Federal Reports

The mission of the FTC is to protect consumers by preventing anticompetitive, deceptive, and unfair business practices; enhancing informed consumer choices and public understanding of the competitive process; and accomplishing this without unduly burdening legitimate business activity. The Bureau of Economics (BE) performs research and analysis to determine economic impacts of FTC actions, as well as the impact of government regulation on competition and consumers. The FTC OIG performed this evaluation to determine whether BE optimizes its resources to accomplish its mission efficiently and effectively.

This report was originally issued as OIG-SBLF-14-002 on November 15, 2013. The report was withdrawn, revised, and reissued as OIG-SBLF-14-002R on June 26, 2015, to reflect changes made on pages 2, 13, and 14 of the report. The changes clarified the amount of administrative costs that were reviewed by the Office of Inspector General as part of a sample. The corrections did not affect the findings, conclusions, and recommendations as reported.

This is a reissued report. The original report number OIG-SBLF-14-013, dated August 29, 2014, was revised on June 26, 2015, to reflect changes made on pages 2, 3, 5, and 8. The changes correct the number and total dollar amount of State Small Business Credit Initiative obligated or spent loans we reviewed. These corrections do not affect the findings, conclusions, and recommendations as reported.

This report contains classified information that is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. To obtain further information, please contact the OIG Office of Counsel at OIGCounsel@oig.treas.gov, (202) 927-0650, or by mail at Office of Treasury Inspector General, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC 20220.

The OIG audited electronic communications by the TVA Board of Directors. The objective was to evaluate controls over the electronic distribution of TVA business information to and from the Board by non-TVA managed mediums. We determined current Board email practices were consistent with the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014. In addition, we found the third-party service used to distribute sensitive documents to the Board had appropriate processes and controls in place as reported by another independent audit company. However, improvements could be made to reduce the risk of exposing TVA business information. The Board of Directors agreed with the findings and will continue to explore options around the recommendations.

The OIG evaluated the efficiency of TVA's hiring process from when the need to hire an annual employee was identified until the position was filled. We determined the process was inefficient due to the following: (1) a lack of training in (a) the use of the People Lifecycle Unified System (PLUS) to initiate a vacancy, (b) requesting a recruiting strategy, and (c) policies for obtaining approvals and posting vacancies within and outside TVA; delays in receipt of documentation by the hiring manager and fingerprinting potential candidates; a lack of defined job requirements for job codes; redundancy in the application and background investigation process; lack of a repository to capture feedback on Human Relations' performance; and deficiencies in PLUS that hinders updating of data by applicants, running queries, and issuance of unique employee identification numbers; and (2) issues impacting the usefulness of the time-to-fill metric as a reliable performance measure. In addition, we identified two areas where TVA does not comply with the Office of Personnel Management requirements related to Selective Service registration and internal requirements for psychological evaluations for system operators and dispatchers. Three additional matters came to our attention during the audit related to completing psychological evaluations and motor vehicle checks for certain positions. These three matters were not directly related to our audit objectives but were included in the report for management's consideration and action, as necessary.Except for suggested actions to assess the risk of having armed guards without psychological evaluations and use a single application to reduce redundancy in the application process, TVA management generally agreed with our recommendations.

Nuclear Power Group (NPG) Business Practice (BP) 247, Revision 9, Emerging Regulatory Issues Management Process, "establishes a process to identify, categorize, manage, monitor and provide statuses to senior management on issues that may have regulatory impacts on Nuclear Power Group (NPG) or NPG managed material licenses." The OIG determined the process for addressing nuclear emerging regulatory issues (ERI) is generally effective.During the period of our review, September 26, 2009, through September 26, 2014, we identified no instances where TVA overlooked an ERI related to NRC-proposed rulemaking; however, we did identify areas where the BP 247 was not being followed. Specifically, (1) the ERI Monitoring Table was not being filled out completely and consistently, (2) formal executive briefings were not consistently occurring, and (3) executive sponsors were not being assigned to ERIs with significant impacts on NPG resources. As a result of our audit, TVA began taking corrective action by issuing a revision to BP 247, with an effective date of December 12, 2014.

