Federal Reports

We audited Del Norte Neighborhood Development Corporation based on information we received indicating that Del Norte may have violated the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) HOME Investment Partnerships program rules during the demolition of one of its low- to moderate-income rental developments. Our objective was to determine whether Del Norte properly transferred, stopped, modified, or extended the availability of affordable units for the Emerson Apartments, received HUD approval before demolishing the Emerson Apartments, and followed Federal contracting and procurement regulations while developing Veterans Apartments.Del Norte properly followed the Federal contracting and procurement regulations while developing Veterans Apartments. However, it improperly transferred eight units of HOME-funded affordable housing. Del Norte should have kept these units at West 32nd Apartments but violated HOME rules by transferring them to Emerson Apartments and then demolishing Emerson without HUD approval. This condition occurred because Del Norte lacked controls to ensure that it honored the HOME program’s affordability requirements. As a result, eight affordable units were no longer available for low- to moderate-income families.We recommend that the Director of the Denver Office of Community Planning and Development (1) work with the City of Denver Office of Economic Development to recapture $37,000 in HOME funds not properly used for the affordable housing projects, and (2) require Del Norte to develop policies and procedures to prevent ineligible affordability period transfers.

This Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Program (CHIP) provides a focused evaluation of the quality of care delivered at the Sioux Falls VA Health Care System, covering leadership, organizational risks, and key processes associated with promoting quality care. Focused areas were Quality, Safety, and Value; Medical Staff Privileging; Environment of Care; Medication Management: Controlled Substances Inspections; Mental Health: Military Sexual Trauma Follow-Up and Staff Training; Geriatric Care: Antidepressant Use among the Elderly; Women’s Health: Abnormal Cervical Pathology Results Notification and Follow-Up; and High-Risk Processes: Emergency Department and Urgent Care Center Operations. At the time of the OIG’s review, three of four executive leaders were serving in an acting capacity. The facility leaders appeared actively engaged with employees and patients and were working to sustain and further improve employee and patient engagement and satisfaction. The leaders also appeared to support efforts to improve and maintain patient safety, quality care, and other positive outcomes. The OIG’s review of the facility’s accreditation findings, sentinel events, disclosures, and patient safety indicator data did not identify any substantial organizational risk factors. However, opportunities appear to exist for the leaders to improve their knowledge about and to continue to take actions to sustain and improve selected performance of measures contributing to the Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning “4-star” and Community Living Center “1-star” quality ratings. The OIG issued eight recommendations for improvement in the following areas: (1) Quality, Safety, and Value • Interdisciplinary review of utilization management data (2) Medical Staff Privileging • Specialty-specific criteria for focused professional practice evaluations (3) Environment of Care • Infection prevention (4) Medication Management • Verification of controlled substance orders substances (5) Mental Health • Military sexual trauma training (6) Geriatric Care • Patient/caregiver education on medications (7) Women’s Health • Women Veterans Health Committee core membership (8) High-risk Processes • Emergency department registered nurse staffing

This fall edition of the Semiannual Report to Congress covers OIG activities from April 2019 through September 2019. Historically, about 80 percent of OIG's resources are directed to work related to Medicare and Medicaid. This is mirrored in the content of the report.

The Postal Service continues to face financial challenges due to declines in letter mail volume. As declines persist, strategic cost control is one of the key factors that must be addressed. And clearly, labor costs will be a critical area, as it is the greatest component of postal costs — accounting for $57 billion or 76 percent of total costs in fiscal year 2018. As a result, we wanted to gain a clearer understanding of the sources of these significant costs and how they have changed in recent years.

Our objective was to determine the (1) extent to which participating disability determination services (DDS) used the Disability Case Processing System (DCPS) to process their workloads and (2) reasonableness of the Social Security Administration's (SSA) cost and schedule estimates for its DCPS.

Our objective was to determine whether the Social Security Administration (SSA) processed Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) underpayments accurately via the Manual Adjustment, Credit, and Award Data Entry system.