Federal Reports

Under a contract monitored by this office, the Office of the Inspector General engaged Castro, an independent public accounting firm, to perform the Fiscal Year 2025 Independent Evaluation of the Smithsonian Institution’s Information Security Program. 
 

Smithsonian Enterprises (SE) oversees the majority of the revenue-generating operations of the Smithsonian Institution
(Smithsonian). It is an essential source of unrestricted funds— monies without donor-imposed or legal restrictions on their use. SE provides unrestricted funds to the Smithsonian through the operation of revenue-generating activities.
In SE's fiscal year (FY) 2023, SE generated $150.8 million in net revenue, including more than $63 million from 32 retail stores, approximately $10.7 million of which were cash transactions.

OIG made four recommendations for Smithsonian Enterprises management to improve compliance with policies and procedures related to document retention, audits over cash management, system access for separated employees, and discounts. Management concurred with all four recommendations.

The OIG received a hotline allegation that the Veterans Service Center manager at the Philadelphia VA Regional Benefit Office permitted a senior veterans service representative (VSR) to “blindly” approve hundreds of rating decisions for disability benefits claims each day without conducting the required reviews. The OIG team substantiated the allegation. From at least fiscal year 2022 through 2024, this senior VSR authorized about 85,300 claims—about 19 times the national average. The senior VSR spent an average of 4.7 minutes reviewing each claim authorized during this three-year period, versus a national average of about 21 minutes. The OIG obtained data showing that the senior VSR rarely opened necessary documents to verify claim information prior to authorization. The senior VSR contributed more than 35 percent each year toward the regional office’s claims completions goal, a metric that is part of regional office executive directors’ performance standards.

Based on the results of a statistical sample of 32 rating decisions that the senior VSR authorized from January 1, 2024, through June 30, 2024, the team estimated that approximately 13,200 decisions (84 percent) had at least one error. Some of the errors likely occurred because the senior VSR did not open and review the necessary documents. Monetary impact errors resulted in an estimated $2.2 million in improper payments during this period.

Officials from the regional office, the Northeast District, and the central office were aware of the Philadelphia senior VSR’s unusually high authorization rate. However, they overlooked opportunities to strengthen internal controls and effectively respond to the associated risks. The OIG recommended the under secretary for benefits review the errors the OIG team identified, correct these errors, and evaluate the effectiveness of controls for authorization rate outliers.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) initiated this review based upon Office and Management Budget Circular A-50, which states that the resolution and follow-up of audit, inspection, and evaluation recommendations is an integral part of effective management and is a shared responsibility of agency management officials and auditors. Our objective was to review and summarize the Commission's open recommendations, identify any challenges to closing recommendations, and consider alternative actions for recommendations that may no longer be relevant due to changes in the Commission's policies and procedures. 

To accomplish our objective the OIG, analyzed the open recommendations from prior reports, reviewed applicable criteria related to the resolution of recommendations, and conducted interviews. The audit covered the period December 1, 2020, through August 31, 2025. The audit was performed in accordance with the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards. 

The Commission is working to modernize the AbilityOne Program, including implementing its new Cooperative Agreements with the Central Nonprofit Agencies (CNA) and updating its Program policies. As a result of the modernization efforts and updated agreements and policies, the OIG agreed to close 20 of the 55 open recommendations. Additionally, the Commission and the OIG have a renewed understanding that should improve communication and collaboration during future audits and closure process.

The OIG has no specific recommendations associated with this report.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) initiated this review to identify AbilityOne Program data generated or maintained by Central Nonprofit Agencies (CNA) and/or Nonprofit Agencies (NPA), that is not currently available to the U.S. AbilityOne Commission (Commission).

The evaluation team reviewed and analyzed the new 2024 Cooperative Agreements between the Commission and CNAs, as well as Commission policies and procedures related to data collection and reporting.

The OIG found no data had been collected in the new electronic systems at the time of our re-view. Based on the updated Cooperative Agreements between the Commission and CNAs, the Commission anticipates having access to relevant program data and the new CNA electronic data systems October 1, 2025. The Commission stated it anticipates collecting data using the new electronic systems for approximately one year so that they have enough data points to ensure they are receiving the appropriate data and identifying various trends and patterns within the data.

Through this evaluation, the OIG observed that if the Commission wants to meet its deadline of implementing the electronic data collection and data dashboard by October 1, 2025, it needed to improve communication with DWG. Specifically, clear communication between the Commission and DWG is needed to ensure that relevant data is displayed on the dashboards once they are created.

The OIG has no specific recommendations associated with this report.