Federal Reports

Ambulatory care, which refers to medical services performed in outpatient settings, is the basis by which most care is delivered within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) healthcare system. Because over half of VHA’s medical care budget is for ambulatory care (about $65.1 billion for FY 2023), the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this audit to determine whether VHA has adequate controls over its budget formulation process to ensure its ambulatory care budget estimate is reliable. The OIG found that VHA could strengthen internal controls over its budget formulation process to provide reasonable assurance that the ambulatory care budget estimate is reliable. VHA lacks documented procedures, including assigned roles and responsibilities, for developing the ambulatory care budget estimate. VHA also did not establish a data governance structure with clearly defined authoritative data sources and designated data stewards. Documented procedures and a data governance structure could help maintain organizational knowledge of the process and provide reasonable assurance that VHA’s internal controls over operations, reporting, and compliance are effective. The OIG made four recommendations to strengthen internal controls over the budget formulation process.

Objective: To determine whether the Social Security Administration developed the Debt Management Product in accordance with Federal best practices and met its project cost and schedule estimates.

Objective: To determine whether Social Security Administration employees properly processed representative payee applications in the Electronic Representative Payee System.

Objective: To determine whether the Social Security Administration was managing its Security Assessment and Authorization process in accordance with Federal and Agency requirements.

Objective: To determine whether the Social Security Administration acted in accordance with its policies and procedures when it processed Supplemental Security Income ineligibility determinations and suspensions based on applicants’, recipients’, or representative payees’ failure to provide information.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) is a national network of 51 MEP Centers—in all 50 states and Puerto Rico—providing any U.S. manufacturer with resources to improve production processes, upgrade technological capabilities, and facilitate product innovation. The MEP mission is to enhance the productivity and technological performance of U.S. manufacturing.NIST makes federal financial assistance awards in the form of cooperative agreements to state, university, and nonprofit organizations to operate Centers. However, renewal funding for each Center is contingent, in part, upon successful reviews and evaluations of its operations, including its performance. NIST principally monitors MEP’s performance through economic impact surveys completed by a Center’s clients. The intent of the survey is to capture quantified impacts on a client’s employment, sales, investment, and cost savings that occurred over the last 12 months, as a result of the services received.NIST uses economic impacts from survey responses not only to monitor Center performance but also to gauge MEP’s overall success. NIST reports MEP’s economic impacts publicly in various ways, including to Congress, which uses the information to make annual funding decisions regarding MEP appropriations.Our evaluation objective was to determine whether NIST’s MEP effectively monitored and evaluated economic impact reporting. We found that NIST’s inadequate oversight of the MEP economic impact reporting process resulted in inaccurate and unreliable economic impacts. Specifically, we found that (1) MEP’s FY 2022 economic impacts are unreliable, including 48 percent of the total sales reported by Centers we reviewed, (2) NIST overstated MEP’s return on investment from FYs 2020 to 2023—notably by 34 percent in FY 2020, and (3) Centers require clients to take MEP surveys, contrary to federal directive. We also reported another matter related to Centers not accurately reporting program income earned—raising concerns about compliance with award terms and conditions.We made eight recommendations to help NIST ensure accountability and data reliability in its reporting of MEP’s economic impacts.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) contracted with the independent public accounting firm RMA Associates, LLC (RMA) to conduct the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) audit of DF) for FY 2024 to evaluate the effectiveness of the DFC's information security program and practices, and determine what maturity level DFC achieved for each of the core metrics and supplemental metrics outlined in the FY 2023 - 2024 Inspectors General (IG) FISMA Reporting Metrics. Our objectives were to evaluate the effectiveness of the DFC's information security program and practices and determine the maturity level DFC achieved for each of the core metrics and supplemental metrics outlined in the FY 2023 - 2024 IG FISMA Reporting Metrics.

One of the Postal Service’s key initiatives of its Delivering for America 10-year plan is to revitalize nearly 19,000 delivery units by targeting markets where it can aggregate delivery units into fewer, larger, centrally located sorting and delivery centers (S&DC). According to the Postal Service, S&DCs will have package sortation equipment, standardize operations, and reduce mail handling costs. The first S&DC was opened in November 2022, and a total of 29 were implemented by the end of September 2023.

We Looked At  The Department of Transportation (DOT) reported $12.9 billion in general Property, Plant, and Equipment (PP&E) in its fiscal year 2022 Agency Financial Report (AFR), including $4.2 billion in capitalized equipment. Federal agencies are required to prepare accurate annual financial statements that adhere to accounting principles, as well as to establish internal controls to reduce risk and promote efficient use of property. This requirement exists to provide reliable, accurate descriptions of an agency’s financial position, which includes property. Given DOT’s significant investment in capitalized equipment and the importance of its management, we initiated this audit to assess DOT’s internal controls for managing capitalized equipment, specifically (1) policies for managing capitalized equipment; (2) oversight controls; and (3) guidance regarding capitalization thresholds.  What We Found DOT’s policies and procedures for managing capitalized equipment are out-of-date and noncompliant with Federal law. For example, DOT Orders about managing capitalized equipment are dated as far back as 1992, and do not require Operating Administrations to conduct inventories in accordance with the Federal Personal Property Management Act of 2018. In addition, several Operating Administrations’ policies and procedures do not comply with these laws. The Department also lacks proper oversight controls, including an adequate reconciliation process, to ensure that Operating Administrations are maintaining accurate inventories of their equipment. This resulted in the Maritime Administration failing to correct misclassifications of nearly 70 percent of the Department’s total net value of capitalized equipment for fiscal year 2022. Further, we estimated that FRA did not capitalize up to $53 million of eligible equipment. Lastly, DOT also lacks clear guidance on deviating from standard capitalization thresholds, limiting its ability to establish effective internal controls for capitalized asset management.  Our Recommendations We made seven recommendations to improve DOT’s internal controls to effectively manage capitalized equipment.