Hanford Mission Integration Solutions: Two Qui Tams and One Idle-Time Settlement

Hanford Mission Integration Solutions paid $3,450,000 to resolve two qui tams in one idle-time settlement over labor hours charged to the Department of Energy. The Justice Department’s account connects the hours billed to decisions inside the company about assigning work and recording time. For someone who schedules crews, keeps time or reviews labor charges, that connection is familiar ground: what work was available, what the time record showed, and what the government ultimately paid.

What HMIS Admitted About Idle Time

HMIS admitted in its settlement agreement that it sought and received Department of Energy reimbursement for labor hours consisting of unallowable excessive idle time between August 17, 2020, and September 30, 2025. It also admitted that, at times, it did not schedule or assign sufficient work for its personnel.

Those admissions put work assignment at the center of the case. The company was responsible for assigning work, then sought reimbursement for hours that included excessive idle time. We see a basic failure of responsibility here: the contractor admitted passing the cost of that unfilled work time to taxpayers.

The government’s fuller allegation concerned the instructions employees received. The government alleged that HMIS failed to provide enough assignments to fill entire shifts, then directed employees to record their time as though they had worked the whole shift. The government alleged that management knew about inflated labor hours and failed to prevent the Department of Energy from being charged.

The hours survived on paper. Taxpayers funded the gap.

How Labor Hours Became a DOE Claim

HMIS’s contract made recorded labor costs part of the government’s bill. Since 2020, the company had held a multibillion-dollar, performance-based prime contract with the Department of Energy for infrastructure and site services integral to Hanford’s environmental cleanup mission. Under that contract, the Department of Energy reimbursed HMIS for claimed allowable costs, including labor.

That payment arrangement explains why the work schedule matters to a false-timecard and idle-time billing case. An assignment determines what work an employee has to perform. The time entry represents the hours worked. When the contractor submits those hours for reimbursement, the entry becomes part of its request for public money. The HMIS allegations connect the instructions to employees with the claim sent to the Department of Energy.

The federal contracting rules on allowable costs tie payment to allowable costs. Cost ledgers and the underlying labor records therefore matter together: the ledger shows which expense reached the government’s bill, while the assignment and time records help explain what the expense bought. In a contractor cost-mischarging case, we examine that connection between the claimed cost and the work behind it.

A full shift entered on a time record can look complete to the person processing the charge. Someone who assigned the work may know that the employee had too little to do. In HMIS’s case, the government alleged that the company itself directed the full-shift recording. That makes the instruction behind the entry part of the billing story.

When Management Controls the Controls

Research on management override helps explain why an approval system can fail even when a business has formal controls. The 2019 study Unique Characteristics of Management Override Fraud Cases, published in the Journal of Forensic and Investigative Accounting, compared fraud cases involving management override with cases involving missing controls. Among the fraud cases studied, stronger safeguards were associated with a shift toward managers bypassing controls, rather than fraud exploiting missing controls.

The paper explains the practical problem:

For us, that finding makes the source of a timekeeping instruction worth examining. The HMIS allegation concerned management directing employees to record full shifts despite insufficient assignments. A review of the entries needs the account of the person who knows who gave that direction and what work was actually available.

Why Two Qui Tams Led to One Settlement

The same HMIS employee brought both qui tam complaints, and the settlement resolved both. The employee’s second complaint added allegations about HMIS’s conduct. One insider’s account reached the court through separate complaints and ended in a single company resolution.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington and the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General jointly investigated the case. The Justice Department credited the whistleblower’s information with helping uncover the conduct.

The Recovery and the Whistleblower’s Share

The settlement included $1,725,000 in restitution. The Justice Department described HMIS’s payment as paying back twice what it took from taxpayers.

The agreement also allocated a share of the settlement to the employee who brought the cases. It separately entitled the whistleblower to have HMIS pay legal fees.

A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers. The whistleblower reward is a share of the recovery, connecting the insider’s contribution to money returned through the case.

What Proof Do You Need as a Whistleblower?

For an idle-time billing case, we assess how the work assignments, recorded hours, management instructions and reimbursement requests fit together. The HMIS account supplies that connection: insufficient work, directions to record full shifts and labor costs submitted to the Department of Energy. The records that test the charge have to connect the workplace account to the bill.

A scheduler may know what assignments existed. An employee may know what instruction governed the time entry. A payroll or billing specialist may understand how those entries became labor costs claimed under the contract. Each view can explain a different part of the same charge.

We work with an insider to understand those relationships: which work the hours concerned, what management knew, and where the cost reached the government’s payment request.

A Separate Hanford Contractor, a Similar Admission

Washington River Protection Solutions reached a separate idle-time settlement announced in June 2025. It likewise admitted receiving reimbursement for excessive idle time and failing to schedule or assign sufficient work to its personnel.

Two Hanford contractors admitted receiving reimbursement for excessive idle time and failing to assign enough work. We see the same failure in both: the companies left work unassigned and passed the cost to taxpayers.

You Know What Filled the Shift

If you know who assigned the work, who directed the time entries or how the hours reached the Department of Energy, talk with our whistleblower experts about the labor charges you saw. We build the case with you and bring in government-contract fraud whistleblower lawyers who understand cost reimbursement and labor billing. We stay beside you throughout, using your knowledge of the work to build your strongest whistleblower case.