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Brought to you by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency
Federal Reports
Report Date
Agency Reviewed / Investigated
Report Title
Type
Location
U.S. Agency for International Development
Audit of the Schedule of Expenditures of Rene Moawad Foundation Under Multiple Awards in Lebanon, January 1 to December 31, 2023
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has developed a dam safety program to protect lives and property by ensuring that structures within the program are designed, constructed, and maintained as safely and reliably as practicable. This program applies to dams, dikes, impoundments, levees, water barrier components, pumping stations, and other appurtenant structures that are included in TVA’s Dam Safety Program inventory. Due to the importance of maintenance and inspections to the reliable operation of assets, we performed an evaluation of TVA dams to determine if maintenance and inspections had been performed in accordance with established schedules. TVA has generally performed maintenance but has not performed all inspections in accordance with established schedules for TVA dams. We identified 43 inspections that were between 1 and 99 months late and 33 that were not performed. We also determined that TVA had not taken actions to address 34 recommendations from inspections completed in fiscal years 2022 through 2024 or the most recent risk assessments. Additionally, we identified some areas where governance could be improved related to inaccuracies in inspection manuals and inspections.
An Amtrak Passenger Conductor based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty on June 24, 2025, in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, to one count of wire fraud involving the fraudulent submission and subsequent receipt of $52,500 for two Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and one Economic Injury Disaster Loan. The employee’s spouse pleaded guilty on May 20, 2025, to one count of wire fraud involving the fraudulent submission of three PPP loans and the subsequent receipt of $53,845. Our investigation found that the couple provided fraudulent documents and made false representations to obtain the loans totaling $106,345 to which they were not entitled.
AmeriCorps OIG initiated this investigation after receiving a referral from OIG’s Office of Audits. The referral alleged that, in 2019, Delaware’s Governor's Commission on Community & Volunteer Service, an AmeriCorps State and National Program grantee also known as Volunteer Delaware, was not providing adequate oversight of its subrecipient, Delaware’s Division of Parks and Recreation (DPR). AmeriCorps OIG found that Volunteer Delaware did not provide adequate monitoring of DPR and that DPR falsely certified AmeriCorps members’ education awards even though service hours had not been performed, were outside the scope of the grant, were adjusted after service, or were otherwise questionable such as having duplicate entries or excessive hours in a day. The OIG also found that DPR shortened the terms of service for some members who exited the program before completing their original approved terms of service, which allowed those members to collect education awards to which they otherwise would not have been entitled. The case resulted in a disallowance of $111,369.
Opportunities Exist for PHMSA To Improve Procedures and Data Quality To Administer the HazMat Emergency Preparedness Fund and Grant Program More Effectively
Our Objective(s)To evaluate PHMSA's (1) collection and tracking of hazardous materials (HazMat) registration fees and (2) monitoring and reporting of grantees' use of funds for the Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness (HMEP) Grant Program.
Why This AuditPHMSA administers grants, for emergency planning and first responder training related to the transport of HazMat. To fund these grants, PHMSA collects fees from HazMat transporters for their required annual registrations. We conducted this audit due to a recent significant increase in HazMat grant funding authorized under IIJA and the important roles the grants play in preparation for and response to emergency HazMat incidents.
What We FoundPHMSA's processes for registration fee collection and data tracking make data verification difficult.
PHMSA uses an online registration portal to collect registrants' data and fees to support the HazMat Grant Program. The Agency requires registrants to determine their business' sizes using the Small Business Administration's (SBA) business-size regulations and then self-certify the accuracy of their data. These SBA business-size regulations include complex variables and increase the risk for inaccurate fee assessments.
Data quality issues impact PHMSA's ability to monitor the quantity and accuracy of the information in its registry. PHMSA could not readily explain why the data issues we found"such as business size and fee mismatches"occurred. A PHMSA standard operating procedure (SOP) includes a daily error reporting process to identify data quality issues, but staff were unfamiliar with and could not locate any daily error reports or anyone who was familiar with them.
PHMSA did not always comply with its grant monitoring procedures or congressional reporting requirements.
PHMSA did not always complete all monitoring activities as required by its HazMat Grants SOP. Forty of 64 (62.5 percent) low and medium risk grantees we evaluated did not receive required annual spot checks, and 25 of 43 (58.1 percent) medium and high-risk grantees did not receive required desk reviews. PHMSA also did not receive or review all grantees' financial and performance reports in a timely manner.
PHMSA did not meet the annual reporting requirements to Congress but has implemented a redesign of its report and data collection process to meet these requirements.
RecommendationsWe made four recommendations to improve PHMSA's oversight of HMEP grants.