Federal Reports

We performed this review to determine whether Anchorage School District (Anchorage) expended ESSER grant funds for allowable purposes in accordance with applicable requirements. We determined that all the ESSER expenditures we reviewed for Anchorage were allowable and in accordance with applicable requirements. We also found that Anchorage complied with key Federal procurement requirements, including those covering the procurement methods to be followed and contract cost, price, and provisions, when procuring the goods or services associated with each ESSER expenditure we reviewed. Because we identified no exceptions, our report does not include recommendations. However, our results are limited to the ESSER expenditures we reviewed, and it is critical that any remaining ESSER funds continue to be used appropriately.

We audited WSFR grants awarded by FWS to New Jersey to ensure compliance and cost allowability.

This report presents the results of our audit of The Effectiveness of the New Regional Processing and Distribution Center in Portland, OR.

Our objective was to assess the Department’s compliance with the 13 covered agency responsibilities in 43 U.S.C. § 2808(a). To meet this objective, we reviewed our audit results from 2020 and 2022 and obtained updated information from the Department for each of the 13 requirements. In addition, we independently tested the Department’s geospatial metadata published on Data.gov. We found that the Department was complying with 12 of the 13 GDA requirements. However, our testing revealed that the Department’s geospatial metadata is not always complete. Without ensuring a consistent approach to completing geospatial metadata, the Department’s geospatial data stakeholders could face challenges in making the most efficient and effective use of the Department’s geospatial data portfolio.

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this audit to determine whether VA complied with the law governing geospatial data and to follow up on recommendations from its previous report. VA’s administrations rely on geospatial data when supporting budgets, performing strategic planning, and making policy decisions to provide health care, benefits, and burial services to veterans.In its previous report, the OIG found VA was not compliant with three covered agency requirements: VA was not compliant with requirements 1 and 3 because all necessary actions had not been completed, and VA was not compliant with requirement 9 because it had not met additional recommended criteria to protect personal privacy and maintain confidentiality. Since the previous report, VA continues to move toward compliance. For this audit, the OIG found VA was not compliant with two of the 12 requirements. According to VA officials, VA does not collect, hold, manage, or consume declassified geospatial data, and the OIG team did not find evidence to the contrary, making the related requirement not applicable.While VA was found not compliant with requirements 5 and 9, the OIG only made two recommendations regarding requirement 9 because VA is working toward satisfying requirement 5. The OIG’s two recommendations follow: (1) reevaluate the risk determination for the Veterans Health Administration Geographic Information System and determine if the system should be set to a security categorization level of moderate based on the personally identifiable information and other sensitive data maintained in the system and (2) reassess whether the security incidents were a breach and instruct staff associated with the incident response process that each security and privacy incident that occurs must be captured on a separate Privacy Security Events Tracking System ticket and investigation details must be accurately documented and confirmed.