Federal Reports

As required by the Inspector General Act of 1978 (as amended), this Semiannual Report summarizes the activities of the Office of Inspector General for the preceding 6-month period.

Audit of the Railroad Retirement Board's Interagency Agreements

Additional Oversight and Monitoring of the SEC’s CAT Usage Is Needed, Report No. 585

The U.S. Postal Service relies on pre‑career employees to supplement its regular workforce. Pre-career employees are temporary workers who do not receive the same employee benefits as career employees and are not always guaranteed a regular schedule. The Postal Service’s 10-year strategic plan identified “unacceptably high rates of pre‑career employee turnover” as a key challenge and created a goal of stabilizing and empowering the workforce, which included a reduction of pre‑career workforce turnover by 50 percent.

The U.S. Postal Service implemented the Contract Logistics Enterprise Acquisition Resource (CLEAR) system and the Transportation Management System (TMS) in April 2022 to enhance the efficiency and reliability of its transportation network. CLEAR was designed to improve the management of transportation contracts, streamline payment processing, and enhance performance tracking. The TMS provides scheduling details, monitors real-time trip activities, processes payments, and tracks vouchers. The TMS relies on rate information from the CLEAR system to generate accurate trip payments. From April 2022 through March 2024, the Postal Service spent approximately $2.3 billion on dedicated transportation services.

According to 20 U.S.C. § 44, each member of the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents shall be paid for necessary travel and other actual expenses to attend meetings of the Board. The law also assigns the Board’s Executive Committee the responsibility of auditing these expenditures. Since 2008, at the request of the Executive Committee, the Smithsonian’s Office of the Inspector General has conducted audits of the Regents’ travel expenses. 

The objective of this audit was to determine whether Regents’ travel expense reimbursements for fiscal years 2023 and 2024 complied with the Travel Reimbursement Policy specified by the Office of the Regents.  

 

The OIG contracted with Sikich CPA LLC to conduct the Performance Audit of the NRC’s Implementation of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 for Fiscal Year 2024 Region III: Naperville, Illinois. The objective was to assess the effectiveness of the information security policies, procedures, and practices of the NRC Region III facility. The findings and conclusions presented in this report are the responsibility of Sikich. The OIG’s responsibility is to provide oversight of the contractor’s work in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
The agency’s staff indicated that they had no formal comments for inclusion in this report.
For the period March 2024 through November 2024, Sikich found that although the NRC generally implemented effective information security policies, procedures, and practices for Region III, the agency’s implementation of a subset of selected controls was not fully effective. There are weaknesses in Region III’s information security program and practices. As a result, one recommendation was made to assist Region III in strengthening its information security program.

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a national review to evaluate the governance structure and responsibilities related to the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) Chief Mental Health Officer (CMHO) role. 

The OIG found that VHA communicated inconsistent mandatory and discretionary VISN staffing requirements. Failure to provide consistent staffing requirements likely contributes to VISN leaders’ inadequate understanding of priority positions and lack of standardization.

VISN leaders did not consistently utilize the standardized organizational chart and used a variety of titles to represent the CMHO role; the OIG identified inaccuracies within VISN-provided organizational charts. The absence of consistent information regarding organizational governance structure and staffing may result in inequities in resources and oversight of VISN and facility mental health staff and services.

The OIG determined that Office of Mental Health leaders established multiple avenues to facilitate communication with CMHOs. 

The OIG found that CMHO functional statements varied in format and content and did not consistently align with performance plan elements. While flexibility based on unique VISN needs is important, the OIG would expect the inclusion of critical responsibilities to be identified consistently in both CMHO functional statements and performance plans.

All CMHOs reported providing oversight of specific mental health programs and services; however, half of the CMHOs described lack of authority as a major barrier to effectively overseeing and implementing actions for facility-level mental health services. Office of Mental Health and Office of Suicide Prevention leaders suggested that standardization of the CMHO position description would be helpful in increasing the effectiveness of the role. 

The OIG made five recommendations to the Under Secretary for Health related to VISN staffing requirements, the use of the VISN organizational chart, alignment of CMHO functional statements and performance plans, and CMHO role authority.