Federal Reports

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reimburses Medicare contractors for a portion of their pension costs, which are funded by the annual contributions that these contractors make to their pension plans.At CMS's request, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (OIG), Office of Audit Services, Region VII pension audit team reviews the cost elements related to qualified defined-benefit, postretirement benefit, and any other pension-related cost elements claimed by Medicare contractors through Incurred Cost Proposals (ICPs).

DATA Act Submission

The Office of the Inspector General previously conducted an evaluation of Sequoyah Nuclear Plant (SQN) Site Security (Evaluation 2018-15550, issued September 24, 2018) to identify strengths and risks that could affect SQN Site Security’s organizational effectiveness. Our report identified several strengths and risks along with recommendations for addressing those risks. In response to that report, Tennessee Valley Authority management provided their management decision. The objective of this follow-up evaluation was to assess actions taken to address the concerns identified in our initial organizational effectiveness evaluation. In summary, we determined TVA management has taken actions to address the risks.

The control environment is the foundation on which an organization builds and operates an effective system of internal control. The U.S. Postal Service had an annual contract spend of $12.9 billion in FY 2018; therefore, it is critical that Supply Management (SM) maintains an effective control environment over its contracting officers (CO). The objective of our audit was to assess the effectiveness of SM’s control environment over COs, specifically, staff competencies, oversight of contract activities, and workload management. The scope period was October 1, 2017 through June 30, 2019. This is the first of several audits to assess SM’s overall control environment.