGTON — A government agency whose job it is to make sure taxpayer money isn’t wasted is set to close down ina few months.

Now, the people running it are urging U.S. Congress to keep it going longer.

Channel 2 Washington Correspondent Samantha Manning spoke to Brian Miller, the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery about how his agency has worked to protect Americans’ dollars in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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His agency was formed in 2020, when Congress passed a series of pandemic relief programs aimed at helping people and businesses stay afloat during the tough economic times caused by the global virus.

The Special Inspector’s office, also called SIG-PR, has been in charge of investigating how the money form the loan programs was used and going after criminals who fraudulently cashed in.

“We’re getting big results,” Miller told Channel 2 Action News. “We’ve recovered over $60 million, which is more than the entire amount that Congress has appropriated for our entire five years and so I think it’s a bargain to invest in our office.”

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A few examples of the types of cases the SIG-PR has worked include investigators uncovering more than $10.5 million that went to a California man who filed fake tax and business records.

The office also found a group of inmates in a Virginia prison who filed fake unemployment claims for more than $340,000, plus multiple cases involving falsified payrolls, loan defaults and more.

The agency’s work is scheduled to stop in March unless Congress acts to keep their doors open.

“We’re in full gear right now and it’s a shame to stop,” Miller said. “We’re asking for five years to finish up our cases.”

Miller warned that they expect a huge increase in pandemic loan defaults right as the agency is set to close.

“If we expire, many of these will just fall into, fall in between the cracks,” he said.

It’s unclear right now if Congress will extend how long SIG-PR can stay on the job. It could very likely depend on the outcome of the upcoming elections in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.

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