September 15, 2018
I do not believe that section K of the proposed rules provides an honest and good faith solution towards expediting the processing of Whistleblower Award Applications.
Proposed Rule 21F-18 establishes a summary disposition process, however, the Commission should consider the following:
1.) No alternative analysis has been conducted, making this proposed rule precarious at best. The Commission would be wise to conduct an analysis for an alternative method of decreasing the backlog of Whistleblower Award Applications. One obvious alternative method would be to increase the staffing of the Whistleblower Office and ensuring the Claims Review Staff are subject to deadlines (just like Whistleblower are).
2.) The Commission should clarify whether Whistleblower Award Applications that are presently pending are subject to these new procedures.
3.) The Commission needs to be more transparent about what causes Whistleblower awards to be processed so slowly. Is the bottleneck with the Claims Review Staff or is it with the Office of the Whistleblower, if it is the latter, these proposed rules would actually give the Office of the Whistleblower MORE work and not less work - precisely because the Office of the Whistleblower would be responsible for a summary denial - rather than the Claims Review Staff.
Unless clarified further the proposed rules are causing the Whistleblower program to have less conformity and be less clear.