Notice2021-22094
Proposed Designation of Databases for Treasury's Working System Under the Do Not Pay Initiative
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Published
October 12, 2021
Issuing agencies
Management and Budget Office
Abstract
The Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) provides that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) may designate additional databases for inclusion in Treasury's Working System under the Do Not Pay (DNP) Initiative. PIIA further requires OMB to provide public notice and an opportunity for comment prior to designating additional databases. In fulfillment of this requirement, OMB is publishing this Notice of Proposed Designation to designate the National Association of Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS) Electronic Verification of Vital Events (EVVE) Facts of Death (FOD) System. This notice has a 30-day comment period.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 86 Issue 194 (Tuesday, October 12, 2021)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 194 (Tuesday, October 12, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56726-56728]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2021-22094]
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OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
Proposed Designation of Databases for Treasury's Working System
Under the Do Not Pay Initiative
AGENCY: Office of Management and Budget.
ACTION: Notice of Proposed Designation.
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SUMMARY: The Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) provides
that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) may designate additional
databases for inclusion in Treasury's Working System under the Do Not
Pay (DNP) Initiative. PIIA further requires OMB to provide public
notice and an opportunity for comment prior to designating additional
databases. In fulfillment of this requirement, OMB is publishing this
Notice of Proposed Designation to designate the National Association of
Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS) Electronic
Verification of Vital Events (EVVE) Facts of Death (FOD) System. This
notice has a 30-day comment period.
DATES: Please submit comments on or before November 12, 2021. At the
conclusion of the 30-day comment period, if OMB decides to finalize the
designation, OMB will publish a notice in the Federal Register to
officially designate the database.
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Please note that all public comments received are subject to the
Freedom of Information Act and will be posted in their entirety,
including any personal and/or business confidential information
provided. Do not include any information you would not like to be made
publicly available.
ADDRESSES: Comments may be sent by mail or electronic mail (email).
The Office of Management and Budget, Attn: OFFM, 725 17th Street
NW, Washington, DC 20503. <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#78353a205637353a56373e3e3556281901151d160c31160c1d1f0a110c013817151a561d1708561f170e"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="b2fff0ea9cfdfff09cfdf4f4ff9ce2d3cbdfd7dcc6fbdcc6d7d5c0dbc6cbf2dddfd09cd7ddc29cd5ddc4">[email protected]</span></a>.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Regina Kearney at (202) 395-3993.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: PIIA recodifies the DNP Initiative that was
already under way across the Federal Government.\1\ The DNP Initiative
includes multiple resources that are designed to help Federal agencies,
the judicial and legislative branches of the Federal Government, and
certain State agencies review payment and award eligibility for
purposes of identifying and preventing improper payments. As part of
the DNP Initiative, OMB designated Treasury to host the Working System,
which is the primary system through which DNP customers can verify
payment and award eligibility.
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\1\ The Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement
Act of 2012, Public Law 112-248, first codified the DNP Initiative.
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Pursuant to PIIA,\2\ OMB has the authority to designate additional
databases for inclusion in the DNP Initiative.\3\ Appendix C to OMB
Circular No. A-123, Management's Responsibility for Enterprise Risk
Management and Internal Control,\4\ provides guidance related to PIIA
and states that OMB ``may designate other databases that substantially
assist'' in preventing improper payments.\5\
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\2\ 31 U.S.C. 3351-58.
\3\ 31 U.S.C. 3354(b)(1)(B). OMB designated the Department of
the Treasury to host Treasury's Working System, which helps Federal
agencies verify that their payments are proper. Treasury's Working
System is part of the broader DNP Initiative.
\4\ OMB Memorandum M-21-19, ``Transmittal of Appendix C to OMB
Circular A-123, Requirements for Payment Integrity Improvement''
(March 5, 2021).
\5\ Id. at 31.
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Treasury Working System Privacy, Security, and Legal Implications
All Treasury Working System users and administrators are required
to sign rules of behavior stipulating their responsibilities to
minimize risks and support DNP's mission to ``conduct a thorough review
of databases and help verify eligibility and prevent [improper and
unknown payments] prior to the release of Federal funds.'' Treasury has
also dedicated resources to establish a privacy program based on
applicable requirements, the Fair Information Practice Principles
(FIPPs), and industry best practices. Treasury's privacy program
supports various internal controls in collaboration with Treasury
leadership and legal counsel. Projects are vetted through a data usage
governance process to ensure compliance with privacy requirements in
law and policy and manage risk associated with the use of specific data
to reduce improper payments for Treasury's customers and Government
agencies.
