Comer Investigates Why the Federal Government Usually Pays to Make Federal Employee Grievances Go Away
WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is conducting oversight of taxpayer-funded payouts to federal employees used to settle and often side-step employment disputes. The House Oversight Committee is concerned that persistent gaps in data collection and transparency, growing costs to taxpayers, and institutional incentives that favor informal resolutions over taxpayer interests may be creating incentives for federal employees to file frivolous claims and discourage managers from disciplining employees when warranted. In a letter to Scott Kupor, Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Chairman Comer requests relevant agencies and adjudicatory bodies provide documents and information to assist this review.
“In fiscal year 2023, the Biden administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported securing more than $202 million in taxpayer payouts to federal workers through mediation and settlements, compared to just over $22.6 million through litigation. Similarly, in the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) under the Biden administration, attorney fee payouts in sue-and-settle cases alone surged to nearly $11 million, compared to $3.6 million during President Trump’s first term. Settlements across these systems routinely involve taxpayer-funded payments including back pay, compensatory damages, attorney’s fees, and other monetary relief,” wrote Chairman Comer. “Efforts to track and account for these settlements appear woeful. Agencies often fail to reimburse the [U.S. Department of the Treasury] for settlements paid on their behalf.”
Case outcomes raise questions about federal agencies’ bias toward settlements. When adverse action cases are not dismissed at the MSPB, agencies opt to pay and settle 68% of the time. But when agencies proceed to dispute claims they win more than 80% of decisions. This suggests that agencies are frequently and inexplicably settling cases with taxpayer dollars that they would otherwise win. But lack of data and transparency around claims obscures deeper analysis and provides potential cover for repeat offenders who can accumulate costly settlement histories without triggering scrutiny or corrective action.
“Despite the scale and significance of settlement activity, comprehensive data on settlement frequency, costs, and distribution across agencies is not publicly available, and may not exist in any centralized form. Prior Government Accountability Office (GAO) reporting has identified persistent challenges in tracking settlement payments and their underlying causes, limiting Congress’s ability to assess whether agencies are addressing misconduct or simply buying it off,” concluded Chairman Comer. “This is not merely an administrative inconvenience. The absence of consistent, reliable data on settlement patterns means that repeat offenders can accumulate costly settlement histories without triggering scrutiny or corrective action. Effective oversight requires collection, organization, and reporting of this data to Congress.”
Read the letter to the Office of Personnel Management here.