Federal Reports

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) did not always conduct and manage assessments of owned and leased facilities for the safe and economical use of its real property. Department of Homeland Security policy requires CBP to assess the condition, function, and overall performance of its real property every 3 years. CBP uses assessment information to identify any critical or life safety deficiencies that may need to be addressed. However, during fiscal years 2018 through 2023, CBP did not complete assessments for 63 of 288 (22 percent) facilities. Of the 225 completed assessments, none were performed on a 3-year cycle as required by policy. Additionally, CBP did not always resolve critical or life safety deficiencies identified in its assessments in a timely manner. As of January 2024, 448 of 767 (58 percent) identified critical or life safety deficiencies remained unresolved. Finally, CBP did not ensure data in its real property system of record was accurate and complete.

OIG reviewed USDA’s compliance with the covered agency responsibilities specific to subsection 759(a) of the Geospatial Data Act.

Objective: To determine whether the Social Security Administration issued payments to beneficiaries who were reported as missing in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

Ambulatory care, which refers to medical services performed in outpatient settings, is the basis by which most care is delivered within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) healthcare system. Because over half of VHA’s medical care budget is for ambulatory care (about $65.1 billion for FY 2023), the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this audit to determine whether VHA has adequate controls over its budget formulation process to ensure its ambulatory care budget estimate is reliable. The OIG found that VHA could strengthen internal controls over its budget formulation process to provide reasonable assurance that the ambulatory care budget estimate is reliable. VHA lacks documented procedures, including assigned roles and responsibilities, for developing the ambulatory care budget estimate. VHA also did not establish a data governance structure with clearly defined authoritative data sources and designated data stewards. Documented procedures and a data governance structure could help maintain organizational knowledge of the process and provide reasonable assurance that VHA’s internal controls over operations, reporting, and compliance are effective. The OIG made four recommendations to strengthen internal controls over the budget formulation process.

Objective: To determine whether the Social Security Administration developed the Debt Management Product in accordance with Federal best practices and met its project cost and schedule estimates.

Objective: To determine whether Social Security Administration employees properly processed representative payee applications in the Electronic Representative Payee System.

Objective: To determine whether the Social Security Administration was managing its Security Assessment and Authorization process in accordance with Federal and Agency requirements.

Objective: To determine whether the Social Security Administration acted in accordance with its policies and procedures when it processed Supplemental Security Income ineligibility determinations and suspensions based on applicants’, recipients’, or representative payees’ failure to provide information.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) is a national network of 51 MEP Centers—in all 50 states and Puerto Rico—providing any U.S. manufacturer with resources to improve production processes, upgrade technological capabilities, and facilitate product innovation. The MEP mission is to enhance the productivity and technological performance of U.S. manufacturing.NIST makes federal financial assistance awards in the form of cooperative agreements to state, university, and nonprofit organizations to operate Centers. However, renewal funding for each Center is contingent, in part, upon successful reviews and evaluations of its operations, including its performance. NIST principally monitors MEP’s performance through economic impact surveys completed by a Center’s clients. The intent of the survey is to capture quantified impacts on a client’s employment, sales, investment, and cost savings that occurred over the last 12 months, as a result of the services received.NIST uses economic impacts from survey responses not only to monitor Center performance but also to gauge MEP’s overall success. NIST reports MEP’s economic impacts publicly in various ways, including to Congress, which uses the information to make annual funding decisions regarding MEP appropriations.Our evaluation objective was to determine whether NIST’s MEP effectively monitored and evaluated economic impact reporting. We found that NIST’s inadequate oversight of the MEP economic impact reporting process resulted in inaccurate and unreliable economic impacts. Specifically, we found that (1) MEP’s FY 2022 economic impacts are unreliable, including 48 percent of the total sales reported by Centers we reviewed, (2) NIST overstated MEP’s return on investment from FYs 2020 to 2023—notably by 34 percent in FY 2020, and (3) Centers require clients to take MEP surveys, contrary to federal directive. We also reported another matter related to Centers not accurately reporting program income earned—raising concerns about compliance with award terms and conditions.We made eight recommendations to help NIST ensure accountability and data reliability in its reporting of MEP’s economic impacts.