Federal Reports

The OIG audited costs billed to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) by Day & Zimmermann NPS, Inc. (DZNPS) for the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant's Unit 1 refueling outage during 2011. Under the contract, DZNPS was to provide the services of qualified personnel to perform modification, outage and supplemental maintenance services, and technical support services at TVA generating plants. Our audit included $27.7 million in costs billed by DZNPS from January 24, 2011, through June 19, 2011. Our objective was to determine if the costs billed were in compliance with the terms and conditions of the contract.In summary, we determined DZNPS overbilled TVA an estimated $215,042, which included $186,798 in nonmanual labor costs and $28,244 in craft labor costs. In addition, DZNPS did not use the Hourly Craft Superintendent (HCS) classification in TVA's labor agreements and instead, classified all superintendents as nonmanual employees, including six employees promoted from craft general foreman. Because a 15-percent general and administrative cost markup is applied to nonmanual labor, TVA paid an additional $35,867 for these six employees, which would not have been incurred if they had been classified as HCS. Summary Only

The OIG audited costs billed to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) by Day & Zimmermann NPS, Inc. (DZNPS) for the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant's Unit 1 refueling outage during 2011. Under the contract, DZNPS was to provide the services of qualified personnel to perform modification, outage and supplemental maintenance services, and technical support services at TVA generating plants. Our audit included $27.7 million in costs billed by DZNPS from January 24, 2011, through June 19, 2011. Our objective was to determine if the costs billed were in compliance with the terms and conditions of the contract.In summary, we determined DZNPS overbilled TVA an estimated $215,042, which included $186,798 in nonmanual labor costs and $28,244 in craft labor costs. In addition, DZNPS did not use the Hourly Craft Superintendent (HCS) classification in TVA's labor agreements and instead, classified all superintendents as nonmanual employees, including six employees promoted from craft general foreman. Because a 15-percent general and administrative cost markup is applied to nonmanual labor, TVA paid an additional $35,867 for these six employees, which would not have been incurred if they had been classified as HCS. Summary Only

This management information report provided the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) with the results of our risk analysis regarding student aid fraud ring activity associated with the electronic processing of Federal student aid applications.

As part of a series of reviews to evaluate the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) actions to address key risks, the OIG evaluated TVA's load forecast risk. Load forecast was identified as a top five strategic business unit risk in the Long Range Planning Process Risk Category in fiscal year (FY) 2011. The objective of this review was to evaluate TVA's load forecast risk to identify opportunities to improve mitigation strategies and assess whether mitigation strategies were designed appropriately to address the identified risk.While EL&RF is taking actions to mitigate risk associated with load forecasting, we found opportunities exist to improve the mitigation strategy documentation. The documented mitigation strategy does not reflect planned actions to improve data integrity or the regular updates to the forecast models and economic drivers. Additionally, we found mitigations are generally designed appropriately. However, we noted EL&RF does not have any compensating controls to prevent inadvertent modifications to data until the Demand & Data Consolidation Process is completed.We recommended the Senior Vice President, Strategy, Financial Planning & Business Development, (1) enhance the load forecast documented mitigation strategy to include the mitigations planned, or already occurring but not listed, as part of the strategy and (2) implement measures to reduce the likelihood of inadvertent modifications to data until the Demand & Data Consolidation Process is completed. TVA management agreed with our findings and recommendations and has taken actions to address them.

The Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 requires the U.S. Department of Education (Department) Office of Inspector General (OIG) to identify and report annually on the most serious management challenges the Department faces. The Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010 requires the Department to include in its agency performance plan information on its planned actions, including performance goals, indicators, and milestones, to address these challenges. To identify management challenges, we routinely examine past audit, inspection, and investigative work, as well as issued reports where corrective actions have yet to be taken; assess ongoing audit, inspection, and investigative work to identify significant vulnerabilities; and analyze new programs and activities that could post significant challenges because of their breadth and complexity.Last year, we presented four management challenges: improper payments, information technology security, oversight and monitoring, and data quality and reporting. Although we noted some progress by the Department in addressing these areas, each remains as a management challenge for fiscal year (FY) 2013. We previously provided the executive summary of the FY 2013 management challenges for inclusion in theDepartment’s Agency Financial Report.

This paper provides a documented overview of P2P digital commerce. It includes an examination of specific market facilitators that may be familiar names (eBay, Craigslist, etsy, and others) as well as newer P2P service facilitators such as Airbnb, Getaround, and TaskRabbit. Common attributes of facilitators are discussed, along with how payment processing and various customer service issues may be handled. The paper also identifies gaps and problems in today’s marketplace and discusses Postal Service products and services that exist today or may be developed in the future to facilitate this market.