Federal Reports

Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of management controls over recoveries for private party damage to U.S. Postal Service vehicles.

OIG identified monitoring and reporting on the integrity of HHS programs, including responsible stewardship of HHS programs and protection of resources, as a top management and performance challenge for HHS. NIH operations are responsible for the prudent management and careful stewardship of approximately $1.8 billion in accountable personal property. The Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019 and the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019, P.L. No. 115-245, provided HHS OIG with $5 million from the NIH appropriation for oversight of grant programs and operations of NIH.Our objective was to determine whether NIH had controls in place to effectively and efficiently track and monitor information technology (IT) resources and internet protocol (IP) addresses.

Our objective was to assess the cost, schedule, and technical performance of the Program’s acquisition and development effort for selected instruments. We found the following: (1) The Program exceeded contract definitization timelines and conducted late and abbreviated baseline reviews. (2) JPSS-2 Cross-track Infrared Sounder quality assurance did not adequately integrate contract risks into its surveillance activities. (3) Award-fee determinations did not motivate the contractor toward exceptional performance. We recommend that the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary for Operations do the following: (1) Require programs notify the Joint Agency Program Management Council before NOAA-funded NASA contracts exceed definitization timelines. (2) Require a Joint Agency Program Management Council assessment before an Integrated Baseline Review requirement is removed, abridged, or its timing adjusted, for NOAA-funded NASA contracts or major contract modifications requiring earned value management. We recommend that the NOAA Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services do the following: (3) Ensure the Program adequately incorporates contract risks and executes prevention-focused surveillance as part of its quality assurance activities. We recommend that the NOAA Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services coordinate with the Director of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to do the following: (4) Conduct a joint review of contractor performance evaluation practices and determine whether changes could more effectively motivate contractors to achieve desired outcomes for ongoing and future contract negotiations on NOAA-funded projects. (5) Establish a working definition of “significant” cost overrun to help inform strategies that progressively motivate contractors to improve before accumulating excessive cost and schedule performance deficits, for ongoing and future NOAA-funded NASA contracts.

This management information report provides the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) perspective on challenges the U.S. Department of Education (Department) may face as it implements and oversees the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. In preparing this report, we reviewed recent audit work performed by OIG and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) as well as OIG’s annual Management Challenges reports. We also reviewed challenges that the Department faced when administering education-related grant programs funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), to include how the challenges were addressed andwhat lessons were noted as needing to be considered in the event that legislation providing a large yet temporary funding increase for new or existing programs (like the Recovery Act) was enacted in the future.We identified challenges related to grantee oversight and monitoring, student financial assistance oversight and monitoring, and data quality and reporting that the Department should consider as it implements and oversees the CARES Act.