Hanford’s liquid waste contractor successfully appealed a U.S. Department of Energy order to pay the federal government $6 million for alleged overpayments to temporary workers, according to documents posted online recently.
The U.S. Civilian Board of Contract Appeals ruled in Washington River Protection Solutions’ (WRPS) favor on June 28, but made the decision public on July 19. The company owes DOE only $80,275, the board ruled.
A common practice at Hanford is to hire trained, experienced temporary workers from outside contractors. WRPS hires these temporary workers when they are needed for a specific task or to fill in for missing personnel. WRPS would pass those hiring costs on to DOE.
In 2020, DOE reviewed the records of 41 of these temporary workers, and determined that 13 were overpaid. DOE contended the overpayments were due to WRPS paying 12 people at higher rates than required, and that seven were under-qualified for the spots they filled.
DOE concluded that the overpayments equaled $3.012 million. DOE doubled the required payback to $6.024 million due to “for what DOE believed was excessive pass-through of subcontracting costs,” according to the appeals board’s ruling.
On June 28, the board ruled that WRPS’ payments to the temporary workers were in line with what they should have been paid. “WRPS has established that the costs challenged by DOE were reasonable. WRPS sought to fill specialized requirements with individuals with extensive experience in the difficult world of nuclear waste management,” the board said.
“The problems with DOE’s analysis on this point are myriad—the analysis fails to account for the hours these individuals worked, is based upon an analysis of 2018 rates, but applied across all years of the contract, and fails to account for the years of experience that many of these individuals possessed,” the board said. “WRPS has established that these individuals were hired on an as-needed basis and that it would have incurred additional costs if these individuals had been hired as full-time employees.”
The board agreed with DOE that one of the temporary workers was under-qualified. Consequently, the board ruled that WRPS owed $80,275, which is the actual wages paid without being doubled.
WRPS did not respond to requests for comment.
