Into the Oversight Void Step the Inspectors General

(Treasury Department)

When a Chicago newspaper reported in 2004 that Illinois ranked last in federal disability payments to veterans, the secretary of veterans affairs -- prodded by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and other influential lawmakers -- turned to his department's inspector general for an explanation.

After four months, 1,900 interviews and a review of 2,100 disability claims, a team of 36 auditors found reasons that veterans in top-ranked New Mexico got an average of $12,004 in annual disability payments while Illinois veterans received $6,961. Their 192-page report made eight recommendations for addressing the inequity, and the Department of Veterans Affairs is implementing many of them.

"It's a really big project," said Michael L. Staley, assistant inspector general for auditing, who led the effort. "Our national reviews generally take about 11 months, and we accomplished this from January to April."

For their labor, Staley and his team recently picked up the Alexander Hamilton Award. The annual honor recognizes the foremost effort by an inspector general to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of executive branch operations.

Created by an act of Congress in 1978, "IGs," as they are known, can trace their roots to the Continental Army, which had an inspector general independently assess the readiness of combat troops. Their modern mission is to foster integrity and efficiency in government through the prevention and detection of waste, fraud and abuse.

Initially Congress created 12 independent audit and investigative offices, and every affected agency opposed them. Over the past 27 years, inspectors general have become a fixture of the bureaucracy. Their ranks have grown to 57 -- more than half appointed by the president -- and their offices employ 11,400 auditors, investigators, inspectors and other professionals.

The role of inspectors general has taken on new prominence, as one-party control of Capitol Hill and the White House has dampened the appetite in Congress for close oversight of the executive branch, analysts say.

"They are becoming the de facto overseers of government," said Paul C. Light, a professor of government at New York University and the author of a book on IGs. "As congressional oversight has declined sharply over the last decade, many IGs are getting into areas that were once reserved for the investigatory committees of Congress. And many, but not all of them, have risen to the challenge. . . . Some of these reports are very hard-hitting."

Clay Johnson III, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, agreed that Congress is not "as aggressive as it needs to be," but not because the GOP dominates the levers of power.

"The executive branch pays more attention to whether we spend money on real needs and whether we get what we pay for than Congress does," said Johnson, who heads the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, an umbrella group of 29 presidentially appointed inspectors general. "That has nothing to do with which party is in charge of what branch."

In 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, inspectors general processed 189,500 complaints, identified $18 billion in potential savings through audits, and were instrumental in nearly 6,500 prosecutions that led to convictions or settlements with the Justice Department. They collected $3.5 billion in fines, settlements and voluntary repayments, making the $1.9 billion spent to fund them look like a bargain.

Notable reports last year included a finding by the Transportation Department IG that the Federal Aviation Administration's inspection program had failed to address safety risks posed by airline industry cost-cutting and the rapid growth of budget carriers. A report by the Justice Department IG found that the FBI's failure to detect the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking plot stemmed in part from "widespread and long-standing deficiencies" in the way the agency handled terrorism and intelligence cases.