Federal Reports

The FTC OIG conducted this audit to assess the effectiveness of the Consumer Response Center's (CRC) current practices and procedures related to recording and responding to consumer reports and inquiries.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) development of requirements documents is a collaboration across HUD program offices.  The Office of the Chief Procurement Officer (OCPO) is responsible for obtaining all goods and services required by HUD efficiently and in the most cost-effective manner possible, while program offices are responsible for preparing the requirements documents and submitting an actionable requisition to OCPO.  Once OCPO receives the requisition package, OCPO reviews the requirements documents in the package for any errors or disconnects between tasks and deliverables.  When the requisition package is considered actionable, OCPO accepts the requirements documents and moves the package forward for solicitation.

HUD has processes to facilitate collaboration during the development of requirements documents, including the Acquisition Liaison Unit (ALU), the Integrated Project Team (IPT), and the Integrated Acquisition Team (IAT).  The ALU and the IAT are led by OCPO.  The ALU provides support to program offices by providing contracting expertise when program offices are developing requirements documents.  The IAT promotes effective and timely collaboration between stakeholders early in the acquisition planning process.  The IPT, which is led by program offices, also brings together all stakeholders in the early stages of developing the requirement to ensure that the requirements are defined early in the acquisition life cycle.  

Even though HUD has processes for the development of requirements documents, the acquisition workforce across HUD faces common challenges.  The four challenges most frequently mentioned by both OCPO and program office staff members are related to requirements documents processes, collaboration, roles and responsibilities, and the capacity of OCPO.  Process-related challenges refer to processes used to complete requirements documents, including the ALU, IPT, and IAT.  Collaboration-related challenges include references to a lack of engagement.  Challenges related to roles and responsibilities were cited with mentions of confusion or friction about roles and responsibilities of personnel involved in developing requirements documents.  Challenges related to the capacity of OCPO refer to turnover, understaffing, and bandwidth of OCPO staff.  

We provided HUD with three recommendations to improve requirements documents processes and requirement documents roles and responsibilities. 

The Office of the Inspector General contracted with Castro & Company, LLC to evaluate the effectiveness ofthe Smithsonian's information security program in fiscal year 2024.  For Fiscal year 2024, Castro found that the Smithsonian Institution’s Information security program was effective overall because it was operating at a managed and measurable level (Level 4) in all five cybersecurity functions (Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover).
 

Castro noted Smithsonian continues to make improvements to their information security program.  Castro made six recommendations to improve Smithsonian’s configuration management.  Management concurred with all six recommendations.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this self-initiated audit to assess the NCUA’s compliance with its examiner-in-charge rotation policy and procedures. The objectives of our audit were to determine whether the NCUA: (1) rotated examiners-in-charge in the regions and the Office of National Examinations and Supervision (ONES) in accordance with established requirements, (2) adequately maintained all written approved exceptions to the rotation policy, and (3) assigned examiners-in-charge to perform examinations of federal credit unions or federally insured state-chartered credit unions in accordance with established grade level requirements. The scope of our audit covered the period from January 1, 2015, through December 31, 2022. However, due to timing, we expanded our scope for some examinations to determine whether rotation of examiners-in-charge occurred as prescribed by the National Supervision Policy Manual (NSPM) or the ONES’ office practices, when applicable.

Our Objective(s)To (1) evaluate surface transportation Operating Administrations' processes for identifying positions needed to implement new and expanded Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) programs and (2) report on those Operating Administrations' progress toward addressing identified IIJA staffing needs.
Why This AuditIn 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) established a goal to hire more than 1,400 employees in its surface transportation Operating Administrations and the Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) to respond to identified IIJA-related surface transportation workforce needs between fiscal years 2022 and 2026. Successful IIJA program implementation relies in part on DOT maintaining the needed, appropriately skilled workforce. Accordingly, we initiated this audit to assess DOT's estimation of its workforce needs.
What We FoundSurface transportation Operating Administrations and OST can improve planning processes and better incorporate data-analytic methods for estimating IIJA workforce needs.

Despite a requirement to plan for and manage workforce needs and update hiring goals, most Operating Administrations and OST did not document policies and procedures for estimating IIJA workforce needs or for updating ongoing hiring estimates.
Further, Federal regulations require Federal agencies to use comprehensive data-analytic methods for workforce planning. However, two Operating Administrations and OST did not employ such methods.

Surface transportation Operating Administrations and OST reported filling most IIJA target positions, but DOT's hiring metrics do not accurately reflect onboard workforce capability.

As of May 2024, DOT reported filling 1,204 new IIJA positions. Surface transportation Operating Administrations and OST initially set a goal to hire 1,403 employees by the end of fiscal year 2026. As of September 2024, several Operating Administrations and OST had adjusted their targets, bringing the total new-hire target to 1,638.
DOT tracks and reports to the Office of Personnel Management the number of selections it has made for those positions. However, these data may not accurately reflect whether new positions are currently filled or whether DOT has advanced its progress in meeting its IIJA workforce capacity goals because the number of reported selections includes all individuals who received an employment offer-even if those individuals are not yet working, subsequently leave the Agency after starting employment, or transfer internally from a non-IIJA position.

RecommendationsWe made 2 recommendations to improve DOT's processes for estimating its workforce needs.