Federal Reports

The Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 requires the U.S. Department of Education (Department) Office of Inspector General 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 the Department made some progress in addressing these areas, each remains a management challenge for fiscal year 2019.

New York claimed Federal Medicaid reimbursement for some Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) services that did not comply with Medicaid requirements. Specifically, of the 100 claims in our random sample, 87 claims complied with Medicaid requirements, but 13 claims did not.

The OIG investigated allegations that a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) official was not authorized to use a Government-owned vehicle (GOV) for home-to-work commuting, traveled to his home state for personal reasons under the guise of work trips, inappropriately interfered in a hiring action to select a lesser-qualified applicant, and planned to relocate a BLM office to another state to personally benefit from the move.We found that, from July 2017 to June 2018, the BLM official used a GOV for home-to-work commuting without authorization. We did not substantiate any of the other allegations. We did not investigate the allegation that the official planned to relocate a BLM office to another state to personally benefit from a Government-funded move because this proposed move was part of a larger reorganization by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The OIG investigated an allegation that Tracy Bronson, the former Executive Director of Calhoun Conservation District (CCD) in Marshall, MI, stole U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant funds from the CCD. We conducted this investigation jointly with the EPA OIG and the Michigan State Police.We determined that between 2014 and 2017, Bronson embezzled over $550,000 from the CCD’s credit union account, which included grant funds awarded to the CCD by the FWS and the EPA. We found that between 2014 and 2017, the FWS awarded the CCD approximately $331,651 in grant funds.Bronson resigned from her position with the CCD and pleaded guilty to one count of theft concerning programs receiving Federal funds in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. She was sentenced to 37 months in prison and ordered to pay $573,159.20 in restitution.

Our review found that the Peace Corps did not fully comply with applicable Federal requirements relating to cooperative agreements and lacked internal controls in making the award to Seed Global Health Services. Specifically, the Peace Corps did not have sufficient documentation to justify awarding the cooperative agreement without competition. This made the Peace Corps vulnerable to the perception of favoritism by obligating a total of approximately $7.5 million in Department of State funding to Seed Global Health Services. We found several weaknesses caused by insufficient controls: the lack of segregation of duties for a senior agency official, the lack of key policies governing cooperative agreements, poor file management and failure to obtain the necessary anti-lobbying certifications from Seed Global Health Services. This report makes five recommendations to help enhance controls over cooperative agreements.