EPA's Inspector General (IG) Arthur Elkins Jr. is urging Congress to boost the Office of Inspector General's (OIG) overall budget in fiscal year 2016 beyond President Obama's requested levels and to reject a proposed cut to the OIG's payroll, warning that existing funding means the IG is hindering investigations of fraud, waste and abuse. "The budget levels made available to me are impeding our ability to do our work.... When the OIG is not able to carry out its responsibilities because of inadequate funding, it is a net loss to the federal government and American taxpayers," Elkins said in testimony to a Feb. 3 House Oversight & Government Reform Committee hearing on agency IGs' access to documents, which also included testimony from IGs at two other agencies. "I know this is not an appropriations committee, but I ask for any help you can provide us in this regard," he said of efforts to push for greater funding than the president floated in his Feb. 2 FY16 budget plan. Similarly, Elkins sent a Jan. 30 letter to Shaun Donovan, director of the White House Office of Management & Budget, asking either the White House or Congress to roll back what he describes as a $276,000 total reduction to OIG's staffing account in the proposed budget.
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