Federal Reports

This is our audit of the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA’s) fiscal years (FYs) 2014 and 2015 solicitation, evaluation, and selection processes for Public Works (PW) and Economic Adjustment Assistance (EAA) grant recipient selections. Our objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of EDA’s FYs 2014 and 2015 solicitation, evaluation, and selection processes to determine whether the PW and EAA grant recipient selections were made competitively and on a merit basis as required by federal, Departmental, and agency regulations.

Alta Bates Medical Center, located in Berkeley, California, did not comply with all Medicare requirements for reporting wage data in its fiscal year 2010 Medicare cost report. We estimated that, as a result, in 2014 Medicare overpaid the Medical Center $154,000 and overpaid 32 other hospitals in 2 core-based statistical areas a total of approximately $5.3 million.

The OIG worked with an expert in postal costing and economics to analyze product cost changes in four traditional USPS products: First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, Periodicals, and Package Services. The analysis compares costs from fiscal year (FY) 2006 to FY 2015. Four external factors drove product cost changes: inflation, change in product mix, individual volume change, and overall volume decline. The report attributes the remaining change in unit costs to other factors, some which are at least partially within the Postal Service’s control. When the main cost factors over which the Postal Service has no real control over are accounted for, unit costs were lower in FY 2015 than in FY 2006 for First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, and Package Services. Only Periodicals’ unit costs increased.