Federal Reports

An Amtrak lead service attendant based in Miami, Florida, resigned from her position on October 20, 2023, as a result of our investigation. We found that the former employee violated company policies by engaging in outside employment while on a medical leave of absence.

On August 20, 2020, in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) created the Pandemic Relief Credit (PRC) to provide a measure of relief to local power companies (LPCs), industries, businesses, and people of TVA’s seven state service region. Relief was provided in the form of a 2.5 percent credit to LPC and directly served customers’ demand and nonfuel energy charges. In August 2021, TVA extended the 2.5 percent credit through fiscal year (FY) 2022. TVA subsequently extended the 2.5 percent credit through FY 2023. Through July 2023, TVA had issued about $630 million in PRCs.We included this audit in our annual audit plan due to the amount of credits issued to LPCs and issues identified in a previous audit of pandemic-era credits. Our audit objective was to determine if adequate controls were in place to ensure the PRCs were calculated and utilized in accordance with TVA Board of Directors’ (TVA Board) approval. Our audit scope was the $449,227,369 of credits issued under the PRC for the period October 2020 through September 2022.We determined some controls were adequate to ensure PRCs were calculated and utilized in accordance with TVA Board approval. Specifically, controls were adequate to ensure (1) PRCs were calculated accurately and (2) LPCs that elected to pass the standard service portion of the credit to their customers did so in a nondiscriminatory manner. However, we determined the control in place to ensure the Time of Use (TOU) portion of the credit that was passed to LPC customers was inadequate. Specifically, the control for testing whether the LPC was passing the credit to the TOU customers was to ask LPC personnel if the credit was passed on to the customers. Due to the inadequacy of the control, TVA was not aware that one of the 25 LPCs we tested had not passed the majority of the credits to their end-use TOU customers totaling about $420,000. In addition, since the standard service portion of the credit did not have to be passed on to LPC customers, the cash positions of LPCs could be increased by the PRC. We determined 44 LPCs had surplus cash in excess of the TVA Board’s previously established 33 percent cash ratio threshold and noted 36 of these had not passed the standard service portion of the credit on to their end-use customers.

The EPA’s P2 grant results aligned with program goals, but without a supervisory verification process, the program may report inaccurate grant results to the public.

We reviewed the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Wildlife Services’ investigations of livestock deaths by Mexican gray wolves.

NASA’s Artemis campaign involves multiple programs and projects, more than a dozen major prime contractors, and thousands of suppliers. When supply chain disruptions happen, it can put the entire effort at risk of significant delays and increased costs. Part of the problem, we found, is that NASA lacks full visibility into the Artemis campaign’s suppliers.