Risk mitigation measures for Treasury's Working System include
maintaining a current and compliant Security Accreditation and
Authorization (SA&A) package, in accordance with Federal Information
Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements. Additionally, to reduce
the likelihood of unauthorized access, login to Treasury's Working
System requires public key infrastructure (PKI) or personal identity
verification (PIV) credentials.
Considerations for Designating NAPHSIS EVVE FOD
OMB proposes to designate NAPHSIS EVVE FOD for inclusion in
Treasury's Working System. As the most comprehensive private provider
of state vital records and a partner of state vital records offices,
NAPHSIS can provide information to researchers, organizations, and
government organizations to facilitate the verification of birth and
death records.
Treasury's Working System would benefit from more comprehensive
verification of death records from state agencies. Currently,
Treasury's Working System provides verification of death records to its
customers using several databases, but is limited in its ability to
verify the existence of a death certificate reported by a state.
Designation of EVVE FOD as a database in Treasury's Working System
would improve and streamline access for Working System customers to
verify death certificates. Currently, customers must access state vital
records from each state office. Access to EVVE will centralize access
to many states' offices through a single portal.
Use of EVVE FOD within Treasury's Working System would also allow
for its users to access state death records that are available in the
Social Security Administration's Full Death Master File (DMF), which
would otherwise be restricted from use for many programs by statute.\6\
The DMF includes state death records and other information. Agencies
are not prohibited from obtaining death information directly from state
vital records offices or through commercial portals like EVVE.\7\ Death
data from state vital records offices are the authoritative source for
death information. Including EVVE FOD will also allow the Treasury
Working System to examine the quality of existing and potential data
sources that provide death data by using an authoritative source.
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\6\ 42 U.S.C. 405(r).
\7\ Id.
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OMB has considered Treasury's recommendation and assessment of the
suitability of EVVE FOD Data for designation of inclusion within
Treasury's Working System. OMB proposes to designate EVVE FOD Data for
inclusion in Treasury's Working System. Treasury's suitability
assessment, which evaluates the suitability of EVVE FOD Data, is
attached. Treasury's assessment considers factors identified in OMB
Circular A-123 Appendix C section (IV)(E) established by OMB M-18-20,
which has been superseded by OMB M-21-19. Appendix C requires that
``OMB-established procedures and criteria will be followed to determine
whether database are designated into the Treasury Working System or
included in the Initiative outside of the Treasury Working System.'' As
OMB prepares guidance on those procedures and criteria, OMB will still
apply pre-existing guidance and criteria from M-18-20, because M-18-
20's guidance and criteria is derived from similar statutory provisions
in IPERIA, the predecessor to PIIA.
Accordingly, for this request, OMB is considering the same factors
as listed in M-18-20. These factors are: (1) Statutory or other
limitations on the use and sharing of specific data; (2) privacy
restrictions and risks associated with specific data; (3) likelihood
that the data will strengthen program integrity across programs and
agencies; (4) benefits of streamlining access to the data through the
central DNP Initiative; (5) costs associated with expanding or
centralizing access, including modifications needed to system
interfaces or other capabilities in order to make data accessible; and
(6) other policy and stakeholder considerations, as appropriate:
1. Statutory or other limitations on the use and sharing of
specific data: There are no statutory or other limitations that would
prevent including the EVVE FOD database within Treasury's Working
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System for the purposes of verifying payment, award eligibility, and
analytical projects.
2. Privacy restrictions and risks associated with specific data:
Treasury assessed privacy restrictions and risks in discussions with
NAPHSIS. When Treasury initiates matching with EVVE, DNP will only
receive matching results on data provided to DNP (i.e., data on
individuals already existing within the working system). Treasury will
receive matched data from NAPHSIS with the deceased individual's Social
Security Number, name, date of birth and date of death information.
