Federal Reports

We investigated allegations that a former National Park Service (NPS) senior official at Acadia National Park (ACAD), Bar Harbor, ME, violated Federal criminal laws prior to his retirement and through his post-employment work with a nonprofit organization that receives Federal funds through a cooperative agreement with the park. We also investigated an allegation that the senior official participated in improper fundraising activities during a retirement dinner sponsored for him by the nonprofit organization.We found that the subject of our investigation, while still an NPS senior official, illegally accepted $14,771 in gifts from the nonprofit organization and its board members. We also found that he negotiated for employment with the organization while he was a Government employee and while participating in matters that affected the organization, a violation of Federal criminal law. He further violated Federal criminal law when he communicated with the Government on behalf of the organization following his retirement regarding particular matters that he had worked on while an NPS senior official.We found that the former senior official’s participation in the retirement dinner did not violate Federal fundraising rules. While at the dinner, however, he violated ethics regulations by accepting gifts from outside sources.We presented our findings to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine and the Department of Justice, Public Integrity Section, which declined prosecution.We are providing this report to the NPS Deputy Director for any action deemed appropriate.

The Postal Service has service standards (timeliness goals) for delivering FCM after receiving it from a customer. A service standard represents the level of service the Postal Service attempts to provide to its customers. The service standard is determined by which geographic location mail originates from (comes from) and to which geographic location mail is destined (goes to). A mailpiece’s combined origin and destination is known as a service pair and examining these pairs allows the Postal Service to evaluate service performance based on the mail’s origin, destination and a combination of both. Our objective was to evaluate the U.S. Postal Service’s strategy to improve First-Class Mail (FCM) service performance scores in the Northeast Area.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) did not always provide accurate Medicaid unit rebate offset amounts (UROAs) to State Medicaid agencies (State agencies) during the period January 1, 2010, through December 31, 2014, in accordance with Federal guidance. (Under the Medicaid drug rebate program, drug manufacturers enter into rebate agreements with the Federal Government and pay rebates to States. Amounts collected by the States that are attributable to increased rebates mandated by recent legislation—UROAs—are applied against the amounts that the Federal Government pays to the States.)