Federal Reports

Enforcement Investigations: Measures of Timeliness Showed SomeImprovement But Enforcement Can Better Communicate Capabilities forExpediting Investigations and Improve Internal Processes, Report No. 576

What We Looked AtWe queried and downloaded 74 single audit reports prepared by non-Federal auditors and submitted to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse between July 1, 2022, and September 30, 2022, to identify significant findings related to programs directly funded by the Department of Transportation (DOT). What We FoundWe found that reports contained a range of findings that impacted DOT programs. The auditors reported 17 incidents of significant noncompliance with Federal guidelines related to 13 grantees that require prompt action from DOT’s Operating Administrations (OA). Seven of these were repeat findings related to six grantees. The auditors also identified questioned costs totaling $3,546,767 for four grantees. Of this amount, $1,250,359 was related to the State of Rhode Island, and $1,350,319 was related to the Capital Area Transit System Baton Rouge, LA. Additionally, we identified nonmonetary findings that caused qualified opinions for the Chippewa Cree Tribe, the Government of Guam, the State of Illinois, the Klawock Cooperative Association, the City of Creswell, OR, and the Commonwealth Ports Authority of the Northern Marina Islands. RecommendationsWe recommend that DOT coordinate with the impacted OAs to develop corrective action plans to resolve and close the current and repeat findings identified in this report. We also recommend that DOT determine the allowability of the questioned transactions and recover $3,546,767, if applicable.

A civil settlement agreement was finalized between the United States Department of Justice and an Amtrak contractor on February 14, 2023. The contractor agreed to pay Amtrak $54,567 out of retainage held by Amtrak and an additional $9,822 to the United States for overbilling overhead rates above the maximum allowed for work performed on the New Jersey High Speed Rail Improvement Program from 2013 to 2017. Separate from the civil settlement agreement, the contractor also paid Amtrak $10,561 for overbilling overhead rates on the same project during the period from 2018 to 2020.

We found 13 properties with consecutive REAC scores below 60 that were missing the required flags in HUD’s Active Partners Performance System (APPS) for unacceptable physical condition. This condition occurred because HUD did not have a quality control program to ensure that the account executives manually entered the flags into APPS and there was no automated process for flagging a property once it received the second consecutive below-60 REAC score. As a result, HUD relied on incomplete previous participation information to make decisions about future participation. Not having sufficient information to assess its controlling participants could potentially impact the health and safety of residents at multifamily properties.