EVVE data is taken directly from State Vital Statistics Databases and
is not owned by NAPHSIS. Data is gathered through an Application
Programming Interface (API) and is not altered prior to displaying
results to the user at the agency. Policies, practices and procedures
relating to the monitoring, auditing, or evaluation of the accuracy of
personally identifiable information are determined by the State that
owns the record. EVVE FOD currently has agreements in place with each
State to address data correction. Treasury evaluated EVVE FOD in
various areas, including a data quality assessment at the attribute
level, and at the level of the source as a whole. Per-data element
measures include quantifications of accuracy, coverage, and conformity.
Whole-source measures include assessments of the freshness,
completeness, and uniqueness of all records. These six assessments
factors, some of which are multi-part, reduce to six quantitative
scores, and these six scores are combined into an overall data source
quality benchmark. The quality assessment was performed on a snapshot
of the data source compared to payment data from August 2020 to
February 2021.
EVVE FOD contains information only on deceased individuals.
Deceased individuals are not afforded Privacy Act protections.
Therefore, the data gathered from state vital records offices and the
information on individuals are not covered by the Privacy Act.
Treasury has also not identified any additional Privacy Act
restrictions or risks for DNP to make this commercial database
available in Treasury's Working System. Treasury's use of the EVVE FOD
matching results does not include information on survivors of the
deceased individual and no other involved parties will have any
information disclosed. Treasury will also receive only limited
information about the deceased, namely, the Social Security Number,
name, date of birth and date of death information. Treasury already
receives similar information in verifying death data when using other
databases within the DNP Initiative. Upon reviewing the privacy
restrictions and risks of EVVE FOD, Treasury has determined that the
limited information disclosed and the controls supporting this database
are sufficient to address any privacy concerns.
3. Likelihood that the data will strengthen program integrity
across programs and agencies: Designating EVVE FOD would strengthen
program integrity. Including EVVE FOD would allow Treasury's Working
System to provide access to state records that are not currently
included in the Social Security Administration's Limited Access Death
Master File (LADMF). Since a significant number of improper payments
are made to deceased individuals each year, providing the Working
System's customers access to these additional records could help them
identify additional potentially improper payments. Additionally, EVVE
FOD provides an independent source of death data which will reduce the
amount of time for agencies to decide on a payment to a deceased
individual. EVVE FOD data can also be used for data quality evaluations
and to assist with data standardization to ensure accuracy of records.
Each of these benefits will help assure citizens that Treasury and the
Government are acting as good-faith stewards of taxpayer dollars. The
results of a Treasury analysis of EVVE FOD were applied to the payments
currently being screened against other DNP death databases and found
that, after applying assumptions to account for false positives, EVVE
FOD is estimated to save the government roughly $489.9 million over a
ten-year period.
4. Benefits of streamlining access to the data through the central
DNP Initiative: It would be beneficial to streamline access to EVVE FOD
through its inclusion in Treasury's Working System. Some of DNP's
customers are agencies that issue payments to beneficiaries. Including
EVVE FOD in Treasury's Working System will allow for faster and more
accurate execution of such payments. Benefit-paying agencies, and other
payment-issuing DNP customers, would be able to check EVVE FOD along
with the other databases in Treasury's Working System. This will enable
agencies to make more informed payment decisions and payment
verifications, which will increase efficiency and strengthen internal
controls.
5. Costs associated with expanding or centralizing access,
including modifications needed to system interfaces or other
capabilities in order to make data accessible: There will be some
additional costs associated with expanding or centralizing access to
EVVE FOD. Currently, EVVE FOD costs $8,750 per month for an annual cost
of $105,000. Adjusting for inflation it is estimated that over a ten-
year period, EVVE will cost the Government $1.15 million. However,
Treasury has performed a trial assessment with respect to EVVE FOD,
which compared nearly 10 million death and payment records with EVVE
FOD in order to determine which payments would result in matches.
Agency-specific business rules identified in Treasury's current
processes were then applied to reduce false positives. The results of
this assessment were applied to the payments currently being screened
against other DNP death databases and found that, after applying
assumptions to account for false positives, EVVE FOD is estimated to
save the government roughly $489.9 million over a ten-year period.
Accounting for the purchase of death certificates from State Vital
Statistics Databases, this amounts to a potential ROI of over 42,613%.
6. Other policy and stakeholder considerations: No additional
stakeholder considerations were identified.
We invite public comments on the proposed designation of the
database described in this notice.
Deidre A. Harrison,
Acting Controller, Office of Federal Financial Management.
[FR Doc. 2021-22094 Filed 10-8-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3110-01-P
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