Federal Reports

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) requires its medical facilities to use the Medical/Surgical Prime Vendor (MSPV) program’s distribution contracts for cost effective ordering and distribution of healthcare supplies. The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this audit to assess the extent to which VHA medical facilities use the MSPV program.The OIG found that medical facilities did not always purchase through the program because items were often unavailable on the MSPV product list. Sometimes staff did not use the program before ordering from the open market, often from their own prime vendor, because the ordering system defaults to the previous supplier rather than the MSPV product list. Staff do not always report issues with the prime vendor or unavailable or back-ordered products, which some attribute to an ineffective reporting tool and quicker results through local workarounds. The OIG also found the program office and medical center leaders have not provided effective oversight, which may affect training and local leaders’ motivation to enforce the program’s use. In 2022, facilities spent about $865 million on supplies available through the MSPV program, but $353 million went for open market purchases instead of through MSPV. Had facilities purchased these through MSPV, VHA could have saved approximately $35.5 million. Finally, the MSPV product list did not include the majority of medical and surgical supplies facilities purchase; the OIG determined that medical facilities spent about $1.5 billion on items not available through MSPV.The OIG made nine recommendations to the under secretary for health, including to identify a VA owned system where staff can check product availability and price, review open market purchases, improve training on MSPV usage and tools, ensure staff report unavailable items, and increase items available through the program.

The Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Releases Its Semiannual Report (Oct 2023 – Mar 2024) to Congress

Why We Did This ReportThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General initiated this audit based on a request from the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The objective of the audit is to assess the EPA’s preparation to implement the public notification requirements under section 2106 of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act. Summary of FindingsAt the time of our audit, the EPA was not ready to comply with the public notification requirements under section 2106 of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act. Although the Office of Water reported that it was in the process of developing a strategy, it had not developed a plan or milestones or provided guidance to help EPA regions, states, and water systems to be ready to comply with the notification requirements by the compliance date of October 16, 2024. The Office of Water also does not receive data in a timely manner to monitor lead ALE, oversee water systems’ compliance with the notification requirements, and provide the notices if water systems and states have not done so. Based on tap water samples reported in the EPA’s tracking system from January 2021 through March 2023, we identified 498 water systems with lead ALE, serving about 2.3 million people. With millions of people potentially affected by lead ALE, water systems, states, and the EPA must be ready to comply by October 2024.

What We Looked AtWe performed a quality control review (QCR) on the single audit that the Office of the Washington State Auditor/State Auditor's Office (SAO) performed for the City of Bellevue’s fiscal year that ended December 31, 2022. During this period, the City expended approximately $35.6 million from U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) programs. SAO determined that DOT’s major programs were the Office of the Secretary of Transportation’s Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan program and the Federal Highway Administration’s Highway Planning and Construction Cluster.Our QCR objectives were to determine whether (1) SAO’s audit work complied with the Single Audit Act of 1984, as amended, the Office of Management and Budget’s Uniform Guidance, and the extent to which we could rely on the auditor’s work on DOT’s major programs and (2) the City’s reporting package complied with the reporting requirements of the Uniform Guidance.What We FoundSAO complied with the requirements of the Single Audit Act, the Uniform Guidance, and DOT’s major programs. We found nothing to indicate that SAO’s opinion on DOT’s major programs were inappropriate or unreliable. Additionally, we did not identify deficiencies in the City’s reporting package that required correction and resubmission. Accordingly, we assigned SAO an overall rating of pass.