Federal Reports

Our objective was to perform the required risk assessment to determine whether an audit or review of the Department’s grant closeout process was warranted. We assessed the risk of the Department’s grant closeout process as moderate and determined that an audit or review is warranted. Specifically, we identified risks with the reliability of grant data and related GONE Act reporting, as well as the Department’sgrant closeout policies and procedures, including a policy allowing older grants to be closed in compliance without required reports being provided by the grantee. In addition, we also found that both the volume of expired grants and amount of undisbursed grant funds has significantly increased between the date of initial GONE Act reporting (September 30, 2017) and January 30, 2020, indicating that grant closeout is less of a focus now that GONE Act reporting is over.

A Senior Director in Washington, D.C., was terminated from employment on April 14, 2020, following the issuance of our investigative report to the company. Our investigation found that the employee violated company policy when she participated on a Technical Evaluation Committee involved in the rating and selection of her friend’s company to conduct work for Amtrak. In addition, we found that the employee accepted a gift from this vendor.

A manager violated company policies by repeatedly directing company employees to provide a deluxe bedroom free of charge to a passenger, resulting in a potential financial loss to the company of $11,512. On April 8, 2020, a counseling letter was issued to the manager and included a requirement that he attend courses in Ethics in the Workplace and Workplace Harassment.

We chose the Foothill Station based on our analysis of city carriers returning after 6:00 p.m. using data from the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW). Our objective was to review select mail delivery and customer service operations at the Foothill Station. Our fieldwork was completed before the President of the United States issued the national emergency declaration concerning the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak on March 13, 2020. The results of this audit do not reflect process and/or operational changes that may have occurred at this facility as a result of the pandemic.