At the request of TVA Supply Chain, the OIG audited the costs billed to TVA by Hayward Baker, Inc. (HBI), for remediation work performed at Blue Ridge Hydro Dam under Contract No. 6902. Our objective was to determine if the costs billed were in accordance with the contract terms and conditions. The audit included $2,928,773 in costs and fee billed by HBI for work performed between December 2012 and April 2013. TVA disputed $947,282 of the amount billed and paid HBI $1,981,491 on December 31, 2013. The audit found the costs HBI billed to TVA were in accordance with the contract terms and conditions. TVA and HBI reached preliminary agreement on May 27, 2015, and final settlement occurred on June 11, 2015. Summary Only

The OIG audited TVA's invoice approval process to (1) assess TVA's policies and procedures related to the review and approval of invoices, (2) determine compliance with applicable policies and procedures, and (3) determine if TVA's invoice approvers have adequate information, including clear contractual compensation provisions and sufficient invoice detail to effectively perform their role. The scope of our audit included Supply Chain non-receiving contracts and purchase orders with fiscal year 2013 payments totaling $3,363,603,152.We found policies and procedures were not followed to ensure effective review and approval of supplier invoices. Specifically, our review of 143 invoices totaling $184,339,674 found inadequate reviews were performed on 104 invoices or 73 percent. Based on our review, we identified several possible underlying causes why effective invoice reviews were not performed: (1) contracts contained unclear and/or conflicting compensation provisions; (2) some contracts do not provide specific requirements regarding invoice detail and for those contracts that do, the requirements are not being followed or enforced; (3) not all relevant contract and purchase orders are attached to the invoice or available in TVA's Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system; (4) required field invoice approver (FIA) training does not include details on how to access and approve invoices in TVA's EAM system; (5) clear and frequent communication does not always exist between the FIA and contracting officer (CO); (6) an approval stamp used at a nuclear plant implied the OIG reviews the invoices; and (7) the current invoice review process is a manual process within an automated system.We recommended TVA management: (1) develop a contract quality assurance program to ensure clear, concise, and easy to follow compensation terms, (2) ensure the FIAs and contract technical stewards have the most up-to-date terms and conditions of a contract by developing an approach to provide access (dependent upon business need) to contract documents, (3) require training for those accessing and approving invoices in TVA's EAM system, (4) revise policies to require the CO to confirm FIAs understand their responsibilities in approving invoices for payment, and (5) revise policies to clarify CO responsibility for monitoring the invoice approval process and verifying the contractor's invoices contain adequate detail in a format that facilitates the review. In addition, we recommended TVA management utilize the technology available to expedite and improve the invoice review process by implementing automated steps in the invoice review process where possible, including: (1) requiring electronic data from vendors that allows for 100 percent review, (2) setting parameters to identify exceptions, (3) following up on items identified as exceptions before making payment on those items, (4) establishing automatic notifications be sent to FIAs, contract managers, and others regarding exceptions to ensure the exceptions are reviewed, and (5) establishing automated analytical reviews, as necessary.TVA management generally agreed with our findings and stated they would take action to address our recommendations.

The reports provide a summary of the total and percentages of open projects that are either current, due, past due, delinquent, or in the closeout process. An initial notice is automatically provided to applicable grantees. These reports also summarize the number and percentage of reports that the project coordinator opts-in or opts- out with respect to providing additional notices to grantees.

We concluded that FSA’s external follow-up process was not always effective. We noted that FSA did not close audits timely and did not adequately maintain documentation of audit followup activities. We reported that while FSA had resolved a total of 36 external OIG audit reports between October 1, 2008, and September 30, 2013, only 1 of these audits had been closed. We further noted that as of March 2014, 25 of these 36 audits (69 percent) had been in resolved status for more than 2 years and 9 of the 25 audits (36 percent) had been in resolved status for over 4 years. The total of the monetary recommendations associated with the 36 resolved audits was more than $1.3 billion.

Audit of employee travel cards for FY 2014.

The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) worked with Temple University’s Center for Neural Decision Making to conduct a neuromarketing study focused on the differing response to physical and digital media in the consumer buying process, including intent to purchase. Neuromarketing is a rigorous scientific method that explores the consumer’s subconscious response — beyond stated preference. In other words, neuromarketing methods reveal actual activity deep in the brain and other physiological responses as opposed to stated answers to survey questions. The study linked consumers’ subconscious responses to three buying process phases.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements

Please see the link below for a video discussing the results of this review.

ARC implemented a J-1 visa waiver program that recommends, under certain conditions, a waiver of the Foreign Residence requirement on behalf of physicians holding J-1 visas. The purpose of the visits was to assess program results and compliance with established polices.

The J-1 program is generally meeting program requirements and accomplishing program objectives

The United States Capitol Police (USCP or Department) Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an independent analysis of USCP policies, procedures, and disciplinary actions related to incidences of unsecured firearms.  The primary objectives of our analysis were to determine whether USCP (1) had policies and procedures for controlling and safeguarding firearms, (2) complied with policies and procedures, and (3) consistently handled the disciplinary process related to stolen, lost, and unattended firearms. In addition, based on the best available data from other Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, we compared those discipline protocols and rates of loss of stolen, lost, and unattended firearms to the Department's disciplinary penalties and rate of loss. Our scope included Department policies, procedures, and disciplinary actions related to securing and accounting for (stolen, lost, and unattended) firearms from October 1, 2009, through May 20, 2015.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements