Federal Reports

We investigated allegations that a former National Park Service (NPS) senior official at Acadia National Park (ACAD), Bar Harbor, ME, violated Federal criminal laws prior to his retirement and through his post-employment work with a nonprofit organization that receives Federal funds through a cooperative agreement with the park. We also investigated an allegation that the senior official participated in improper fundraising activities during a retirement dinner sponsored for him by the nonprofit organization.We found that the subject of our investigation, while still an NPS senior official, illegally accepted $14,771 in gifts from the nonprofit organization and its board members. We also found that he negotiated for employment with the organization while he was a Government employee and while participating in matters that affected the organization, a violation of Federal criminal law. He further violated Federal criminal law when he communicated with the Government on behalf of the organization following his retirement regarding particular matters that he had worked on while an NPS senior official.We found that the former senior official’s participation in the retirement dinner did not violate Federal fundraising rules. While at the dinner, however, he violated ethics regulations by accepting gifts from outside sources.We presented our findings to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine and the Department of Justice, Public Integrity Section, which declined prosecution.We are providing this report to the NPS Deputy Director for any action deemed appropriate.

The Postal Service has service standards (timeliness goals) for delivering FCM after receiving it from a customer. A service standard represents the level of service the Postal Service attempts to provide to its customers. The service standard is determined by which geographic location mail originates from (comes from) and to which geographic location mail is destined (goes to). A mailpiece’s combined origin and destination is known as a service pair and examining these pairs allows the Postal Service to evaluate service performance based on the mail’s origin, destination and a combination of both. Our objective was to evaluate the U.S. Postal Service’s strategy to improve First-Class Mail (FCM) service performance scores in the Northeast Area.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) did not always provide accurate Medicaid unit rebate offset amounts (UROAs) to State Medicaid agencies (State agencies) during the period January 1, 2010, through December 31, 2014, in accordance with Federal guidance. (Under the Medicaid drug rebate program, drug manufacturers enter into rebate agreements with the Federal Government and pay rebates to States. Amounts collected by the States that are attributable to increased rebates mandated by recent legislation—UROAs—are applied against the amounts that the Federal Government pays to the States.)

The OIG investigated an allegation that a senior official with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was involved in a conflict of interest when she directed her staff to hire a private consultant who was her friend. We found that the official violated Federal ethics regulations when she directed her staff to pay $2,400 to a private consultant with whom she had both a professional and personal relationship. In return for the payment, the consultant provided three written work products to BLM.

This is a publication by GAO's Office of Inspector General (OIG) that concerns internal GAO operations. This report addresses the extent to which GAO has established controls for ensuring uniform standards are applied in debt and interest waiver decisions consistent with federal requirements.What OIG Found: GAO has not established actionable procedures to help ensure that federal requirements for deciding when and how to waive debt or interest are met. Specifically, GAO has not developed effective procedures needed to ensure that debt and interest waiver decisions made by the Chief Human Capital Officer are consistent with the principles of equity, fairness, and the interests of the United States, as required by federal law. In addition, the Human Capital Office was unable to provide documentation for many of the debt waiver decisions reviewed or the documentation provided did not support the debt waiver decisions that were made, which limits management’s assurance that GAO’s use of waivers meets federal requirements.What OIG Recommends: OIG made three recommendations intended to help ensure that GAO debt and interest waiver decisions are consistent with federal requirements. First, develop and implement procedures to consider equity in debt waiver decisions and to waive interest on debts consistent with federal standards and applicable laws. Second, develop and implement procedures to help ensure that Human Capital Office staff properly identify and maintain waiver information made or received as evidence of GAO’s waiver activities, consistent with GAO’s debt collection policy and Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government. Third, enforce compliance with the requirements of GAO’s official electronic records management system for debt and interest waiver records. GAO agreed with our recommendations and stated that it has taken or initiation actions to address them. We will assess whether actions taken address the intent of our recommendations once documentation supporting the actions described by GAO is provided to us.