Federal Reports

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Healthcare Facility Inspection program report describes the results of a focused evaluation of the care provided at the Eastern Oklahoma VA Health Care System in Muskogee. This evaluation focused on five key content domains:
•    Culture
•    Environment of care
•    Patient safety
•    Primary care
•    Veteran-centered safety net

The OIG issued three recommendations for VA to correct identified deficiencies in two domains:
1.    Environment of care
•    Clean and safe environment
2.    Patient safety
•    Service-level workflows for test result communication
•    Effectiveness of the patient notification process

Management and performance challenges facing the Commission and briefly assesses management's progress

What Was Reviewed
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation Office of Inspector General contracted with the independent public accounting firm RMA Associates, LLC (RMA) to conduct the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) Performance Audit of the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 to evaluate the effectiveness of the DFC’s information security program and practices, and determine what maturity level DFC achieved for each of the core metrics and supplemental metrics outlined in the FY 2025 Inspectors General (IG) FISMA Reporting Metrics v2.0 (April 2025).

Our objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of the DFC’s information security program and practices and determine the maturity level DFC achieved for each of the core metrics and supplemental metrics outlined in the FY 2025 IG FISMA Reporting Metrics v2.0 (April 2025).

What Was Found
In this Performance Audit of DFC, RMA determined that DFC’s information security program and practices were effective for FY 2025, as DFC’s information security program met the criteria required to be assessed at a maturity level of Managed and Measurable (Effective). RMA’s tests of the information security program identified two findings that fell within the data protection and privacy and information security continuous monitoring domains.

VHA’s VA Health Connect modernization initiative of 2020 was to transform medical facilities’ call centers into regionally managed units called clinical contact centers. The centers were expected to integrate operations and provide veterans 24-hour access to four core services by December 31, 2021: primary care scheduling, pharmacy support, clinical triage, and virtual provider care. Center staff were to answer at least 95 percent of calls promptly, answer at least 80 percent of primary care scheduling and pharmacy calls within 30 seconds, and answer at least 80 percent of clinical triage calls within 120 seconds.

The OIG team conducted its review from October 2024 through July 2025, with a focus on operations during FY 2024, and found that only clinical triage met both standards; it exceeded the call timeliness standard, with 82 percent of calls answered within 120 seconds. Most centers had not fully integrated operations by September 2022, and some did not provide 24-hour pharmacy or scheduling services in FY 2024. Additionally, some medical facilities did not route all incoming calls to their regional contact center.

The review team found that centers did not always adequately oversee schedulers, monitor the time schedulers spent on individual calls or on follow-up, or monitor the percentage of time schedulers were unavailable—all of which affect call abandonment rates and timeliness.

In December 2024, centers were allowed to request a temporary exemption from VA Health Connect requirements, but the waiver policy did not specify what information to include with the request or require VHA’s chief operating officer to review waivers.
To address the problems identified, the OIG made nine recommendations. VHA concurred with eight and concurred in principle with one.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Standard Programs and Processes 04.050, Investment Recovery, defines surplus material as material or equipment considered excess at a site that cannot be sold back to the original supplier or manufacturer.  Before items are considered surplus, TVA personnel are responsible for determining if the materials have a forecasted usage at the site or within the TVA fleet within 3 years.  From October 1, 2020, through March 31, 2025, TVA transferred approximately 370,000 inventory items to surplus with a book value of $34.7 million.  TVA’s Investment Recovery group is responsible for managing surplus inventory in a manner that recovers as much of TVA’s original capital investment as possible. 

Due to the significant investment TVA makes in inventory, we conducted an audit of TVA’s surplus inventory.  Our objective was to determine if TVA surplus inventory was managed in accordance with TVA policies and procedures.  The scope of this audit was inventory items transferred to surplus from October 1, 2020, through March 31, 2025. 

We determined, in general, TVA managed its surplus inventory in accordance with policies and procedures; however, we identified two opportunities for improvement. We found TVA policies and procedures could be improved by clearly defining how to determine forecasted usage across TVA. We also noted opportunities to improve the management of surplus inventory related to documentation completion.

The Office of Inspector General initiated this audit to evaluate $334,425,291 of costs claimed by Nuclear Waste Partnership LLC (NWP) from October 1, 2019, through September 30, 2020.

NWP managed and operated the Office of Environmental Management’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant under a contract with the Department of Energy from October 1, 2012, through February 3, 2023. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was built to safely dispose of the nation’s defense-related transuranic radioactive waste.

Specifically, our audit objective was to determine if costs charged to Department Contract No. 
DE-EM0001971 during fiscal year 2020 were allowable, allocable, and reasonable, in accordance with contract terms, applicable laws, and regulations.

We identified three material noncompliances and internal control deficiencies. We questioned nearly $7 million of costs claimed by NWP in its Statement of Costs Incurred and Claimed for fiscal year 2020. We questioned proposed labor and procurement costs due to unsupported bonus costs, executive compensation over the approved compensation limits, lobbying and procurement costs that exceeded subcontract ceilings. The internal control deficiencies were related to NWP’s accounting for unallowable costs and inadequate oversight of labor costs, invoice reviews, and various procurement processes.

To address the issues identified in this report, we made five recommendations that, if fully implemented, should help ensure that costs charged to the Department are allowable, allocable, and reasonable, in accordance with contract terms. Further, we recommend that the contracting officer work with NWP to resolve nearly $7 million in questioned costs identified in this report.

NWP concurred with the recommendations. However, NWP did not concur with the questioned costs.