Federal Reports

UI was already a strained system, but the pandemic exacerbated existing challenges and created new ones which lead to massive fraud. We sampled 45 cases and learned about the schemes and methods fraudsters used. Find out what can be done to improve UI for the future. Read our report to find out more.

An Amtrak customer service representative based in Miami, Florida, signed a civil settlement agreement on April 16, 2024, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida. The employee agreed to pay a total of $25,400 to the Small Business Administration (SBA), which includes damages, fees and a fine. Our investigation found that the employee submitted a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan application to the SBA that included false statements and information. As a result, the employee received a PPP loan in the amount of $20,810 to which she was not entitled.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) required states to establish an interest-earning election fund, in to which grant funds are deposited and maintained. OIG, through the independent public accounting firm of McBride, Lock & Associates, LLC, audited compliance with these requirements. The audit included open Election Security and Section 251 grants at 34 states and territories, as of September 30, 2022.

Why We Did This Report We conducted this evaluation to determine whether the EPA’s oversight and implementation of institutional controls will support effective use of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or IIJA, funding at the American Creosote Works Inc. (Pensacola Plant) Superfund site in Pensacola, Florida. The EPA allocated approximately $40 million in IIJA funds for the final remediation of this site. Summary of Findings The institutional controls that the EPA has established at the American Creosote Works Inc. (Pensacola Plant) Superfund site in Pensacola, Florida, related to contaminated groundwater and soil are not sufficient to prevent potential exposure to contamination. For contaminated groundwater, the institutional control that the EPA relied on did not prevent well drilling or require groundwater well plugging and abandonment. The EPA also did not plan to secure permission from private property owners to plug and abandon any wells that the EPA encountered during remediation, potentially wasting at least $1.3 million in remediation funds from the IIJA. For contaminated soil, the EPA did not implement institutional controls to prevent potential exposure to off-facility parcel contamination or to inform the wider public of the extent of contamination. Further, the EPA does not plan to implement institutional controls on these parcels after remediation to prevent the disturbance of unremediated soil, potentially wasting $5.4 million in IIJA funds allocated for the parcels’ remediation.

Our office remains committed to investigating and prosecuting fraud cases, and identifying opportunities to improve related internal controls. Ultimately, the company is responsible for preventing, detecting, and reporting fraud and instituting the controls necessary to do so. To help inform the company’s efforts to combat this persistent threat, we issued a report in May 2023 that identified four fraud risk areas facing the company: contracts and procurements, health care, employee wrongdoing, and cybercrime. That report highlighted indicators of potential fraud as well as mitigation activities the company could undertake to address these risks. This follow‐on report provides deeper insights on a specific fraud risk area—contracts and procurements—for the company’s consideration as it continues its unprecedented expansion in mission and federal funding. Accordingly, the purpose of this report is to share insights from industry practices and our own observations about collecting and analyzing data to monitor for and detect contract and procurement fraud.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.