Federal Reports

As of October 2016, the Recovery School District in Louisiana (RSD)had received a $1.5 billion Public Assistance grant from Louisiana, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grantee, for damages resulting from Hurricane Katrina. We examined $1.3 billion for a consolidated project as part of the total amount awarded. In some instances, RSD accounted for and expended portions of the $1.3 billion in Public Assistance grant funds we reviewed according to Federal regulations. However, FEMA improperly awarded $216.2 million to repair or replace more than 292 Orleans Parish school facilities in RSD. We made eight recommendations to FEMA to de-obligate $216.2 million of ineligible costs; follow Federal regulations and FEMA guidelines; and re-evaluate documented proof of assessments for the 35 identified projects and reclassify them, as appropriate, to repair-eligible, and de-obligate the cost difference. FEMA concurred with recommendations 2 through 7 but did not concur with recommendations 1 and 8. We consider recommendations 2 through 7 resolved and open; recommendations 1 and 8 are unresolved and open.

The OIG investigated an allegation that a former Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employee accessed child pornography with a U.S. Government computer.We found no evidence that the employee accessed child pornography. We evaluated the employee’s network traffic, which showed their computer accessed sites hosting suspected child pornography; however, we were not able to determine if the employee accessed the areas of the websites that hosted the suspected child pornography. The employee took certain actions with respect to the hard drive, so we were unable to recover any images or other evidence from the computer. The employee admitted to viewing adult pornography on their Government computer while on duty but denied viewing child pornography.The employee resigned during our investigation after receiving a notice of proposed removal. The U.S. Attorney declined prosecution of this matter.

For a covered outpatient drug to be eligible for Federal reimbursement under the Medicaid program’s drug rebate requirements, manufacturers must pay rebates to the States for the drugs. However, a prior OIG review found that States did not always invoice and collect all rebates due for drugs administered by physicians.Our objective was to determine whether Maine complied with Federal Medicaid requirements for invoicing manufacturers for rebates for physician-administered drugs.