Federal Reports

At the request of the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Supply Chain, we examined the cost proposal submitted by a company for engineering, design, and construction support services. Our examination objective was to determine if the company's cost proposal was fairly stated for a planned 5-year, $35 million contract.In our opinion, the company's cost proposal was overstated. Specifically, we found the (1) proposed total labor markup rate, for recovery of the company's indirect costs, was overstated based on its most recent actual costs, (2) labor markup rates included profit, and (3) proposed performance fee was overstated based on the request for proposal's (RFP) fee limits. We estimated TVA could avoid about $2.9 million over the planned $35 million contract by negotiating (1) reduced total labor markup rates to more accurately reflect the company's recent actual costs, (2) removal of the profit included in the labor markup rates, and (3) a reduced performance fee to comply with the RFP's fee limits. In addition, we found the company did not comply with the RFP's requirement related to labor rate ranges.(Summary Only)

The auditors determined that for FY2020, the financial statements were fairly presented, in all material respects, in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. The independent audit report includes two material weaknesses and three significant deficiencies related to the Commission’s internal control over financial reporting, and one finding related to noncompliance. The auditors made 25 recommendations in the report.

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a healthcare inspection to evaluate an allegation regarding Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) staff’s management of a veteran caller who died the same day as contacting the VCL.The OIG substantiated that VCL staff did not initiate an emergency dispatch for the caller who reported use of alcohol and over the counter medications that cause drowsiness. VCL policies did not address management of intoxicated callers or assessment of risk for accidental overdose. The VCL did not have policies related to safety planning with intoxicated callers or risk assessment of accidental overdose of illicit or over-the-counter drugs.VCL leaders implemented criteria for aggregated data reviews and supervisor follow-up related to silent monitoring to oversee the quality of responders’ telephone calls. However, the supervisory intervention only applied to consecutive calls rather than call trends, which may have contributed to inadequate performance improvement and quality assurance initiatives.The caller’s lethality risk should have been considered high, and VCL staff should have initiated other actions including submission of an urgent or emergent suicide prevention coordinator consult.The OIG made one recommendation to the Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Executive Director related to the development of suicide prevention strategies for weekend and holiday callers. The OIG made seven recommendations to the VCL Director related to a review of the caller’s contacts, evaluation of lethal means training, written guidance on responders’ documentation of supervisory oversight and consideration of independent supervisory documentation, policy and training of callers’ substance use and overdose risk, use of a standardized safety plan template and completion of safety planning per VCL standards, criteria for supervisor follow-up including silent monitoring criteria, and a system to identify caller contacts that warrant internal reviews and track the review process.

Audit of NLRB IT Security for the FY 2020 FISMA submission

The DFC OIG is an independent and objective oversight office created within DFC by theInspector General Act of 1978 (IG Act), as amended by the Better Utilization of Investmentto International Development Act of 2018 (BUILD Act). We were created to promote theintegrity, transparency and efficiency of DFC programs and operations by providingindependent oversight and objective reporting to multiple stakeholders including theDFC Board of Directors and Congress.