“Do Not Pay” List Aims to Block Improper Payments President Obama has ordered creation of a Do Not Pay List to prevent federal payments to debarred contractors, dead people and others who are ineligible. In a June 18 memorandum, the president said a single database will be created with 120 days. In the meantime, agencies must check several existing databases, including the Excluded Parties List System and Social Security’s master death file, before making payments. “Too often, an agency does not check all the different databases the government has or finds it difficult to do so,” Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag wrote in a blog post. “This denies agencies essential information they need to determine, for example, if an individual is alive or dead or if a contractor had been debarred.” In March the president ordered expanded use of audits in an attempt to recover improper payments. The new order aims at preventing those payments. The White House said improper payments totaled nearly $110 billion in 2009, a record. The president wrote, “While identifying and recapturing improper payments is important, prevention of payment errors before they occur should be the first priority in protecting taxpayer resources from waste, fraud, and abuse.” The Government Accountability Office has found a number of instances where one agency did not know what another was doing, either because databases were not up to date or because a contracting officer failed to check. For example, GSA suspended a construction company for fraud, but the Interior Department later awarded seven contracts to the company. The administration also said it will expand the use of a Fraud Mapping Tool to catch errors and fraud in contracting. The technology was developed by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees Recovery Act spending. “The tool gathers enormous quantities of information in real time and then analyzes the data and helps connect the dots to identify indicators of possible fraud or error,” the White House said. It will first be deployed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the largest source of improper payments.