Federal Reports

We determined that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not ensure state and local law enforcement agencies expended FEMA’s grant for protection of the President’s non-governmental residences in accordance with Federal regulations and Agency guidelines. Specifically, FEMA’s Grant Programs Directorate (GPD) reimbursed the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for unallowable overtime fringe benefits. Additionally, GPD did not provide effective oversight to manage the PRPA grant during its application review and verification process by assigning limited, inexperienced staff whose work received minimal supervisory review. We made four recommendations to FEMA that should improve the management of the program. FEMA concurred with three recommendations and nonconcurred with one recommendation.

This report provides a summary of our previous findings and recommendations, which may inform future disaster response efforts. Based on our prior work, we identified a pattern of internal control vulnerabilities that negatively affect both disaster survivors and disaster program effectiveness that may hinder future response efforts, including shortcomings in acquisition and contracting controls, interagency coordination challenges, and insufficient privacy safeguards that affect disaster survivors. Additionally, FEMA did not adequately oversee disaster grant recipients and subrecipients, manage disaster assistance funds, or oversee its information technology environment. This report discusses these vulnerabilities and the correlating recommendations we previously made that, if implemented, would better prepare FEMA to respond to future disasters. We made no new recommendations.

The objectives of our inspection were to determine (1) the U.S. Department of Education’s (Department) process for assessing the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and School’s (ACICS) compliance with Federal regulatory criteria for recognition, and (2) what evidence the Department considered in its review of selected recognition criteria and whether the Department’s conclusions were supported by evidence.We determined that the Department’s process for assessing ACICS’ compliance with Federal regulatory criteria for recognition followed applicable policies and regulations except during the 2016 recognition review. We determined that the Department did not comply with all regulatory requirements during its 2016 review of ACICS’ petition for recognition renewal because its process did not consider all available relevant information during its review as required.We determined that the Department implemented a process for assessing ACICS’ compliance with recognition criteria following a court remand in 2018 that was permitted under applicable policies and regulations as well as the court’s remand order.We determined that the conclusions of the SDO (DeVos) in the 2018 review regarding ACICS’ compliance with each of the six recognition criteria we reviewed were supported by the evidence cited.However, we found that the Office of Postsecondary Education’s (OPE) “Guidelines for Preparing and Reviewing Petitions and Compliance Reports” (Guidelines) allowed for areas of reviewer subjectivity.

In 2019, a confidential complainant alleged that employees of the contractor Signature Performance incorrectly processed claims for non VA care. The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this audit to determine whether contractor employees accurately processed these claims.

Business Reply Mail (BRM) is a service offered by the Postal Service that enables a sender to provide a recipient with a convenient, prepaid method for replying to a mailing. Customers request refunds when postage has been applied to the prepaid mailing. To obtain a refund, customers must submit postage affixed BRM, and the required Postal Service (PS) Form 3533, Application for Refund of Fees, Products and Withdrawal of Customer Accounts. The Postal Service assesses fees to process the refunds and deducts them from the customer’s refund amount. OIG data analytics identified Hagerstown, MD, Post Office permit postage refunds totaling about $31,754 for fiscal year (FY) 2020, which is 51 percent of the district’s total. In addition, we identified several months with little or no refund activity. The objective of this audit was to determine whether postage affixed BRM refunds were properly issued, supported, and processed at the Hagerstown, MD, Post Office.

What We Looked AtThe Maritime Administration (MARAD) provides ships from the National Defense Reserve Fleet as training vessels for cadets at the State maritime academies to become licensed mariners. In fiscal year 2015, MARAD began the design of National Security Multi-Mission Vessels (NSMV) to replace five training ships nearing the end of useful life. Congress directed MARAD to use an entity other than itself to contract for NSMV construction using commercial design standards and construction practices and has thus far appropriated approximately $1.3 billion for the NSMV program. Given this significant investment and MARAD’s support of national security, we initiated this audit. Our objective was to assess MARAD’s management of the NSMV Program, including oversight of the vessel construction manager (VCM) contract and use of commercial design standards and commercial construction practices consistent with the best interests of the Federal Government. What We FoundVulnerabilities in MARAD’s NSMV program management may hinder achievement of program goals. Though it has taken some risk mitigation steps, MARAD’s program risk management is inadequate. Its risk assessment lacked complete analysis of important elements such as individual risk likelihood, consequences, and mitigation strategies. It also does not sufficiently update and monitor program risks. These deficiencies could affect the Agency’s ability to achieve timely and cost-effective vessels that meet its needs. Furthermore, MARAD has not reviewed complete versions of three required oversight plans that describe key areas of the VCM’s strategy for managing and overseeing NSMV design and construction. Incomplete plans impede MARAD’s ability to effectively oversee the VCM. Lastly, delays in the VCM contract and shipyard subcontract awards may increase MARAD’s exposure to program risks. Later-than-planned awards reduced the time between first vessel delivery and placement into service from 17 months to 1. This lost cushion increases the possibility that the VCM and shipyard will not have enough time to address issues and that contingency plans for late vessel delivery will be implemented, thus adding cost to the program’s billion-plus dollar investment. RecommendationsMARAD concurred with both recommendations to improve its management of the NSMV Program.