Federal Reports

What We Looked AtIn a typical year, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) awards over $20 billion in grants for transit system development and improvement, including the purchase of real property for bus facilities, bus rapid transit, light rail, heavy rail, and commuter rail projects. Through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, Congress authorized as much as $108.1 billion to FTA to improve public transportation systems throughout the country. Given FTA’s large investment in these transit projects, we initiated this audit. Our audit objectives were to assess FTA’s oversight of grant recipients’ (1) reporting and (2) disposal of real property funded with FTA grant assistance.What We FoundFTA cannot identify all reportable real property associated with its grants, and real property data depend primarily on recipients’ self-reporting. Additionally, FTA does not conduct real property oversight reviews of all grant recipients with reportable property. FTA also does not enforce its requirement for recipients to maintain real property inventories or verify that their inventories include all reportable Federal interest. Furthermore, FTA does not enforce a regulatory requirement for recipients to submit annual reports on real property. Lastly, FTA’s oversight of real property disposition is inadequate to ensure recipients comply with disposal requirements. One grantee disposed of 62 properties without informing FTA because the grantee was unaware of whether an FTA financial interest existed in any of the properties. FTA’s insufficient oversight of reportable real property creates a higher risk that property will be disposed of without consideration for FTA’s financial interest. Our RecommendationsWe have made eight recommendations to help FTA improve its oversight of real property reporting and improve accountability for both FTA and its grant recipients when disposing of real property no longer needed for its intended purpose. FTA concurred with all eight recommendations. We consider all recommendations resolved but open pending completion of planned actions. 

In accordance with our Annual Performance Plan Fiscal Year 2022, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an assessment of the United States Capitol Police (USCP or Department) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR).  OIG objectives were to determine if the Department (1) established adequate internal controls and processes for ensuring compliance with Department policies and (2) complied with policies and procedures, laws, regulations, and best practices. The scope of the review included existing policies and procedures related to OPR for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 through FY 2023.

The National Security Agency (NSA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released an unclassified version of its Semiannual Report to Congress (SAR) summarizing the OIG’s oversight work from October 2023 through March 2024. The SAR describes a number of oversight products completed during the reporting period. In his SAR submission message, Deputy Inspector General Kevin B. Gerrity highlighted NSA OIG’s congressionally-requested evaluation of the relationship between NSA and U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). NSA OIG found that adequate controls or processes were not always in place to ensure resources were appropriately delineated between NSA and USCYBERCOM. Gerrity states, “Our report will help NSA improve it’s processes in the future.”On May 17, 2024 the SAR was transmitted to Congress as required by the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended.

Objective: The objective was to observe customer wait times in select Social Security Administration field offices and Social Security Card Centers. In addition, we determined the (1) factors that may affect customer wait times and (2) steps SSA took to reduce wait times.

Objective: To determine whether the Social Security Administration’s controls identified Disability Insurance beneficiaries and Supplemental Security Income recipients who also received Illinois or Texas workers’ compensation benefits.