Federal Reports

Our audit determined that significant improvements are needed in the Department’s Office of Indian Education’s oversight and monitoring of grantee performance and use of funds for the nearly $100 million in Indian Education Formula Grant program grants awarded annually. Without adequate oversight and monitoring of grantee progress and use of funds, the Office of Indian Education has little assurance as to whether Indian Education Formula Grant program grantees are making progress toward program goals and objectives and spending funds appropriately. In addition to these significant findings, we reported that the Department screened, altered, or withheld information we requested, which led to a scope limitation on our audit.

The Office of the Inspector General conducted an evaluation of the Human Resources (HR) organization (Evaluation Report 2016-15445-05 issued September 26, 2017) to identify operational and cultural strengths and risks that could impact HR’s organizational effectiveness. Our report identified several strengths and risks along with recommendations for addressing those risks. The objective of this follow-up evaluation was to assess management's actions to address the risks included in our initial evaluation for one of HR’s three departments—Employee Health (EH). We determined EH has taken actions to address some of the risks outlined in our initial evaluation. However, two of the five recommendations from the original evaluation remain unresolved, including (1) the medical case management process and (2) inclusion concerns.

The OIG investigated allegations that an FWS contractor falsely certified payments to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) under a construction contract it held in the Southeast Region and that the contractor failed to pay a subcontractor for work performed.We found no evidence that the contractor falsely certified payments to the FWS or that it withheld payment to its subcontractor. We found that the subcontractor did not provide the contractor with timely and accurate support for its invoices and that there were legitimate delays in the contractor’s payments to the subcontractor. In an eventual settlement, the subcontractor acknowledged they had been paid in full for the work performed.

We found that inadequate controls resulted in non-compliance with agency policies and guidance from the Office of Management and Budget. To reduce the risk of fraudulent behavior and financial abuse, the agency needs to improve its policies and procedures, training, and oversight provided to the purchase card program. By not maintaining sufficient controls to assure compliance with Peace Corps and Federal requirements, the Peace Corps put itself at risk for fraudulent behavior and financial abuse. We found several weaknesses caused by insufficient controls: inadequate policies and procedures, lack of required training, inadequate oversight, and inadequate use of the available data analytic tools. This report makes six recommendations to help enhance controls over purchase card transactions.

Wisconsin made 1,654 capitation payments totaling $589,478 ($347,822 Federal share) on behalf of deceased beneficiaries. We confirmed that all beneficiaries associated with these capitation payments were deceased.