Federal Reports

We found that UCRC misclassified its agreements and did not verify whether subcontractors were on an exclusions list prior to awarding funds. 

We found that BOR complied with required laws and regulations when awarding drought mitigation funds but there are opportunities for improvement. 

We found that since 2016 the company has made targeted improvements to the processes and data it uses to manage its state-of-good-repair (SOGR) work, and other improvement initiatives are underway. Despite these efforts, the company’s infrastructure asset management capabilities have not advanced significantly because it has not yet taken some foundational steps, including fully establishing a governance framework and strengthening its SOGR infrastructure asset data. Until it addresses these issues, it cannot reasonably demonstrate how the federal funds it receives will reduce its SOGR backlog or the timeline to eliminate it.

We recommended that the company fully establish a governance framework for infrastructure asset management that includes specific objectives and performance metrics, as well as defined activities and resources needed to achieve a state of good repair. Further, we recommended that the company better communicate roles and responsibilities of staff and departments involved in SOGR work. We also recommended advancing ongoing data improvement efforts and developing additional controls to help maintain a complete, accurate inventory.

We determined whether the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) is ensuring that the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN) is achieving service availability requirements. We found that overall, FirstNet Authority did not ensure that the NPSBN met service availability requirements. We found that FirstNet Authority did not adequately assess contractor performance to ensure that AT&T achieved service availability requirements. Specifically,

• FirstNet Authority’s approach to measuring service availability fails to provide a comprehensive assessment, covering only a fraction of cell sites and of the NPSBN’s approximately 3-million-square-mile coverage footprint.
• FirstNet Authority did not ensure that contractor-provided information was reliable and accurate and that contract requirements were met.
• FirstNet Authority did not verify that service availability requirements were met for the Pacific territories.

On July 4, 2025, flash flooding occurred in Kerr County in central Texas when water levels along the Guadalupe River rose rapidly, causing widespread and severe property damage, injury, and loss of life. Given the catastrophic nature of the flash flood event, plus ongoing concerns about staffing levels at the National Weather Service (NWS), members of Congress asked OIG to examine NWS’s response and resources.

We reviewed the actions taken by NWS prior to and during the catastrophic flash flood. Throughout the event, NWS was responsible for coordinating with its core partners and issuing timely weather and emergency alerts. The Austin/San Antonio Weather Forecast Office (WFO) coordinated and communicated with core partners and issued multiple flood alerts on July 3 and 4. Although staffing vacancies existed at the WFO, staff asserted that the vacancies did not affect their ability to forecast, issue flood alerts, and provide support to Kerr County officials and other core partners.

This review provides a snapshot of key NWS actions and responses prior to and during the flood. It focuses on NWS staffing, coordination, forecasting, and issuance of flood alerts, with an emphasis on NWS support provided to Kerr County, Texas.

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) business unit (BU) focuses on identifying and prioritizing enterprise risks. Annually, ERM leads the preparation of an enterprise risk portfolio, which includes risks across TVA, to aid leadership in strategic and business planning processes.  Each BU includes their specific risks in the portfolio and documents the probability of occurrence, financial impact, and actions to manage the risk.  TVA Nuclear included Asset/Equipment Failure –  Low-Pressure Turbines risk in fiscal year (FY) 2025 ERM risk portfolio. The risk description stated that one or more low-pressure turbines fail to perform as designed and the details only included Units 2 and 3 at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant (Browns Ferry).  The actions to address the risk included installing new turbines and steam-path upgrades.  Due to the importance of the reliability of TVA’s nuclear assets, we performed an evaluation of the risk mitigation of low-pressure turbines to determine if TVA was taking planned actions and measuring the impact of completed actions.

We determined TVA has taken actions or has plans in place to address the low-pressure turbine risk.  TVA Nuclear has completed 11 of 15 mitigating actions identified for the risk.  The 4 remaining actions are expected to be completed between 2028 and 2030. However, we determined TVA was not effectively measuring the impact of completed actions and a change in the risk scope on the probability of occurrence and financial impact.  In addition, we identified some risk information was not documented accurately.

A former executive of a Chicago-area non-profit organization has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for misappropriating nearly $1.9 million through a pair of fraud schemes.

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a healthcare inspection to assess the coordination and scheduling of community care for a patient with a lung mass suspicious for cancer at the VA Fayetteville Coastal Healthcare System (system) in North Carolina. The inspection followed a complaint that the patient experienced delays in diagnosis and treatment between December 2023 and May 2024. The OIG substantiated delays in ordering diagnostic imaging and scheduling community care, which may have reduced the opportunity for earlier diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer.

The patient’s primary care provider did not act on a radiologist’s recommendation for a chest computed tomography (CT) scan for over 15 months after an abnormal chest x-ray in March 2022. After a CT scan confirmed a lung mass, a pulmonologist requested expedited community care, but staff delayed scheduling the appointment for more than five months. The OIG found no explanation for the delay, despite documented handoffs and reminders. 

Contributing factors included leadership turnover, lack of a community care oversight council, and absence of procedures to prioritize high-risk consults for serious conditions.

System leaders also missed opportunities to address the patient’s delayed care and broader programmatic deficiencies. Leaders did not follow VA policy for investigating the complaint, initiate timely peer reviews, or complete an institutional disclosure. Efforts to address a backlog of unscheduled consults were fragmented and ineffective. The OIG concluded system leaders did not ensure timely care and oversight. 

The OIG made eight recommendations. In response, VA leaders shared plans to review consult management practices and the system’s backlog, ensure implementation of a community care oversight council, management of high-priority consults, quality management tracking processes, staff training, and attempts to disclose the adverse event.