Federal Reports

We conducted a review to assess the procedures in place at TVA to ensure that new hires meet physical job requirements. In summary, we found TVA has a policy in place that requires all new hires to have a medical screening before starting work. However, the TVA Medical Examiners Guide and Health and Safety Practice 1, Occupational Health, do not specify (1)who is responsible for providing examiners with job descriptions to be used in their examination and (2)that examiners are required to utilize the job description information in conducting their physical job requirement evaluation. Management agreed with our findings and recommendations and has initiated or plans to initiate appropriate corrective action.

We conducted a review of TVA and contractor employment procedures to determine if TVA policies and procedures ensure the hiring of non-citizens complies with legal requirements. In summary, it appears that TVA has appropriate policies and procedures in place to ensure that (1)its hiring process is in compliance with applicable legal requirements and (2)contractors are responsible for ensuring that principals/employees under contract to TVA meet Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) requirements. However, we selected 34employees to verify TVA compliance with the INS requirements and found required information could not be provided for 9 employees due to the loss of electronic files. The Personnel Records Imaging System (PRIS) backup and server failures were addressed in OIG Audit No.2007-039T-01. However, we recommended management determine what actions are necessary since required information was lost due to system failures. Management agreed with our findings and has initiated or plans to initiate corrective action.