Department of Energy
DOE’s Inspector General concluded that the agency was compliant with the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) in the most recent compliance audit for FY 2024 Agency Financial Report (AFR). PIIA requires agencies to review and assess all programs and activities with annual outlays greater than $10,000,000 for improper payment risk at least once every three years to identify those susceptible to significant improper payments. Currently, the Department is reporting under the requirements of Phase 1 for improper payment reporting. DOE is considered one program for improper payment reporting and assesses its program by the payment type. DOE conducts risk assessments on a three-year cycle for all payment types with outlays over $10M. The last on-cycle year risk assessment was conducted in FY 2024. DOE also conducts site-specific reviews and analysis of accounting and financial records, supporting documentation, and other pertinent information supporting payments. These activities are detective and corrective in nature, and are designed to identify and recapture overpayments. In FY 2025, payment reporting sites that met the PIIA criteria for an interim risk assessment performed a risk assessment, as required. The DOE Risk Assessments identified DOE as low risk. However, DOE will continue to scrutinize improper payment activity and controls through its internal control program by emphasizing, evaluating, and strengthening controls as needed to maintain the Department’s record of low payment errors and to continue the effective stewardship of public funds. The next on-cycle risk assessments will take place in FY 2027. Confirmed fraud-related improper payments increased by over 500% compared to the prior reporting cycle. While fluctuations in annual fraud numbers are typical—as these figures are supplied by the OIG following an adjudication process—the $20.04M reported in FY 2025 comprises fraudulent transactions spanning more than a decade, only now being adjudicated. Despite a significant percentage increase, the confirmed fraud amount remains immaterial, representing only 0.004% of the $513.77 billion in total outlays over the eleven-year period (2014-2024) during which these fraudulent transactions occurred. The DOE mandates that sites utilize findings from risk assessments and internal control evaluations, detailed in DOE's Fraud Risk Management Guidance and the Internal Controls section of the Department’s Enterprise Risk Management Guidance to ensure that risks indicating heightened fraud susceptibility are prevented and that existing controls effectively mitigate identified risks. Corrective Action Plans have been implemented to prevent further recurrence of most of the fraud.
Show full executive summaryRecovery information
Please note: Overpayment amounts recovered are reported in the year they were recovered, not the year they were identified. Therefore it is possible in some years to have a recovery rate greater than 100%.
| Overpayment amount identified through recovery activities | $69.17 M |
| Overpayment amount recovered through recovery activities | $65.12 M |
| Recovery activities recovery rate | 94.14 % |
Why recovery audits are not cost effective in certain programs
"The Department's FY 2024 outlays were $64.95B, of which $52.98M was determined to be improper resulting in an improper payment rate of 0.08%. For payments made in FY 2024, the Department recaptured $31.79M of the $33.74M of the improper payments identified for recapture, resulting in a recapture rate of 94.22%. Due to the Department's low improper payment rate, and high recapture rate, the determination was made that it is not cost-effective to conduct recovery audits.
DOE conducts recovery activities including but not limited to performing quarterly prompt-payment reviews, post-payment reviews, and contractor internal audits; leveraging the results of cost allowability audits of integrated contractors and interim and close-out reviews of contracts and grants, reviews of grant credits in the Automated Standard Application for Payments (ASAP), and results from travel audits."
Supplemental Information
DOE uses the Do Not Pay portal within the Treasury Working System to review payment eligibility for purposes of identifying and preventing improper payments and fraud.
Where the system identifies exclusion matches for supplier records of POs with funding exhausted, DOE would close such records. A note is then added in the DBA name field that the vendor has an active exclusion. A request to reopen the supplier would alert the supplier team to perform mandatory validation checks before reopening. This ensures no new awards are granted to suppliers with active exclusions. DOE also send a daily file to DNP for Batch Matching to ensure that there are no missed data source matches in the Continuous Monitoring process that would result from any timing issues.
DOE utilizes DNP as a proactive solution for reducing/preventing improper payments as opposed to being reactive. During FY 2024, there were 5 supplier records closed due to active SAM Exclusion matches in DNP. Closing of supplier records prevents procurement offices from entering into any new contracts with the vendors which could result in improper payments. Since DNP is a proactive solution to preventing improper payments, quantitative amount of the dollar or number of improper payments prevented by the use of DNP cannot be made; otherwise, the cost of tracking would outweigh the benefit.
DOE utilizes the below data sources within DNP:
- American InfoSource Death Data – Obituary (AIS-OBIT)
- Dept of Defense Death Data (DOD)
- SAM Entity Registration Records (SAMENT)
- TOP Debt Check (DBCK)
- American InfoSource Death Data – Probate (AIS-PROB)
- Dept of State Death Data (DOS)
- Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
- SAM Exclusion Records – Restricted (SAM-EXCL-RES)
- SSA Death Master File (DMF)
For FY 2024, there were 122,151 electronic payments screened through Do Not Pay totaling $12.4 billion. DOE is currently screening 42,086 “OPEN” supplier site records which includes ASAP sites.
The Working System has reduced/prevented improper payments:
DOE has not identitied incorrect information in the Working System.
DOE was found compliant during the most recent PIIA compliance review.
Show full list of compliant programs 
Compliant programs:
- Benefits - Payroll
- Benefits - Travel
- Financial Assistance Awards
- Loans
- Other
- Vendors/Contracts
| Program name | When was the last improper payment risk assessment conducted? | Likely to be susceptible to significant improper payments? | Substantial changes made to the assessment methodology used for the reporting cycle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benefits - Payroll | 2025 |
 No
|
|
| Benefits - Travel | 2025 |
No
|
|
| Financial Assistance Awards | 2025 |
No
|
|
| Loans | 2024 |
No
|
|
| Other | 2025 |
No
|
|
| Vendors/Contracts | 2025 |
No
|
The Department is unique to the federal government in that payments are processed across 47 payment sites, many operated by the integrated contractors at the 17 National laboratories, and 8 cleanup sites. This arrangement was first set up by Congress for the Manhattan Project during World War 2. The goal was to increase production speed and agility by reducing the bureaucracy inherent in the rules and regulations of the Federal Government. DOE has oversight responsibilities for these programs. Robust controls are mandated to detect and correct overpayments. These controls include contracting officers providing final approval for contract compliance, annual review and analysis of financial records and supporting documentation by financial management personal, and independent audits.