Federal Reports

This report is not publicly available due to concerns with information protected under the Freedom of Information Act.

As this brief history shows, the postal establishment struggled to adapt to the many ways the dispersed rural population differed from the concentrated urban population. Even though America has become an increasingly urban society, rural areas retain a distinct culture. The Postal Service is a part of that. This white paper brings an essential historical perspective and is the first in a larger body of OIG work to better understand the urban-rural divide and how it is exhibited through the Postal Service’s customers. Because the Postal Service has a binding effect on the community spirit and engagement with Americans, considerations of changes to the current service model require thoughtful evaluation of the impact on both urban and rural citizens.

We issued this to (1) determine whether the Social Security Administration (SSA) made payments to beneficiaries and representative payees who were deceased according to Puerto Rico Department of Health vital records and (2) identify non-beneficiaries who were deceased according to Puerto Rico vital records but whose death information did not appear in SSA records.

The Office of the Inspector General audited TVA’s transmission system’s Internet security. We (1) identified vulnerabilities that increase TVA’s risk of successful cyberattacks, (2) found a gap in how TVA’s cybersecurity monitoring system detects cyberattacks against the transmission system, and (3) found TVA had not configured network devices in a consistent manner. TVA management remediated or mitigated all identified vulnerabilities and agreed with our remaining findings and recommendations.

Based on our data analysis of miscellaneous services for fiscal year (FY) 2019, Quarter (Q) 2, we determined the Dickinson MPO made local purchases and payments totaling $7,060. This is a significant change from having no activity in FYs 2017 and 2018. The objective of this audit was to determine whether local purchases and payments made at the Dickinson MPO were valid, properly supported and processed.

The Social Security Act requires that each Medicare administrative contractor (MAC) have its information security program evaluated annually by an independent entity. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contracted with Guidehouse, LLP (Guidehouse), to evaluate information security programs at the MACs, using a set of agreed-upon procedures (AUPs). HHS OIG must submit to Congress annual reports on the results of these evaluations, to include assessments of their scope and sufficiency. This report fulfills that responsibility for fiscal year 2018.