Federal Reports

The OIG conducted an independent review of the VA reports on special disabilities capacity for fiscal years 2017 and 2018. The reports focus on VA’s capacity to meet the specialized treatment and rehabilitative needs of disabled veterans in five areas: (1) spinal cord injury and disorder, (2) traumatic brain injury, (3) blind rehabilitation, (4) prosthetics and sensory aids, and (5) mental health. VA is required to submit the reports to Congress, and the OIG is required to report to Congress on report accuracy. The review team found nothing that caused the OIG to believe the capacity reports for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 were not fairly stated and accurate in all material respects, with the exceptions noted in the OIG report. These exceptions included material errors, inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and material changes. For example, at a long term care center the review team visited, the count of operational beds was 30, compared to the 34 that VA reported in its capacity reports. The review team also noted inherent data limitations with some of the data sources used for the capacity reports. One limitation was that administrative data can be reported differently by medical facilities and are prone to data entry and coding errors. The OIG believes VA is no longer able to fully meet the statutory requirement to compare the capacity for the reporting year to the 1996 capacity because of changes in areas such as medical diagnoses, treatments, treatment settings, infrastructure, information technology, data systems, and terminology. The OIG also believes Congress is better positioned to assess VA’s current capacity by requiring alternative methods for VA, for example by reporting on its capacity from year to year and by considering the extent to which VA can meet the demand for health care and services from veterans affected by special disabilities.

In a previous audit, OIG determined that Michigan did not properly report $1.3 million (Federal share) in Medicaid overpayments for Federal fiscal years (FYs) 2008 and 2009. We performed this audit as a followup to the previous audit. Specifically, we wanted to determine whether the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (State agency) had reported the overpayments that we identified in the previous audit, as well as Medicaid overpayments identified in FYs 2011 through 2015.

We investigated allegations that an oil and gas company incorrectly adjusted oil and gas reporting and failed to apply the proper pricing for minerals produced from leases in New Mexico, potentially resulting in a loss of royalties.We determined that the alleged conduct occurred outside the 5-year statute of limitations for criminal conduct and would be appropriately addressed through administrative enforcement actions and orders. As a result, we referred the matter to the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR).

The Office of the Inspector General included an audit of TVA’s Maximo vendor master file in our annual audit plan due to the risk of improper payments associated with the large amount of payments processed annually using Maximo data. Our audit objective was to determine if TVA’s Maximo vendor master file is properly maintained according to best practices and Supply Chain Standard Programs and Processes 04.014, Supplier Maintenance. Our audit scope included the data in TVA’s Maximo vendor master file as of November 20, 2019.In summary, we found no significant instances of noncompliance with TVA’s Standard Programs and Processes, but did note that best practices were not consistently followed for maintenance of the vendor master file. Specifically, we found (1) Maximo does not log changes to the vendor master file, (2) instances where vendor addresses match employee addresses, (3) duplicate vendors, (4) vendors are not deactivated in a timely manner, (5) no minimum requirements for vendor record data, and (6) vendors with no physical address.

The objective for this report was to assess the extent to which the company has effectively implemented more economical purchasing practices we recommended in a 2015 report. We found that the company is realizing some of the cost-saving opportunities we identified in our prior report but still has not fully addressed the gaps in procurement practices we highlighted. For example, the company could have saved up to $4.5 million in material costs in fiscal year (FY) 2019 if it had a robust data analytics capability to assess its procurement data and used the results to influence its purchasing decisions. Additionally, the company has opportunities to reduce costs in its purchase order contracts by negotiating early payment discounts. Our analysis of FY 2019 purchase data showed it could have saved up to $5.4 million by these discounts.To address these findings, we recommended that the company develop and implement a data analytics capability to help enable better informed purchasing decisions. Additionally, we recommended that the company direct that buyers negotiate early payment discounts and extended payment terms, or to choose the most beneficial of the two options if vendors do not agree to both.