Federal Reports

We determined significant amounts of overtime were worked by employees at all six of TVA’s coal plants. Specifically, the overtime worked at these plants was the equivalent of 165 full-time employees. In addition, we determined some individual employees worked significant amounts of overtime. For example, we found 37 instances during fiscals years 2018 and 2019 where employees worked over 1,000 hours of overtime and 1 employee who worked over 2,300 hours of overtime in a single year. We also determined TVA may not be accurately capturing the effects of fatigue because (1) fatigue assessments are no longer required when significant overtime is worked and (2) fatigue data is not trended with health and safety data in TVA’s medical case management system. Additionally, employees expressed concerns regarding the adverse impact of understaffing on safe operation of coal plants.

The Office of the Inspector General conducted a review of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant (WBN) Radiation Protection (RP) organization to identify factors that could impact WBN RP’s organizational effectiveness. Our report identified behaviors that had a positive impact on WBN RP. However, we also identified a behavior that could negatively affect WBN RP. Specifically, we identified a behavioral risk related to accountability that, if left unaddressed, could impact WBN RP’s effectiveness and its continued ability to meet its responsibilities in support of WBN’s mission. We also identified operational positives regarding WBN RP’s working relationship with outside departments and having enough resources to do the work.

DHS has not fulfilled most of the 13 responsibilities of the Geospatial Data Act. To comply with one responsibility, DHS has a Geospatial Information Officer and a dedicated Geospatial Management Office whose duties include overseeing the Act’s implementation and to coordinate with other agencies. However, DHS has only partially met, or not met, the remaining 12 responsibilities in the Act. DHS’ lack of progress in complying with the responsibilities outlined in the Act can be attributed to multiple external and internal factors. External factors include the need for additional guidance from the Federal Geographic Data Committee and the Office of Management and Budget to properly interpret and implement certain responsibilities. Internal factors include competing priorities that diverted resources away from fulfilling the Act’s 13 responsibilities. We made three recommendations that focus on increasing the resources necessary to comply with DHS’ 13 responsibilities under the Act. The Department concurred with all three recommendations.

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Policy Development and Research’s implementation of the responsibilities stated in the Geospatial Data Act of 2018 (The Act). We performed this review in response to a congressional mandate that HUD’s geospatial data be audited at least once every 2 years. The Act requires that we audit HUD’s collection, production, acquisition, maintenance, distribution, use, and preservation of geospatial data. Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD had implemented the 13 required responsibilities stated in section 759(a) of the Act.HUD had implemented 9 of the 13 responsibilities stated in section 759(a) of the Act. It was working toward implementing the remaining four responsibilities stated in sections 759(a)(1), 759(a)(2), 759(a)(4), and 759(a)(5) of the Act. This condition occurred because HUD did not allocate the necessary resources to ensure that it accomplished all 13 required responsibilities. As a result, HUD may not meet the necessary standards to promote transparency and accountability in providing accurate and complete information to stakeholders. Specifically, there is a risk that HUD may not have accurate and complete geospatial data available for use by other Federal agencies; State, local, and tribal governments; and other interested stakeholders. These uses include public health, economic growth, environmental protection and other purposes, improved policymaking, creation of public-private partnerships, and enhanced data usability and value.We recommend that the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research take appropriate actions to prioritize the required resources to ensure that HUD fully implements the responsibilities as required by sections 759(a)(1), 759(a)(2), 759(a)(4), and 759(a)(5) of the Act.

We found that the Department is in compliance with the applicable requirements outlined under section 759(a) of the Geospatial Data Act. Specifically, we found that the Department implemented all 10 of the 13 covered agency responsibilities listed in Section 759(a) of the Geospatial Data Act that we reviewed. We were unable to evaluate compliance with three covered agency responsibilities as the strategic planapplicable to two of the responsibilities has not yet been issued by the Federal Geographic Data Committee and applicable data standards related to the third responsibility have not yet been defined by the FGDC and Office of Management and Budget.

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