ABSTRACT
The settlement of claims is closer to the legal decisions and the bid protest functions of the General Accounting Office (GAO) than it is to auditing, in the sense that they are adjudication functions. In 1975, a Texas resident claimed payment from the United States for thirty-eight bales of cotton seized from a grandfather's farm by Union forces during the Civil War. Many of the payment claims received by the GAO result from congressional enactments that require the GAO to examine and settle certain accounts. Most certificates of settlement required by statute of the GAO, while concerned with less elevated offices, involve much less routine and require much more attention from Claims Division employees. In 1968, Congress decided that the Comptroller General was the sole authority for waiving the collection of erroneous payments of pay and allowance by government agencies from their employees and military personnel.
