Federal Reports

The PRAC examined whether the Small Business Administration (SBA) Phase III fraud controls, which were applied to process Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans in 2021, would have likely detected the earlier fraud found in PPP criminal cases. SBA designed the PPP Phase III controls to address significant fraud identified in the earlier phases of the program and some were later used by the SBA in its Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) program.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement should implement policies and procedures if it establishes a special case royalty relief program to address declines in commodity prices.

The official embezzled $95,001 by making personal purchases.

We substantiated allegations that a leaseholder failed to make timely royalty payments for minerals (gravel) a subcontractor removed from a tribally owned gravel pit.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) is initiating a risk assessment of the Commission’s Government Charge Card Programs. Our overall objectives are to 1) assess, identify and analyze the risks of illegal, improper or erroneous purchases and payments; and 2) determine whether the results of the risk assessment justify performing an audit in compliance with the Government Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act of 2012.

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Program report provides a focused evaluation of VHA facilities’ selected requirements and guidelines for medication management. This evaluation focused on compliance with program requirements and processes related to long-term opioid use for pain.This report describes medication management findings from healthcare inspections initiated at 36 VHA medical facilities from November 4, 2019, through September 21, 2020. Each inspection involved interviews with facility leaders and staff and reviews of clinical and administrative processes. The results in this report are a snapshot of VHA performance at the time of the fiscal year 2020 OIG reviews.The OIG found general compliance with many of the selected requirements. However, the OIG identified weaknesses with• aberrant behavior risk assessments,• concurrent benzodiazepine therapy,• urine drug testing,• informed consent,• patient follow-up, and• quality measure oversight.

Letter to Shalanda Young, Acting Director, Office of Management and Budget

For our final report on our audit of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES)–R series program (the Program), our objective was to assess the Program’s progress in achieving launch readiness for the GOES-T mission. To satisfy our objective, we examined technical performance challenges and changes to technical, schedule, and cost baselines since GOES-S launched in March 2018. We found the following: I. The Program works toward the earliest achievable launch dates at potentially increased development risk; II. the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) is planning GOES launches sooner than its policy requires without analyzing the costs; and III. NESDIS assumes ground storage of satellites is not viable, but has not formally studied tradeoffs.