Federal Reports

The OIG issued this memorandum to help VHA determine whether additional actions are needed to address significant cost concerns and potential issues about patients’ length of stay and quality of care for residential substance use disorder treatment provided under community care contracts with two third-party administrators (TPAs). The OIG found the contracts do not require community providers to use designated billing codes, which could lead to VHA overpaying providers for these services. Though VHA has amended the contract for one TPA, negotiations are ongoing with the other; until this occurs, overpayments to the second TPA—which were over $268 million for FYs 2023 and 2024—will continue.

The OIG is also concerned that lax oversight of the TPAs could lead to VHA overpaying for these services because TPAs may bill for unnecessary treatment that could needlessly lengthen the time a veteran receives care. Further, the OIG is concerned about the quality of residential substance use disorder treatment veterans receive in the community and suggests greater oversight could mitigate financial risk as well as safeguard the care veterans receive.

The OIG notes that while VHA has taken steps to create a new payment policy and has completed a contract modification with the first TPA to clarify the use of billing codes, VHA should apply those changes to current and future contracts and monitor whether these changes control costs. The OIG also suggests VHA consider consulting with mental health staff at authorizing VA facilities for feedback on improving the care veterans receive in the community for these services.

The United States Coast Guard (Coast Guard) does not have a comprehensive system to initiate, investigate, and report suspension and revocation (S&R) actions of merchant mariner (mariner) credentials, and therefore cannot ensure the suitability of all mariners.  We found:  • The Coast Guard did not always investigate allegations of mariner misconduct because it has not developed a comprehensive case management system for the S&R process, nor has it developed internal procedures specifying which systems and processes Investigating Officers should use when investigating allegations. • The Coast Guard processes to obtain and record essential S&R information in its Merchant Mariner Licensing and Documentation (MMLD) database are not always effective, which leads to transmitting inaccurate information to the maritime community and the public. • The MMLD database is limited in its capabilities to store S&R decisions in a way that supports program oversight. • The Coast Guard does not have formal policies requiring Investigating Officers to document the reason(s) for not pursuing a preliminary case, resulting in reduced transparency. 

In fiscal year (FY) 2024, the U.S. Postal Service handled more than 11.6 million undeliverable Parcel Select packages that were scanned as return-to-sender. The Postal Service must process these packages at the post offices that serve the original delivery address and the return address. To receive these returns, the addressee must pay postage, which totaled about $138 million in FY 2024. A U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigation found these packages to be vulnerable to theft. 

DOI is not consistently reducing cybersecurity risks by remediating software vulnerabilities that have been rated as the most severe.

Our Objective(s)
To assess (1) FAA's assignment of risk levels to Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) grant recipients, and (2) the impact of the assigned risk levels on FAA's IIJA oversight efforts.

Why This Audit
IIJA provides $20 billion over fiscal years 2022-2026 for three grant programs to address aging aviation infrastructure. FAA is using its well-established Airport Improvement Program (AIP) policies and procedures to administer IIJA grant programs. However, these programs broaden the uses of funds beyond the purposes allowable under AIP, which could introduce additional risks to IIJA-funded airport sponsors. Given the importance of accurately assessing risk and FAA's IIJA oversight responsibilities, we initiated this audit.

What We Found
FAA's assignment of risk levels does not consider all potential risks to IIJA-funded grant recipients.
FAA develops an overall risk rating for airport sponsors receiving funds under AIP to administer IIJA grant programs. Most of these sponsors' assessments were completed prior to receiving IIJA funds and may not account for all potential risks to IIJA-funded grant recipients.
FAA's policy does not specify what types of changes in an airport sponsor's conditions or risk factors would require project managers to initiate an interim risk assessment. In a survey of FAA project managers, 79 of 84 (94 percent) indicated they had not conducted interim assessments.
FAA's grant payment policy does not specify where or how to document the grant payment risk level result separately from the overall risk level. Therefore, project managers may not differentiate between the levels, presuming both risks are the same.

FAA's nominal risk ratings for most IIJA-funded airport sponsors and breakdowns in internal control procedures hinder IIJA oversight efforts.
FAA assigned most IIJA-funded airport sponsors a nominal risk rating, subjecting those sponsors to the lowest level of oversight.
FAA did not properly apply its internal control procedures for overseeing IIJA-funded airport sponsors, resulting in $338 million in unsupported costs.

Recommendations
We made 6 recommendations to improve FAA's oversight of IIJA grants to airport sponsors.

Our Objective(s)
To assess the Department of Transportation's (DOT) (1) process for reviewing consumer complaints for airline ticket refunds and (2) efforts to hold airlines accountable for providing timely refunds to consumers.

Why This Audit
As the airline industry began to respond to and recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it experienced an increase in flight delays, cancellations, and consumer requests for airline ticket refunds. Increased flight delays and cancellations resulted in DOT receiving substantially more consumer complaints about airlines' failure to provide ticket refunds. Given DOT's responsibility to regulate and enforce consumer protection laws along with the airline ticket refund complaints remaining significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels, we initiated this audit.

What We Found
The Office of Aviation Consumer Protection (OACP) revised its consumer complaint review process after refund-related complaints significantly increased during the pandemic.
OACP received over 139,000 refund complaints between 2020 and 2022. In 2019 there were 15,332 complaints, including 1,568 refund complaints.
In spring 2020, OACP stopped analyzing every airline response to consumer complaints to determine substantiveness and identifying whether every airline had a pattern of violations to refer to the attorneys for potential investigation. Instead, according to OACP, it conducted sample reviews of consumer complaints to determine airlines' compliance with consumer protection requirements and investigate airlines that OACP considered problematic.
In January 2021, OACP streamlined analysts' pandemic case coding by reducing the number of codes to improve consistency. Later, OACP officials stopped coding airline consumer complaints due to high volume and staffing limitations.
As of April 2025, OACP has not resumed analyzing airline responses to consumer complaints, which conflicts with several requirements. While OACP plans to use a new cloud-based system to aid complaint analysis, the launch has been delayed by more than a year.

OACP relies on airlines' self-certification of refund data to determine credits and offsets to civil penalties.
OACP assessed civil penalties of over $155 million to 14 airlines for failing to provide prompt refunds without verifying the accuracy of refund data from the airlines.
OACP is at risk of inaccurately crediting and offsetting civil penalty amounts and not deterring airlines from violating consumer protection regulations.

Recommendations
We made 2 recommendations to improve OACP's process for reviewing consumer complaints for airline ticket refunds and their efforts to hold airlines accountable for providing timely refunds to consumers.