Labor's Retirement Unit Needs More Funds to Implement Secure Acts: GAO

EBSA “has taken several steps to manage its limited resources, such as focusing on cases with high monetary recoveries, establishing timeliness and monetary benchmarks for their investigations, and moving trainings online to save costs,” the report states.

However, GAO continues, “the agency does not have a systematic process for reallocating resources,” and “EBSA’s efforts to indicate resource needs or reallocations have not been systematic or well documented. Thus, it is not clear how EBSA would respond to increased responsibilities, unanticipated funding, or funding that is lower than requested.”

GAO states that “a clear, systematic, and thoroughly documented decision-making process could put EBSA in a better position to make informed decisions regarding resource reallocations due to changing circumstances.”

As of September 2022, EBSA oversaw roughly 747,000 employer-sponsored retirement plans and about 2.5 million group health plans, the report states. The retirement plans hold, according to EBSA, an estimated $12 trillion in assets as of fiscal 2022.

“This oversight helps ensure legislation is implemented as intended and benefits are delivered as promised,” Scott stated.

However, Scott cited a recent Labor Inspector General report, which found that EBSA has the enforcement capacity of less than one investigator for every 12,600 plans at its current staffing levels.

The Labor secretary, the GAO report recommends, “should direct EBSA to develop and document a systematic decision-making process for oversight responsibilities and allocating staff in a changing budget environment, which could be incorporated within current planning documents.”