WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. government has paid more than $601 million in benefits to dead federal government retirees in the past five years, a report says.
The Washington Post reports the Office of Personnel Management's inspector general found OPM's improper payments to dead retirees ranged from $100 million to $150 million a year during the five-year span.
Inspector General Patrick E. McFarland urged more scrutiny to track improper payments.
"It is time to stop, once and for all, this waste of taxpayer money," he wrote in the report.
The improper payments to dead retirees have climbed 70 percent in the past five years, much more than the 19 percent increase in overall annuity payments, the report found.
McFarland said OPM must do a better job tracking potential cheaters.
He cited a case in which a son of a dead recipient of federal annuities continued receiving benefits through 2008, 37 years after his father's death. The payments, totaling more than $515,000, were discovered after the son died, and OPM never recovered the money, the Post said.
An OPM spokesman said the agency was reviewing the report and declined to comment.
The report said OPM has tried to stop improper payments and get back the money through regular checks of Social Security Administration death records and occasional review of recipients 90 and older to see if they're still alive.
