SAIC: Expensive Personnel Proposed for First-Responder Grants

SAIC paid $11.75 million to settle False Claims Act allegations that it inflated charges through expensive personnel proposed for first-responder grants. The United States alleged that SAIC neither intended to use those personnel nor actually used them to train first responders to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks. If you knew who was supposed to develop, manage or teach those courses, the gap between the proposed staff and the people doing the work could be familiar.

Science Applications International Corporation provided scientific, engineering and technical services to government and commercial customers. The Justice Department’s account of the settlement describes a case started by a former SAIC project manager for the training program. The government joined his whistleblower case. The person running the project had a view into the work behind the proposal.

What the First-Responder Grants Paid For

The first-responder grants funded training to prevent and respond to terrorism involving explosive devices. Between 2002 and 2012, the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, known as New Mexico Tech, received six grants from the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

New Mexico Tech then awarded subgrants to SAIC for course management, development and instruction.

Taxpayers were funding preparation for an explosive-device attack. In this civilian grant fraud case, the government challenged SAIC’s charges for that work even though the funding reached the company through the university.

The Personnel in the Proposal and the Personnel on the Job

SAIC allegedly represented in its cost proposals that it would use far more expensive personnel than it intended to use and actually used. The Justice Department connected that representation directly to inflated charges to the United States.

On the government’s account, the expensive team existed only on paper. We see a basic question behind promised personnel and the price attached to them: why price a team you never plan to use?

For an insider, that comparison gives ordinary project knowledge a financial meaning. Knowing who was assigned to develop a course can explain a personnel entry in the cost proposal. Knowing who approved the staffing plan can explain why that entry was there. Connecting those decisions to the charge is the work of building the case.

What Proof Do You Need as a Whistleblower?

For an allegation like SAIC’s, useful proof connects the cost proposal, the personnel intended and actually used, and the charges for their work. The former project manager’s role matters because project management sits where the promised resources meet the work being delivered.

We assess the records that test the charge against the particular grant and subgrant work. A proposal explains what was represented. Staffing plans and assignments can explain what the business intended. Course records can show who performed the work. Billing records connect that work to the amount charged. Those comparisons give us something more precise than a general concern that a program cost too much.

Transparency International’s 2024 paper, Transparency, Accountability, and Integrity of Public Procurement Systems, explains that award and performance information helps people identify irregularities and assess value for money. That depends on good data and people able and willing to use it.

That observation fits the practical value of a project insider. A personnel description and a course assignment may look consistent to someone reading them separately. Someone who knows the work can explain what the proposed role required, who filled it and where the descriptions diverge. We work with that knowledge to identify the comparison the money depends on.

SAIC’s Settlement and the Whistleblower’s Share

The Justice Department announced the SAIC settlement on June 13, 2013 and said the company had paid the settlement amount.

The department said the former project manager’s whistleblower reward had not yet been determined when it announced the settlement.

A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers.

Other Grant Cases Put Personnel Charges Against Actual Work

The government alleged that Scripps charged existing National Institutes of Health projects for faculty time spent on new grant applications, teaching, committee work and administration without adequate effort accounting. In a separate Columbia University settlement, Columbia admitted that its ICAP program charged federal grants for work that did not belong to those awards. SAIC’s alleged mismatch concerned the expensive personnel proposed, rather than which work belonged to an existing grant.

You Know Who Did the Work

If you know why a personnel proposal and the staffing on a grant-funded project tell different stories, talk with our whistleblower experts about the people behind the charges. We build the case with you around the proposal, the staffing decisions and the money, and bring in government grant fraud whistleblower lawyers who understand personnel-cost cases. You bring your view inside the program; we bring the expertise and partnership to pursue it with you.