NCJ Number
248980
Date Published
July 2015
Length
42 pages
Annotation
This report presents the findings and methodology of the Office of the Inspector General's (OIG's) audit of the performance of the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program (PSOB) administered by the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).
Abstract
The PSOB provides death benefits to survivors of fallen law enforcement officers, firefighters, and other first responders, as well as disability benefits to officers catastrophically injured in the line of duty. The audit's focus was the timeliness of PSOB claims processing. In order to identify the factors that were contributing to claim-processing delays in excess of 1 year, the audit reviewed 92 claims with significant processing delays. Three primary factors were contributing to the most significant delays in claims processing. First, claimants filed incomplete claims applications, largely due to the inadequate application guidance provided by the PSOB Office. Second, claimants and agencies were unresponsive to PSOB Office requests for additional information. Third, the PSOB Office often did not adequately document the basis for its initial determination of a claim's validity. This required the OJP Office of General Counsel (OGC) to conduct a legal review and decide whether to concur with the initial determination. This report offers recommendations for preventing these delays in claim processing. The audit also determined that the PSOB Office has not reported annual and appropriate data on its performance measures. Information in the PSOB Office's database was inconsistent and did not include date fields for important claims processing milestones, such as the date claimants submit applications and the date the PSOB Office submits claims for legal reviews and concurrence. Recommendations for improving data collection and processing are offered. 2 tables, 1 figure, and appended supplementary information