Company Improperly Billed Hours to National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Grant Overseen by the DOI

The OIG investigated an allegation that a company improperly billed hours in late 2018 and early 2019 to a grant it received from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) to manage Hurricane Sandy coastal resiliency projects. We determined that five employees of the company recorded 561.75 labor hours to the NFWF grant when, in fact, they worked on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration contract. We learned that the company corrected the improper billing and took administrative action against four employees before we initiated our investigation. The company did not charge the NFWF for the 561.75 labor hours; it, however, also never notified the NFWF of the problem. As a result of our investigative efforts, the company conducted a second review of the billing on the NFWF grant and determined that additional hours charged by three of its employees to the NFWF grant were inappropriate. The company subsequently reimbursed the NFWF $44,332.94. On October 14, 2020, the NFWF provided the company with a written notice terminating its grant agreement, effective 30 days from the date of the memo.