DW-004
Do Not Pay
Designing a consistent investigation framework for complex federal payment-integrity data.
Summary
- The product
- Do Not Pay is a federal payment-integrity program that helps agencies identify potentially improper payments by comparing payment information against multiple government data sources. My work focused specifically on the Do Not Pay Web Portal used to investigate those results.
- The challenge
- The existing Do Not Pay Web Portal was functional but developer-led, with dense navigation and large amounts of information presented together. The challenge was not simply modernizing its appearance. It was understanding the underlying federal payment-integrity workflows and creating a consistent way for users to move from large, multi-source result sets toward the evidence needed for investigation.
- Jonathan's contribution
- I joined the project at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and spent my first weeks learning the application, its data, and how the Fed and Treasury worked together. I researched interaction patterns and built a rough working prototype in Bootstrap that established a common investigation model across the portal. I presented that direction at the U.S. Treasury office in Philadelphia, where it was approved. I then continued iterating on the design and reviewing implementation with the Kansas City product and development team in two-week sprints.
- The outcome
- The approved direction became the foundation for the redesigned Do Not Pay Web Portal. Rather than treating each process as a separate interface problem, the portal used a consistent investigation pattern for moving from large result sets toward supporting evidence and human decision-making.
Gallery
5 platesLasting impact
The Do Not Pay Web Portal continues to support the U.S. Treasury's payment-integrity mission. The investigation framework I helped establish created a foundation for navigating complex matching results, evaluating potential risks, and supporting evidence-based decisions.
The program's impact today
FY2026
Over 2.3 billion
Records screened against Do Not Pay data sources, a nearly four-fold increase from the 641 million records screened in FY2025.
Do Not Pay programSource: U.S. Treasury press release, October 6, 2026 (opens in a new tab)
FY2026
More than 1.1 billion
Federal payments screened through Treasury's new payment verification process, totaling approximately $3.7 trillion.
Treasury payment verificationSource: U.S. Treasury press release, October 6, 2026 (opens in a new tab)
FY2026
$175 million
Approximately 13,500 payments that would have gone to deceased individuals, identified and returned through that screening.
Treasury payment verificationSource: U.S. Treasury press release, October 6, 2026 (opens in a new tab)
FY2025
$11.7 billion
In potential fraud and improper payments that Treasury and Do Not Pay helped agencies prevent, detect, and recover.
Treasury and Do Not Pay, combinedSource: Bureau of the Fiscal Service, Do Not Pay (opens in a new tab)
Figures are as reported by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service for the federal fiscal years shown.
What Stayed With Me
Designing the Do Not Pay Web Portal taught me that complexity doesn't disappear when an interface becomes simpler. The complexity still exists in the data, institutional relationships, rules, and decisions behind it.
The breakthrough was recognizing that different processes were asking users to perform the same underlying investigation. Once that became clear, I could stop designing each workflow independently and establish a common interaction model for moving from large sets of potential matches toward the evidence needed for a human decision.
That pattern has stayed with me throughout my career: understand the system first, find the structure hidden inside the complexity, and then design the interface around it.