Federal Reports

The U.S. Postal Service’s mission is to provide timely, reliable, secure, and affordable mail and package delivery to more than 160 million residential and business addresses across the country. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General reviews delivery operations at facilities across the country and provides management with timely feedback in furtherance of this mission.

The U.S. Postal Service’s mission is to provide timely, reliable, secure, and affordable mail and package delivery to more than 160 million residential and business addresses across the country. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General reviews delivery operations at facilities across the country and provides management with timely feedback in furtherance of this mission.

The U.S. Postal Service needs effective and productive operations to fulfill its mission of providing prompt, reliable, and affordable mail service to the American public. It has a vast transportation network that moves mail and equipment among approximately 280 processing facilities and 35,000 post offices, stations, and branches. The Postal Service is transforming its processing and logistics networks to become more scalable, reliable, visible, efficient, automated, and digitally integrated. This includes modernizing operating plans and aligning the workforce; leveraging emerging technologies to provide world-class visibility and tracking of mail and packages in near real time; and optimizing the surface and air transportation network. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General reviews the efficiency of mail processing operations at facilities across the country and provides management with timely feedback to further the Postal Service’s mission.

The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, as amended, established the Board of Governors (Board), which is generally comprised of nine governors appointed by the President of the United States, the postmaster general, and the deputy postmaster general. There was a full Board throughout fiscal year (FY) 2023. The Board reviews the U.S. Postal Service’s practices and policies and establishes objectives and goals in accordance with Title 39 of the U.S. Code. In FY 2023, the Board incurred $470,020 in salaries, travel, meeting fees, and professional service expenses. The Office of the Board of Governors’ policy requires annual audits of the Board’s expenses.

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an inspection at the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System (facility) in Columbus to review an allegation that implementation of the new electronic health record (EHR) led to a prescription backlog. While reviewing the allegation, the OIG determined facility leaders took timely and sustainable steps to manage the issue. However, the OIG identified other facility and national pharmacy-related patient safety issues.The OIG found implementation of the new EHR at the facility, despite known pharmacy-related patient safety and usability issues, contributed to ongoing patient safety risks and usability challenges at the facility. The new EHR contributed to pharmacy-related patient safety issues nationally as a software coding error resulted in inaccurate medication and allergy information transmission from new EHR sites to legacy EHR sites. Affected patients were not notified of their risk of harm and the OIG remains concerned for their safety. The OIG learned VHA communicated recommendations to providers to mitigate the risk of harm to affected patients; however, the recommendations were non-sustainable. Additionally, the new EHR's operational inefficiencies required increased clinical pharmacist staffing and development of workarounds and educational materials to complete pharmacy processes. The inefficiencies also led to pharmacy staff burnout, job dissatisfaction, and decreased morale.The OIG made three recommendations to the Deputy Secretary related to resolution of patient safety and usability issues. The OIG made six recommendations to the Under Secretary for Health. One recommendation focuses on accurate patient medication data and three recommendations address patient and provider awareness and evaluation of the risk of harm related to data transmission issues. Another recommendation is related to pharmacy staffing, and one focuses on the underlying technical and functional issues requiring workarounds and educational materials to perform pharmacy operations.

The objective of the audit was to determine whether the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) implemented selected components of its statewide accountability system in accordance with Mississippi’s approved State plan and any approved amendments. Our audit covered MDE’s processes for implementing selected components of Mississippi’s statewide accountability system based on accountability data for school years 2017–2018, 2018–2019, and 2021–2022. The selected components were (1) establishment of long-term goals for improved academic achievement, (2) indicators used to measure student academic achievement and school success, (3) annual meaningful differentiation, and (4) identification of low-performing schools and schools with low-performing student subgroups. Our audit also covered the funding and support services that MDE provided to LEAs with schools identified in the fall of 2022 as needing comprehensive support and improvement (CSI), targeted support and improvement (TSI), and additional targeted support and improvement (ATSI). We found that MDE generally implemented the long-term goals, indicators, annual meaningful differentiation, and identification of low-performing schools’ components of its statewide accountability system in accordance with Mississippi’s approved State plan and amendment. However, its implementation of several aspects of the accountability system deviated from the plan. In several cases, the changes warranted the Department’s review and approval; however, MDE implemented the changes without (1) submitting amendments to the Department or (2) waiting for the Department to approve the amendments. In addition, found that MDE did not always calculate indicator scores, perform annual meaningful differentiation, and identify schools for CSI in accordance with Mississippi’s approved State plan and amendment. We also determined that MDE provided funding and additional support to all 236 Mississippi public schools that it identified in the fall of 2022 as needing additional support based on accountability data for school years 2017–2018, 2018–2019, and 2021–2022. Lastly, as noted in the “Other Matters” section of our report, MDE did not take corrective actions that were responsive to the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor’s recommendations for ensuring the accuracy and completeness of graduation rate data used in Mississippi’s statewide accountability system.

CSO tank construction delays may increase taxpayer costs to complete the cleanup remedy at the Gowanus Canal Superfund site and prolong community exposure to contaminants.