Federal Reports

The Office of the Inspector General conducted an evaluation to determine if fire‑protection and ammonia safety systems at TVA coal plants were being properly maintained and identified issues were being addressed.  We determined ammonia systems were being properly maintained and identified issues were being addressed.  However, we determined fire protection systems were not always properly maintained and issues were not always being addressed timely.  Specifically, (1) some inspections and testing of fire-protection systems were not performed as required, (2) some fire-protection system issues were not resolved timely, and (3) one fire-protection subsystem was missing safety locks at 1 plant, which was subsequently addressed.  In addition, we identified concerns with documentation, including incomplete fire-protection impairment documentation and discrepancies in the required frequency of inspections between the fire protection Standard Programs and Processes and site‑specific job plans, which provides details of each plant’s fire-protection subsystems. 

Congress enacted the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) of 2016 to improve opioid therapy and pain management for veterans. Within CARA, the Jason Simcakoski Memorial and Promise Act (Jason’s Law) requires each Veterans Health Administration (VHA) medical facility to have a pain management team (PMT) to coordinate and oversee pain management therapy. The Pain Management, Opioid Safety, and Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PMOP) was established in part to ensure the requirements of CARA and Jason’s Law are met.

In fiscal years (FY) 2022 through 2024, the PMOP received $647 million in specific purpose funds to support pain management and opioid safety programs primarily at the medical-facility level. However, the PMOP returned about $126.7 million unused in FYs 2022 and 2023. The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this audit to evaluate the PMOP’s management of specific purpose funds.

The OIG found the PMOP did not always effectively communicate with VISNs and medical centers so that they could plan for efficient use of funds. In addition, the program did not always communicate important funding information with key officials before allocating funding. Finally, VHA and the PMOP need to strengthen oversight to ensure fully compliant PMTs are in place at each VHA facility.

The OIG made five recommendations to the under secretary for health. The OIG agreed to close two; VHA has already taken sufficient action related to instructing the PMOP to communicate pertinent funding information with key staff before the start of the next fiscal year. VHA also agreed to ensure the program clarifies and defines PMT requirements and establishes a way to periodically validate PMT information and to require the program and the chief operating officer to address each medical facility’s lack of progress in achieving a PMT.

Section 487(a)(17) of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA), requires postsecondary schools participating in Title IV programs to annually report data, including data relevant to students’ cost of attendance and financial aid and the schools’ graduation rates, to the U.S. Department of Education’s (Department) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to the satisfaction of the Secretary. The objective of our inspection was to determine whether the University of Texas Permian Basin (UT Permian Basin) reported verifiable data to IPEDS for the 2021–2022 reporting period. We determined that the UT Permian Basin reported verifiable data to the Department’s IPEDS for the 2021-2022 reporting period. Specifically, all data elements that we selected and reviewed that the school reported through the Graduation Rates, Institutional Characteristics, and Student Financial Aid surveys for the 2021–2022 reporting period were supported by datasets, information system reports, or other records. Because all the data sets that we reviewed were verifiable, we do not make any recommendations in this report. However, our results are limited to the data sets we reviewed, and it is critical that the UT Permian Basin continue to report verifiable data to IPEDS. 

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 Oklahoma City Healthcare System in Oklahoma. 

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

The OIG issued three recommendations for improvement in two domains:
   1.    Environment of care
     •    Safe and accessible pathways to clinical areas
     •    Medical equipment preventive maintenance
   2.    Patient safety
     •    Recording leader attendance at meetings to monitor test result communication data

This semiannual report informs Congress of the Peace Corps Office of Inspector General's work from October1, 2024, through March 31, 2025.