Computer Sciences Corporation: Inflated Employee Resumes

In the Computer Sciences Corporation Army settlement, CSC agreed to pay $1.1 million to resolve allegations that it falsified employee qualifications and resumes to charge higher labor rates on an Army information technology task order. The Justice Department’s April 15, 2014 announcement connected the staffing paperwork to the government’s bill. For someone who knows the employees’ actual experience, that connection is the heart of the case.

CSC was a defense contractor headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, designing and operating satellite, wireless-network and security systems for government and private customers. The Army work at issue involved information technology support for government assets and locations worldwide.

What the Army CECOM Resume Allegations Were

The government alleged that CSC submitted false resumes to qualify employees for higher-paying positions, increasing the labor charges it submitted. The allegations concerned services rendered from January 16, 2008 through January 15, 2012 under a specific task order administered by the Army Communication Electronics Command, known as CECOM. CECOM was headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

The alleged labor-category overbilling depended on the relationship between the qualification claimed and the price charged. We see a paper upgrade with a price attached: CSC allegedly used the resumes to qualify employees for higher-paying positions and bill the Army accordingly. The claimed upgrade was in the resume.

How an Inflated Resume Becomes a Labor Charge

The resume and the time sheet tell different parts of the billing story. The time sheet records the hours and work charged, while the resume represents the experience behind the labor category. The government buys both time and the qualifications that category requires. CSC’s alleged false resumes supplied the qualification representation that supported higher labor charges.

The economics are especially clear in time-and-materials contracting. Under the federal acquisition rule for that pricing structure, the government pays for qualifying labor hours at fixed category rates that include wages, overhead, general and administrative expenses, and profit. A qualification can therefore affect a charge that includes more than the employee’s wages. For an insider who knows the payroll side, the hourly wage and the hourly amount charged to the government describe different parts of the transaction. The qualification attached to the billed category is where the resume enters that pricing structure.

Different line items within a contract can use different pricing arrangements. That matters to someone who sees the same staffing paperwork used across several assignments: the payment terms for the billed work determine how a claimed qualification affects the charge. We sort out those terms with you, including changes that affected the work during the billing period.

An executed task order, its changes and the payment request describe different stages of the purchase. The first says what the contractor agreed to supply, the changes can alter that promise, and the payment request shows what the government was asked to pay. For a resume allegation, we connect the staffing representation to that particular purchase, rather than treating a company’s entire Army business as the claim.

Who Investigated the CSC Army Claims?

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland announced the civil settlement with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s Mid-Atlantic Field Office and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command. The announcement also credited the Defense Contract Audit Agency for its assistance in the investigation.

The Defense Contract Audit Agency’s role in defense contract investigations includes contractor accounting and financial audits. That expertise matters when a staffing representation reaches an invoice: the qualification question and the charge need to be examined together.

The Same Qualification Problem on Other Defense Work

Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems agreed to a $27.5 million settlement announced in December 2014 over alleged qualification-based overbilling on Army CECOM task orders. The government alleged that work supporting Iraq and Afghanistan received underqualified employees billed at rates for more qualified staff. The shared issue is concrete: the Army was charged for a level of qualification that the government alleged the people supplied did not meet.

CSC’s later Defense Information Systems Agency settlement concerned a different staffing promise. The government alleged that CSC and its subcontractor NetCracker used personnel without required security clearances on telecommunications-network software work. The Army case concerned qualifications used to reach higher-paying positions. The DISA case concerned required clearances. Each turns on what the particular contract required of the people doing the billed work.

What Evidence Is Needed to Prove Fraud?

For a false-resume billing allegation, the useful evidence connects the worker’s actual qualifications, the qualifications represented, the labor category charged and the contractor’s knowledge. We examine the staffing and payment records together, keeping the employee, task order and service period aligned. A padded resume matters most when you can follow it onto an invoice.

A staffing employee may recognize the experience claimed in the submitted resume. A program supervisor may know the employee’s actual background and assigned work. Someone in billing may see the category and rate carried onto the invoice. Those perspectives address different parts of the allegation, and we work with an insider to connect them. Job codes add another part of that picture: which contract received the labor charge. A worker’s resume, time sheet and job code can sit in different systems while describing the same billed assignment.

The company’s decisions belong in that comparison too. We look at who supplied the qualification information, who used it to place the worker and what the people responsible for billing knew. The CSC allegation put the company’s submission of false resumes at the center of the increased charges. That is the connection we would examine with someone who saw a similar practice. A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers.

You Know the Person Behind the Resume

If you saw qualifications inflated to justify an Army labor charge, tell our whistleblower experts what changed between the employee’s experience and the government’s bill. We develop the case with you, bring in defense contractor fraud whistleblower lawyers who understand staffing and labor-category claims, and stay beside you throughout the case.