YourVoice.Now Summary
Transparency & AccountabilityNarrows 'improper payment' tracking to cases causing actual financial loss and moves agency fraud reviews from annual to every three years.
Transparency & Accountability
- Reportable improper payments — Narrowed to only payments causing financial loss to the government
- Improper-payment report frequency — Several agency reports moved from annual to at least once every 3 years
- Program risk reviews — Shifted from periodic review of all programs to at least every 3 years
- Congressional report recipients — Budget and Appropriations Committees added to recovery reporting
- Fraud-risk assessment requirement — Required for each listed program using new Treasury guidance
- Interagency coordination meetings — Annual agency-liaison meetings with OMB, Treasury, IG, and PRAC required
- Federal-state coordination — Annual OMB-Treasury meetings with state payment-integrity officials required
The details
Federal executive agencies would change how they track and report "improper payments" — payments made in the wrong amount, to the wrong recipient, or without required documentation. The bill rewrites the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019, narrowing the focus to improper payments that "result in financial loss to the Government." Payments that reached the correct person for the correct legal amount, but skipped an administrative step, are now excluded. The Treasury Department would have one year to issue new risk-assessment guidance. Agencies would assess fraud and financial-loss risk for their listed programs at least once every three years, replacing the current annual review requirement. Several other agency reports would also shift from yearly to at-least-every-three-years. Each agency with a high-priority program would name a senior liaison to meet yearly with the Office of Management and Budget, Treasury's Fiscal Service, the agency Inspector General, and the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. OMB and Treasury would also hold annual meetings with state officials who run federal programs. The bill adds the House and Senate Budget and Appropriations Committees as recipients of recovery reports. It updates related Inspector General compliance reports, and OMB and CIGIE guidance, to match the new financial-loss standard.
Congressional Summary
Zeroing Out Monetary Benefits Improperly Expended Act or the ZOMBIE ActThis bill focuses requirements governing the assessment, tracking, and reporting of improper payments made by federal agencies on improper payments that result in financial loss to the government.The bill defines financial loss to the government as any payment (or part of a payment) in excess of the correct amount that results in a financial loss to the government, but excludes any payment (or part of a payment) that is made to the correct recipient for the correct amount but fails to meet administrative procedures (other than those required to verify the validity of the payment).The bill requires agencies to assess programs and activities every three years for the risk of improper payments resulting in financial loss to the government. The bill also generally modifies other reporting requirements to focus on such improper payments, including by expanding reporting requirements to include information about actions taken by agencies to prevent such payments (e.g., use of the Do Not Pay system) and to implement certain best practices.The bill alsorequires an estimate of such improper payments in agencies’ annual budget justification,requires the Department of the Treasury to develop risk assessment guidance, andallows up to 75% of funds that are recovered through audits to be directed back to the original program or activity (currently, up to 25% of such funds may be directed back to the original program or activity).
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in House
- Action Date
- 2026-04-23
- Date Added
- 2026-06-08
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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