Federal Reports

We substantiated allegations that management and staff of Panoche Water District conspired to illegally divert water from CA and BOR waterways.

We performed an audit of CMG Mortgage, Inc., to evaluate its quality control (QC) program for originating and underwriting Single Family Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans.  We selected CMG for review based on its loan volume and delinquency rate and because its rate of self-reporting loans to HUD when it identified fraud, material misrepresentations, and other material findings that it could not mitigate was below average for more than a 5-year period.

We found that CMG’s QC program for originating and underwriting FHA-insured loans was not sufficient.  Specifically, CMG (1) did not select the proper number of loans for review and maintain complete and accurate data to document its loan selection process; (2) did not always complete key review steps and sometimes missed material deficiencies; and (3) did not adequately mitigate and report loan review findings, which included self-reporting loans to HUD when required.  These issues occurred because CMG had insufficient controls over its QC program and was not always familiar with HUD requirements.  As a result, HUD did not have assurance that CMG’s QC program fully achieved its intended purposes, which include, among other things, protecting the FHA insurance fund and lender from unacceptable risk, guarding against fraud, and ensuring timely and appropriate corrective action.

We recommended that HUD require CMG to (1) update its QC plan and related procedures to align with HUD requirements; (2) demonstrate that its training for staff and management has been updated to reflect changes to its QC plan and related procedures, and to cover the underlying requirements for lender QC programs; (3) review the loans that it had not selected and take appropriate actions when applicable; (4) evaluate its QC files for the loans in which it identified material findings to confirm whether it self-reported to HUD all findings of fraud or material misrepresentation, along with any other material findings that it did not acceptably mitigate.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Simplification Act made several changes to the FAFSA, including changing the formula for determining student financial assistance need and simplifying the application. The rollout of the redesigned 2024–2025 FAFSA application encountered issues that affected students’ ability to apply for aid. The Department of Education (Department) has also introduced several student loan forgiveness initiatives, including an initial debt relief plan, the Student Debt Relief loan discharge program, and the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan. As a result of Congressional concerns related to resources spent on these initiatives, we initiated a review to determine whether the Department’s Federal Student Aid (FSA) office could account for resources expended under these initiatives.  We conducted an inspection to determine if (1) for the FAFSA Simplification Act and student loan forgiveness initiatives, FSA has prepared accountings of appropriated funds, obligations, administrative expenses, and staffing for fiscal years (FY) 2021–2024; and (2) FSA provided Congress with detailed spend plans of anticipated uses of funds made available under the FYs 2021–2024 appropriations laws. We found that FSA does not have readily available full accountings of appropriated funds, obligations, administrative expenses, and staffing related to its FAFSA Simplification Act and student loan forgiveness initiatives for FYs 2021–2024. We also found that FSA provided spend plans to Congress from FYs 2021–2024 as required by the respective appropriations acts, though FSA’s initial submissions to Congress were late in all four fiscal years. Additionally, one of the required subsequent quarterly updates was not submitted in FY 2023, and another quarterly update was late in FY 2024. We also found that the spend plans provided limited information specific to the use of funds for FSA’s FAFSA Simplification Act and student loan forgiveness initiatives.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.

In this white paper, the OIG compared postal models across a selection of 26 posts: the U.S. Postal Service and 25 foreign national postal operators. While the Postal Service operates under a unique model that combines flexibility in meeting universal service obligations (USO) with significant constraints (such as stricter pricing regulations, mandated six-day delivery, and limited diversification), many foreign posts enjoy greater commercial freedom. 

For our evaluation of the National Weather Service's (NWS's) protection of operational technology (OT), our objective was to determine whether NWS has implemented effective security controls for its critical OT. We found that I. NWS did not implement strong credential management for some OT systems, and II. NWS lacked complete vulnerability scanning coverage for some OT systems.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) requires that the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission annually provide to the appropriate congressional committees the findings, conclusions, and recommendations from our reviews and audits performed under subsection 205(a) of the CPSIA as well actions taken with regard to employee complaints under subsection 205(b). The attached report fulfills these requirements for fiscal year 2024.