Federal Reports

An Amtrak ticket/accounting representative based in Greensboro, North Carolina, was terminated from employment on March 27, 2025, following an administrative hearing. Our investigation found that the former employee violated company policy by allowing an unknown and un-ticketed individual to proceed to the train platform and put an unidentified package onto the train without knowing its contents. The package was subsequently found to contain illegal narcotics. The former employee is not eligible for rehire.

In July 2024, VA informed Congress that the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) might need an additional $12 billion in funding in fiscal year (FY) 2025 to support medical care for the last three months of FY 2024 and all of FY 2025—primarily for community care, staffing, prosthetics, and pharmacy. In August, the OIG began reviewing the causes contributing to VHA’s subsequent request for additional funds, and in September, Congress passed legislation requiring the OIG to review the circumstances that led to VA’s announced funding shortfall.

The OIG found the FY 2024 President’s Budget, which included the advance appropriations for FY 2025, relied on outdated data and assumptions, including lower-than-actual costs for new medications and both direct and community care. Also, a legislative budget cap limited VHA’s ability to increase the FY 2025 advance appropriations, although leaders believed they could keep spending within funding limits by developing cost-saving options. The goals and options that emerged from a January 2024 financial sequester did not achieve the necessary cuts, such as reducing hiring and community care obligations. In August 2024, VA requested supplemental appropriations of $12 billion to cover medical care for the rest of FY 2024 and all of FY 2025. By November, VHA had revised this estimated shortfall to $6.6 billion for only the remainder of FY 2025. Congress passed a continuing resolution in mid-March 2025 to fund VA’s remaining FY 2025 medical care at $6 billion from the Toxic Exposures Fund.

VHA concurred with the OIG’s recommendations to review how VHA projects medical care budget needs (including staffing) and to develop an approach to form more accurate estimates; consider changes to allow program offices and other experts to weigh in on inputs for model projections; and conduct fiscal reviews at least quarterly to assess key cost drivers.

The OIG conducted a legislatively mandated review of the circumstances and the underlying conditions that led to VBA announcing a potential shortfall and the need for FY 2024 supplemental funding.

In July 2024, the VA Secretary announced to Congress that VBA needed about $2.9 billion, in addition to the approximately $193.4 billion previously appropriated, to cover disability compensation, pension, and readjustment benefits for over seven million veterans through September 2024. VBA officials attributed this projected shortfall to processing more claims than ever before, expanded eligibility for PACT Act compensation benefits, unprecedented outreach to potential beneficiaries, increased payments and obligations, and more eligible participants for education and job training programs. If funding was even one dollar short at year-end, veterans’ benefits payments would be delayed.

The President signed a supplemental appropriations bill on September 20 to provide VBA with the funding. On October 28, VA officials reported to Congress that no supplemental funding was actually needed for the two accounts. The OIG’s analysis showed VBA’s actual spending did not consistently exceed planned amounts for either account. VBA had not included realized prior-year recoveries in its monthly status report calculations throughout the year, which would have shown a reduced risk of a shortfall by year-end. VBA officials reported that a projected lack of carryover funding for use at the end of the fiscal year raised concerns about depleting FY 2024 resources. Furthermore, VBA expected claims processing would surge to meet year-end regional office metrics, but a VA analysis did not show a spike in compensation and pension obligations. Although VBA acted to prioritize veterans’ benefits, the OIG found that improved financial oversight, reporting accuracy, and communications may have obviated the need for a supplemental funding request. The OIG made four recommendations to VBA to improve financial management practices and communications.

Why We Did This Report

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General is issuing this report addressing concerns regarding access to Superfund information identified in the EPA’s annual reports to Congress.

Summary of Findings

We discovered that more than half of federal facility and some nonfederal facility Five-Year Reviews, or FYRs, are not publicly available, despite the EPA stating in its annual Superfund FYR Reports to Congress that the FYRs can be found on its “Search for Superfund Five-Year Reviews” webpage.

After meeting with more than 140 individuals from DHS and other Federal agencies, we determined U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cannot effectively monitor the location and status of all unaccompanied alien children (UACs) once released or transferred from Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) custody. From fiscal years 2019 to 2023, ICE transferred more than 448,000 UACs to HHS; most were released to sponsors. However, more than 31,000 of the 448,000 children’s release addresses were blank, undeliverable, or missing apartment numbers. ICE also was not always aware of the location for UACs who fled HHS’ custody.

The AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General investigated potential displacement of paid staff at Hawaii Community Assets (HCA), undisclosed dual employment by a program official at HCA and Aloha United Way (AUW), and improper charging of time by two Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program officials at AUW.