Federal Reports

What We Looked AtThe Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provided the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with $10 billion to help airports deal with the public health emergency caused by Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). FAA awarded $9.1 billion in grants to airports nationwide, using its existing Airport Improvement Program (AIP) to distribute the funds. Our objective for this self-initiated audit was to assess whether FAA’s policies and procedures for awarding and overseeing CARES Act grants are sufficient to protect taxpayer interests. What We FoundLeveraging the AIP allowed FAA to announce CARES Act awards for more than 3,000 airports in just 2 weeks. However, changes in the Agency’s oversight process regarding supporting documentation requirements affected its ability to monitor program performance, and we determined at the time of our review that it contributed to more than $271 million in unsupported costs, $85 million in questioned costs, and $3 million of improper payments. FAA also did not establish procedures for deobligating CARES Act grants that become inactive, exceed the period of performance, or provide airport sponsors with adequate guidance on documenting workforce retention data. These internal control weaknesses hindered FAA’s ability to ensure that it is operating the program as Congress intended, administering projects in a fiscally responsible manner, and achieving reporting and compliance objectives. Our RecommendationsWe are making seven recommendations to improve FAA’s oversight of COVID relief funds. FAA concurred with recommendations 5–7 and provided completion dates. The Agency partially concurred with recommendations 1–4. Based on documentation FAA provided after our review was completed, we consider recommendation 1 resolved but open pending completion of planned actions, recommendations 2 and 3 resolved and closed, and recommendation 4 unresolved. We are asking FAA to reconsider its position and provide us with a revised response within 30 days of the date of this report.

The objective was to determine the extent to which the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) manage and enforce the priority trade issue related to intellectual property rights (IPR).

The Office of the Inspector General conducted a review of the Communications and Public Relations (C&PR) organization to identify factors that could impact C&PR’s organizational effectiveness. During the course of our evaluation, we identified behavioral and operational risks, some of which were recurring, that stemmed from alignment issues, which could negatively affect sustainable execution within C&PR. Specifically, these risks included (1) perceived lack of organizational direction, (2) perceived lack of empowerment in C&PR leadership, (3) concerns with the development of the organizational structure, (4) staffing and prioritization concerns, (5) role clarity concerns, (6) concerns with relationships within and outside of C&PR, and (7) organizational placement concerns.

From March to July 2022, The AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a modified peer review of the AbilityOne OIG’s Office of Audit (OA). The team from AmeriCorps OIG reviewed (1) the OA’s established audit policies and procedures in effect for the year ended September 30, 2021, and (2) the OA’s monitoring of Government Audit Standards (GAS) engagements performed by Independent Public Accountants (IPAs).

An Amtrak conductor based in Sanford, Florida, was suspended from his position without pay, in lieu of termination, on July 15, 2022, following his administrative hearing. The employee was held out of service without pay for a total of 68 days from May 26, 2022, through August 1, 2022. Our investigation found that the employee violated company policies by attempting to sell high-security switch keys and other assorted railroad keys on Facebook Marketplace, including keys used by Amtrak.