Federal Reports

Why We Did This Report

We initiated an audit to determine whether the EPA is awarding water funding for congressionally directed spending and community project funding, commonly known as “earmarks,” in accordance with federal and EPA requirements. While conducting work on this audit, which remains ongoing, we are issuing this report to inform the Agency that the OIG has concerns about a lack of post-award monitoring documentation for the drawing down of these grant funds.
 

Summary of Findings

The EPA did not always ensure that its personnel documented why grant recipients did not draw down earmark funds in their monitoring reports. The EPA’s Policy on Compliance, Review and Monitoring requires regional office personnel to conduct annual grant monitoring, which may include, as appropriate, whether expended and remaining funds are reasonable.

This letter to Congress reports on NCUA OIG's assessment of the NCUA's 2025 compliance under the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA).

Since 1943, the Regents of the University of California have managed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. LBNL’s mission is to expand the frontiers of knowledge and deliver solutions for science and humankind. In support of this mission, LBNL acquires consultants to provide independent expert advisory and/or assistance services of a technical or professional nature on a fee or per diem basis. LBNL uses subcontracts to commit resources and formalize its relationships with consultants.

We initiated this audit to determine whether LBNL managed its professional and consultant services agreements in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and contract requirements.

We found that LBNL did not manage its professional and consultant services agreements in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and contract requirements. Specifically, we found that LBNL: (1) entered into professional and consultant services agreements that did not meet the Federal Acquisition Regulation definition; (2) did not always obtain required conflicts-of-interest disclosures; (3) entered into consultant agreements with former Laboratory employees in contradiction to its policy; (4) retained consultants for longer than 5 years; (5) determined price reasonableness exclusively on the General Services Administration’s labor rates tool; (6) paid invoices from consultants that often lacked sufficient detail to support the services rendered; and (7) may have paid unallowable travel costs. Finally, LBNL did not ensure segregation of duties within the procurement and oversight of professional and consultant services agreements.

We attributed these issues to weaknesses in LBNL’s internal policies and procedures, failure to adhere to internal policies and procedures, and misalignment of internal policy to Department policies. These weaknesses limit LBNL’s ability to provide reasonable assurance that professional and consultant services agreements comply with laws and regulations and that only allowable costs are incurred and claimed.

To address the issues identified in this report, we have made 10 recommendations that, if fully implemented, should help ensure that professional and consultant services agreements are managed in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and contract requirements.    

This audit was performed by CohnReznick LLP (CohnReznick) on behalf of the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General and examined Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies, LLC’s (HFMT) costs incurred and claimed for fiscal years 2018 through 2020 under management and operating contract No. DE-NA0002839.

The audit’s objective was to determine if costs charged to Department contract No. DE-NA0002839 for fiscal years 2018 through 2020 were allowable, allocable, and reasonable in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and contract terms.

CohnReznick performed the audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

CohnReznick did not identify any questioned costs for direct and indirect labor, direct travel, and indirect costs included within HFMT’s Statements of Costs Incurred and Claimed submissions for fiscal years 2018 through 2020. Costs outside of these cost elements were outside of the audit’s scope.

No recommendations are being made with this report as it was determined that HFMT’s costs for direct and indirect labor, direct travel, and indirect costs within its Statements of Costs Incurred and Claimed submissions for fiscal years 2018 through 2020 were acceptable.

HFMT concurred with the audit results as reported.