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 VA Jackson Healthcare System in Mississippi. This evaluation focused on five key content domains:
•    Culture
•    Environment of care
•    Patient safety
•    Primary care
•    Veteran-centered safety net
The OIG issued one recommendation for VA to correct an identified deficiency in one domain:
1.    Primary care
•    Panel size accuracy

The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) requires each agency’s Inspector General to conduct an annual independent evaluation to determine the effectiveness of the information security program (ISP) and practices of its respective agency.  Our objective was to determine the effectiveness of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) ISP and practices as defined by the FY 2025 IG FISMA Reporting Metrics.  Our audit scope was limited to answering the fiscal year (FY) 2025 IG metrics, which include 20 core and 5 supplemental IG metrics. The FISMA methodology considers metrics at a maturity level 4 (managed and measurable) or higher to be at an effective level of security.

Based on our analysis of the FY 2025 IG metrics and associated maturity models, we determined TVA's ISP and practices were operating in an effective manner as defined by the FY 2025 IG FISMA Reporting Metrics.  However, we identified areas for improvement in both the core and supplemental metrics to further improve TVA’s ISP and practices. 

In October 2023, the Postal Service deployed a major change to operations when it began piloting its Local Transportation Optimization (LTO) initiative. The initiative was designed to reduce the number of transportation trips to and from select post offices and increase the amount of mail transported on each trip. As of November 18, 2024, the Postal Service implemented the LTO initiative in 16 regions, including the New Orleans region on August 12, 2024. Our audit objective is to determine the impacts associated with the Postal Service’s LTO initiative in the New Orleans region.

This report presents the results of our self-initiated audit of the Network Changes: Local Transportation Optimization in the New Orleans Region (Project Number 25-057). Our objective was to determine the impacts associated with the Postal Service’s Local Transportation Optimization (LTO) initiative in the New Orleans Region.

Background

As part of its Delivering for America plan, the Postal Service announced several initiatives to modernize its processing and delivery network, some of which impact costs and service performance. One of those strategies was to redesign its surface transportation network to create high performing, lower cost, efficient, and reliable surface transportation capable of moving more volume on fewer trips. To support this strategy, the Postal Service began piloting its LTO initiative, which was designed to reduce the number of transportation trips to and from select or “optimized” post offices. The LTO initiative was deployed in its first region around Richmond, VA, on October 28, 2023. The LTO initiative was implemented in 17 regions, including the New Orleans region on August 12, 2024, and officially concluded in January 2025, with the final implementation near the Little Rock, AR Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC).

Dragonfly, a rotorcraft lander that will fly like a large drone, isdesigned to gather samples from Saturn’s moon Titan, characterize Titan’s habitability, and look for precursors of the origin of life. However, the project has undergone multiple replans impacting cost and schedule, resulting in a life-cycle cost increase of nearly $1 billion and over 2 years of delays. 

Because this report contains Controlled Unclassified Information, it is not being released to the public.

The Department of Wildlife ensured grant funds and license revenue were used for allowable activities and complied with laws and requirements.  

The Office of Inspector General performed an audit of IRA—Discrimination Financial Assistance Program (DFAP) to evaluate USDA’s internal controls related to consistent and accurate reviews of applications for assistance and proper disbursements of DFAP.

Note: This report contains sensitive content that is being withheld from public release. Any monetary impact amounts redacted from this report are not reflected in monetary totals.