Federal Reports

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed whether the Veterans Benefits Administration’s (VBA) automated Pension and Fiduciary Service decisions correctly granted survivors’ entitlement to service-connected death benefits from September 2023 through August 2024. The OIG found legal and procedural deficiencies in automated rating decisions and notification letters. At least 8,000 decisions or letters omitted favorable findings and had issues such as incomplete evidence summaries and incorrect formatting. At least 2 percent of decisions had legal errors, resulting in an estimated $2.7 million in improper payments. A review of additional cases through November 2025 confirmed similar errors. The quality review process for automated claims was less rigorous than for traditional claims, and VA’s modernization plan to Congress did not fully explain how some claims were completely processed from beginning to end by automation.

Deficiencies stemmed from flaws in automation rules and processes that, if not addressed, will recur because the system applies predefined rules without human involvement. Oversight tools were inadequate, and procedural guidance changes did not fully address risks.

The OIG made three recommendations to the under secretary for benefits to strengthen automation processes and oversight. These include improving legal compliance in automated decisions, enhancing quality review standards, and ensuring transparency in reporting automation practices to Congress. VBA concurred in part with the first recommendation, concurred with the second, and concurred in principle with the third.

Our objective was to determine whether NTIA has an adequate review process to ensure that states’ and territories’ plans meet the BEAD program’s planning phase requirements. We found that NTIA did not have an adequate review process to ensure that states’ and territories’ plans met the BEAD program’s planning phase requirements. Specifically, we found that NTIA did not have complete and accurate documentation to support its decisions for the BEAD program planning phase deliverables and experienced delays during its review of the required planning phase deliverables for the BEAD program grant awards.

We made five recommendations to NTIA to provide adequate oversight of its review of the deliverables and establish milestones or performance metrics for completing its reviews of planning phase deliverables. NTIA concurred with our recommendations and is working to implement them.

This report provides status information on DOI’s American Relief Act supplemental funding for disaster relief as of the end of 2025.

The VA OIG reviewed whether the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) had sufficient procedures to verify the continued eligibility of beneficiaries (including both veterans and survivors) aged 100 years or older who were receiving recurring benefits as of May 31, 2025. Overall, the OIG found that VBA generally processed reviews accurately for most domestic beneficiaries (those with an address in the United States); while deficiencies such as incomplete or inaccurate documentation were identified, these issues were not systemic. However, VBA staff did not consistently process reviews for foreign beneficiaries (those with a foreign address).

Of the 195 foreign beneficiaries requiring routine review, 119 cases (about 61 percent) contained processing inaccuracies, and seven resulted in about $612,000 in overpayments. Many of the issues stemmed from systemic weaknesses, including the omission of beneficiaries residing in the Philippines from the review process and uncertainty among staff about how to verify whether foreign beneficiaries were still alive. Staff also lacked clarity regarding which regional office had jurisdiction over compensation cases involving beneficiaries with a Philippines address. Although responsibility for these cases was centralized to the San Diego office in 2020, the OIG observed that some cases were transferred between the San Diego and Manila offices for months before action was taken.

The OIG made six recommendations to strengthen oversight of benefit payments for beneficiaries aged 100 years or older. VBA concurred with all recommendations and requested that one be closed. Based on evidence VBA provided, the OIG considers that recommendation closed. Regarding the remaining recommendations, VBA has begun updating its procedures to improve the accuracy and consistency of these reviews.

This report transmits the results of the Federal Election Commission Office of the Inspector General fiscal year (FY) 2025 annual review of the FEC's compliance with the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA).