Federal Reports

Amtrak (the company) contracted with the independent public accounting firm of Ernst & Young LLP to audit its consolidated financial statements as of and for the fiscal year then ended, September 30, 2024, and to provide a report on internal control over financial reporting and compliance with certain provisions of laws, regulations, contracts and grant agreements, and other matters, which they issued on December 12, 2024.1 Because the company receives federal financial assistance, it must obtain an audit performed in accordance with U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards.

The contract also required Ernst & Young to perform a Single Audit of the company’s federal financial assistance for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2024, in accordance with the audit requirements of 2 C.F.R. 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (Uniform Guidance). The objective of the Single Audit was to test internal control over compliance with major federal program award requirements and determine whether the company complied with the laws, regulations, and provisions of contracts or grant agreements that may have a direct and material effect on its major federal programs.

As required by the Inspector General Act of 1978, we monitored the audit activities of Ernst & Young to help ensure audit quality and compliance with auditing standards. Our review disclosed no instances in which Ernst & Young did not comply, in all material respects, with U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards and Uniform Guidance requirements.

To address occupational shortages and support hiring efforts, VA leverages federal regulations that allow agencies to offer recruitment, relocation, and retention incentives to encourage candidates to accept positions that are difficult to fill or to keep high-quality staff. The OIG conducted this audit to evaluate VA’s controls over and governance of the use of these incentives for VHA positions. Although these types of incentives were used mostly for positions on staffing shortage lists, VA did not effectively govern the incentive process to ensure responsible VHA officials consistently captured mandatory information necessary to support an incentive award. The OIG team estimated 30 percent of incentives paid during fiscal years 2020 through 2023 were missing forms, lacked a sufficient justification, or were missing signatures. As a result, VHA paid employees about $340.9 million in incentives that were not adequately supported. Furthermore, the OIG team found VHA did not consistently include sufficient workforce and succession plan narratives for an estimated 20 percent of retention incentives, note employee performance ratings for 7 percent of relocation incentives, or obtain self-certifications for about 71 percent of employees who relocated. The team also identified 28 employees who received retention incentive payments up to an additional 11 and a half years after their award period had expired. VA improperly paid about $4.6 million to these employees for incentives that should have been terminated. The OIG made eight recommendations to improve the oversight of these incentives.

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Healthcare Facility Inspection program report describes the results of a focused evaluation of the care provided at the VA Atlanta Healthcare System in Decatur, Georgia. 

This evaluation focused on five key content domains:
     •    Culture
     •    Environment of care
     •    Patient safety
     •    Primary care
     •    Veteran-centered safety net

The OIG issued seven recommendations for improvement in five domains:
   1.    Culture
     •    Infrastructure issues
     •    Unanswered veteran phone calls
   2.    Environment of care
     •    Parking garage emergency call boxes
   3.    Patient safety
     •    Local test result policies and memorandums
     •    Institutional disclosures for adverse events
   4.    Primary care
     •    Panel sizes and access to care
   5.    Veteran-centered safety net
     •    Medical clearances for veterans in the Compensated Work Therapy program

This report presents the results of our audits of delivery operations and property conditions in the Arizona-New Mexico District in the WestPac Area.
This report presents a summary of the results of our self-initiated audits of delivery operations and property conditions at five delivery units, as well as district-wide delivery operations in the Arizona-New Mexico (AZ-NM) District in the WestPac Area (Project Number 25-046). The delivery units included the Boulder Hills Station, Mesa Four Peaks Station, Avondale Goodyear Main Post Office (MPO), Scottsdale Airpark Station, and Sunnyslope Carrier Annex in Arizona.

For our evaluation of the Bureau of Industry and Security’s (BIS's) detection of and response to cyber incidents, our objective was to assess the adequacy of actions taken by BIS when detecting and responding to cyber incidents in accordance with federal and departmental requirements. We found that (1) BIS lacked effective detection and response capabilities to handle our simulated malicious activities; (2) BIS misconfigured critical security controls for its export control networks; and (3) BIS mishandled classified and other privileged credentials.
 

We performed this review to determine the extent to which State Education Agencies (SEAs) and local educational agencies (LEAs) use digital wallets to facilitate the administration of U.S. Department of Education (Department) grant funds. Our review covered the period from October 1, 2022, through December 31, 2024.  Forty-five SEAs responded to our survey regarding the use of digital wallets to facilitate the administration of Department grant funds. Twelve of those SEAs reported using digital wallets to help administer some of their Department grants during our review period, and three of these planned to continue using digital wallets in 2025. SEAs primarily relied on one digital wallet vendor to help administer their Department grant funds. That vendor, used by 11 of the 12 SEAs, was responsible for helping to administer more than 95 percent of the Department grant funds for which SEAs reported using digital wallets. SEAs used digital wallets almost exclusively for their pandemic relief Department grants, including the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund, Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools grants, and Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund grants. SEAs most commonly used digital wallets for automated direct deposit reimbursement or payment, built in controls for fund use, and tracking of funds; and several SEAs reported that they relied, at least partially, on their digital wallet vendors to help ensure that applicable Federal grant requirements were followed. According to the SEAs that responded to our survey, a small number of LEAs used digital wallets to help administer their Department grant funds during our review period. Only one SEA reported that its LEAs used digital wallets, and that SEA further reported that only 5 to 10 LEAs in the State used digital wallets. Although LEAs’ use of digital wallets appeared to be limited based on the survey results, the full extent of LEAs’ digital wallet usage is not known since 6 SEAs did not complete the survey and 15 of the 45 respondent SEAs reported that they did not know whether their LEAs used digital wallets to help administer Department grant funds.