Federal Reports

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Healthcare Facility Inspection program report describes the results of a focused evaluation of the care provided at the Healthcare Facility Inspection of the VA Central California Health Care System in Fresno. 

This evaluation focused on five key content domains:
     •    Culture
     •    Environment of care
     •    Patient safety
     •    Primary care
     •    Veteran-centered safety net

The OIG issued seven recommendations for VA to correct identified deficiencies in three domains:
   1.    Environment of care
     •    Badge holder responsibilities
     •    Signs
     •    Privacy curtains, preventive equipment maintenance, splash resistant bottom shelves
     •    Expired, damaged, and contaminated medications
     •    Pharmaceutical grade medication refrigerators
   2.    Primary care
     •    Staffing
   3.    Veteran-centered safety net
     •    Housing and Urban Development–Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program staffing

The objective of this audit was to determine the extent to which the National Collections Program had effective controls over the processes to award monies from the Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF) and ensure that these funds were spent in accordance with their intended purposes.

We made nine recommendations for Smithsonian management to strengthen controls over the awarding and monitoring of CCPF funds, ensure that recipient units timely submit interim and final reports on project results, and require that units follow proper procedures in administering the Pan-Smithsonian Cryo Initiative. Management concurred with all nine recommendations.

In March 2025, we identified and conveyed to the Department suspicious activity related to parent information used on multiple dependent student Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms. At the time, FSA flagged these students for identity verification and we issued “Fraud Watch Issue 1: Potentially Fraudulent Activity Involving Parent Information Included on FAFSA.” In June 2025, we initiated analysis of additional data and ultimately found that this pattern of activity involving dependent students with unusual parent data on the FAFSA had continued. We determined that 12,026 dependent student identities submitted FAFSAs associated with 1,991 parent identities where it is unlikely that the student and parent are related or associated. As a result, these FAFSA submissions have a high likelihood of being fraudulent—a potential loss of almost $3.5 million in Federal student aid associated with these FAFSA submissions during award year 2024–2025. We recommend that FSA (1) work with the IRS to implement additional controls to detect and prevent the misuse of stolen identities on FAFSA submissions, especially fraud schemes involving the use of potentially stolen student identities and nonrelated, potentially stolen parent identities.  And (2) conduct risk-based verification and validation procedures at the time FSA IDs are created. This can prevent the improper disbursement of Federal student aid based on fraudulent FAFSA submissions containing stolen identities. 

BLM generally accounted for helium royalties collected; however, it did not always identify, track, collect, and properly oversee helium royalties.

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Healthcare Facility Inspection program report describes the results of a focused evaluation of the care provided at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System in Reno. 

This evaluation focused on five key content domains:
     •    Culture
     •    Environment of care
     •    Patient safety
     •    Integrated veteran care
     •    Veteran-centered safety net

The OIG issued two recommendations for VA to correct identified deficiencies in two domains:
   1.    Environment of care
     •    Medical equipment storage
   2.    Patient safety
     •    Service-level workflows for test result communication