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*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:*
March 31, 2023




*MEDIA CONTACT:
*Hayley Carducci | (614) 404-8616

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*InnovateOhio and OBM Identify $7 Million in Duplicate Payments Through Data Analytics Tool*

(COLUMBUS, Ohio)?InnovateOhio and the Office of Budget and Management (OBM) today announced that $7 million has now been identified using the innovative data analytics tool?launched in early 2019 [ [link removed] ]?to find duplicate payments in state payment systems. This update brings the total number of confirmed duplicate payments identified by InnovateOhio?s advanced analytics tool to 662 from January 2019 through January 2023, spanning 40 different agencies, boards, and commissions.

Of the $7,041,577 in duplicate payments found, *$6,**883,443 has already been recovered, delivering savings to state taxpayers. *?The remaining balance is in the process of being recovered.

?The duplicate payment tool, launched by InnovateOhio and OBM, has made a slow, inefficient process more streamlined and much faster, allowing the team to identify erroneous payments so they can be recouped,? said Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted. ?It?s an example of using technology to improve processes within government and saving taxpayer money, both of which are goals of InnovateOhio.?

In Spring 2019, the Office of Budget and Management (OBM) and InnovateOhio developed software to identify duplicate payments in state government spending ? items that Ohio?s traditional accounting protocols could not identify, including payment requests from the same vendor made through separate processing systems. Duplicate payments are common across large scale industry and the public sector. Modern analytics tools allow state systems to detect subtle duplications that escape human review.

?Ohio?s accounting system is programmed to identify and prevent most duplicate payments before they are made, and our goal is to never make a duplicate payment,? said Kimberly Murnieks, Director of the Office of Budget and Management. ?However, we knew when Governor DeWine and Lt. Gov. Husted took office in 2019 that some duplicate payments were being made by agencies, even with strong standard controls. Working with InnovateOhio?s advanced analytics tools and by applying new technology to our process, we have identified $7 million and will continue to recover the remaining amounts on behalf of Ohioans. And each time we detect a duplicate, OBM works with agencies to identify the circumstances that allowed it to occur and takes steps to tighten systems and procedures to prevent duplicates in the future. This is a fantastic example of how InnovateOhio delivers measurable results.?

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