Federal Reports

What We Looked AtThe Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) air traffic controllers use the En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) system to manage over 3 million high-altitude en-route aircraft a month. Because of ERAM's importance to air traffic management, system outages can significantly impact operations in the National Airspace System (NAS). Our audit objective was to assess the causes of ERAM's outages and FAA's actions to address them.What We FoundWhile FAA has taken steps to address the seven ERAM failures since 2014, some vulnerabilities remain. These seven failures included two serious incidents that significantly disrupted the NAS. During one of these incidents, in August 2015, ERAM failed when a software tool at controller workstations overloaded system memory. The incident caused flight delays and cancellations that impacted thousands of flights over several days.FAA has since taken corrective actions to resolve the causes of these two serious incidents and other issues that caused five less serious outages. However, other issues remain unresolved. For example, FAA has not implemented annual testing of ERAM's contingency plan, as called for by Federal guidelines. In addition, FAA plans to decommission ERAM's existing backup system, the Enhanced Backup Surveillance System (EBUS), due to its incompatibility with upgrades to ERAM. However, FAA has not yet determined whether ERAM's remaining backup capability--the system's redundant dual channel design--will be sufficient to prevent future outages once EBUS is removed. The lack of sufficient backup capabilities could increase ERAM's vulnerability in the event of future unanticipated incidents.RecommendationsWe made three recommendations to improve FAA's ability to mitigate future ERAM disruptions. FAA has concurred with one of our recommendations and partially concurred with the other two. We consider all three of our recommendations resolved but open pending completion of planned actions.

An Amtrak Building and Bridges Supervisor in Baltimore, Maryland, was terminated from employment following an administrative hearing on October 23, 2018, for violating company policy by claiming and receiving pay for unworked hours and instructing a subordinate employee, also based in Baltimore, to use the supervisor’s company identification card to clock the supervisor in and out for his shifts on several occasions. The subordinate employee was also found to have violated company policy for his role in assisting the supervisor and, following an administrative hearing on October 25, 2018, the subordinate employee was suspended for 30-days

U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General's investigations newsletter for the period of August 1 - September 30, 2018.

We summarize the DOI’s top management and performance challenges for FY 2018. Nine challenge areas are included in this year’s report.

National Government Services, Inc., understated its Plan A Medicare segment pension assets as of January 1, 2015, by $21,152.

National Government Services, Inc., claimed $763,067 of unallowable Medicare pension costs on its Final Administrative Cost Proposals for fiscal years 2010 through 2013.

National Government Services, Inc., did not claim $1.1 million of allowable Medicare postretirement benefit costs on its Final Administrative Cost Proposals for fiscal years 2010 through 2013.

Our objectives were to identify CDC’s potential risks for preparing for and responding to hurricanes and other natural disasters and to determine whether CDC has designed and implemented controls and strategies to mitigate these potential risks.