Federal Reports

In June 2024, at our request, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) found and provided us 36 matches for U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) employees who were connected to federal government pandemic relief loans. Pursuant to the commitment of the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to fostering and promoting accountability and integrity in government, we undertook an investigation into the 36 matches to determine the appropriateness of these employees receiving pandemic relief loans. Specifically, we sought to detect fraud in these pandemic relief loans.

The Federal Information Security Modernization Act requires the OIG to conduct an annual evaluation of NASA’s information security program. For fiscal year 2025, we rated NASA’s information security program at a Level 3—meaning policies, procedures, and strategies were consistently implemented, but quantitative and qualitative effectiveness measures were lacking—a rating that falls short to be considered effective. 

United States Attorney David Metcalf announced that Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, has agreed to pay $629,043 to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by failing to contribute the required percentage of resources in exchange for AmeriCorps funds the county received.

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Care in the Community healthcare inspection program report describes the results of a focused evaluation of community care processes at eight Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 10: VA Healthcare System Serving Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan medical facilities with a community care program. 

This evaluation focused on five domains:
   •    Leadership and Administration of Community Care
   •    Administratively Closed Community Care Consults
   •    Community Care Provider Requests for Additional Services
   •    Care Coordination Activities for Patients Referred for Community Care
   •    Community Urgent Care Coordination and Management

The OIG issued 16 recommendations for VA to correct identified deficiencies in the five domains:
   •    Leadership and Administration of Community Care
     o    Community oversight councils
     o    Community care clinical staffing needs
     o    Patient safety events
     o    Patient safety trends, lessons learned, and corrective actions
     o    Community care document importing
   •    Administratively Closed Community Care Consults
     o    Community care appointment confirmation
     o    Medical documents
   •    Community Care Provider Requests for Additional Services
     o    Request processing
     o    Request incorporation in the electronic health record
     o    Provider signature verification
     o    Approval letters for community providers and patients
   •    Care Coordination Activities for Patients Referred for Community Care
     o    Community Care–Care Coordination Plan note use to document care coordination activities
     o    Appointment attendance confirmation
   •    Community Urgent Care Coordination and Management
     o    Urgent care visit notification process
     o    Community Care–Urgent Care Record note creation

As required by the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA), OIG reviewed USDA’s ongoing efforts to improve its information technology security program and practices during FY 2025.

We assigned an overall rating of Fail to the independent public accountant based on our review of its audit documentation for the FY 2023 American Samoa single audit.

A high-speed rail tech based in New York City resigned from his position on July 29, 2025, prior to the conclusion of his administrative hearing. We found that the former employee violated company policies by lying about the extent of an injury while on a medical leave of absence. We also found that the former employee owned and/or operated two companies while on a medical leave, also in violation of company policies. He is not eligible for rehire.

This report provides the results of Objective 1, in which we determined whether the State of Florida used Food and Nutrition Service
(FNS) SNAP administrative funds to provide benefits to participants.

This report provides the results of Objective 1, in which we determined whether the State of New York used Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) SNAP administrative funds to provide benefits to participants.

This report provides the results of Objective 1, in which we determined whether the State of Texas used Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) SNAP administrative funds to provide benefits to participants.

Why We Did This Report

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General conducted this evaluation to determine whether the EPA has used available resources, including funds appropriated by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to improve the permitting of Class VI wells under its Underground Injection Control Program.
 

Summary of Findings

The EPA met Congress’s intent to spend annual and supplemental appropriations to grow Class VI Program expertise and capacity and improve Class VI permitting with one exception. It did not spend $1.2 million of fiscal year 2023 annual appropriations within the available time frame for their intended purpose: to support training for personnel who regulate Class VI wells. Otherwise, the Agency successfully used annual appropriations to, among other things, increase the number of staff focused on Class VI work, enhance its data and information management tools, and develop additional guidance for Class VI Program implementation.

Our Objective(s)To assess FAA's oversight of SkyWest Airlines' maintenance practices. Specifically, we evaluated FAA's actions to address SkyWest's maintenance noncompliance and violations.
Why This AuditAviation safety is FAA's priority for the 2.9 million passengers that take 45,000 flights a day in the National Airspace System. In prior audits, we found weaknesses in FAA's oversight of maintenance at other airlines. We initiated this audit as part of our ongoing work reviewing FAA's oversight of air carrier maintenance programs.
What We FoundFAA's oversight of SkyWest's maintenance practices does not fully comply with Agency guidance.

FAA's Certificate Management Office (CMO) has not resolved issues with SkyWest's remote return to service maintenance practices for over 4 years.
The CMO also does not always adhere to FAA guidance when addressing SkyWest's noncompliance; CMO leaders are directing inspectors to use a method not included in FAA guidance to achieve compliance.
Delays in the CMO's access to SkyWest's data, CMO leadership and staff turnover, and ineffective communication have also slowed the resolution of SkyWest's noncompliance.
CMO inspectors do not always identify recurring noncompliance; CMO leaders may not be using the most effective tools to address repetitive noncompliance with more comprehensive solutions.
FAA's Safety Assurance System database surveillance documentation options do not fully align with FAA guidance.

RecommendationsWe made 7 recommendations to improve FAA's oversight of SkyWest Airlines' maintenance.

Our Objective(s)To assess FHWA's processes and procedures for overseeing grant recipient compliance with Federal Buy America requirements. Our assessment included reviews of FHWA's (1) guidance on Buy America requirements and (2) oversight of Federal-aid recipients' compliance.
Why This AuditFHWA's Buy America law and regulations require highway projects funded under Title 23 of United States Code to use only iron, steel, and manufactured products produced in the United States. Due to the high level of investment in surface transportation, we initiated this audit.
What We FoundFHWA provided insufficient guidance on Buy America requirements to its Federal-aid recipients.

FHWA's guidance to State Departments of Transportation (State DOTs) and local agencies lacks detail on how to certify highway project materials' compliance with Buy America requirements.
Because there were gaps in FHWA Buy America guidance, we found weaknesses in the procedures developed by the State DOTs and local agencies that we reviewed-Texas, Washington, and Seattle-and issues concerning Buy America compliance in their projects.
FHWA also did not provide adequate guidance on its minimal use threshold for foreign materials.

FHWA did not perform adequate oversight of Federal-aid recipients' Buy America compliance.

Neither FHWA Headquarters nor its Divisions' periodic reviews, such as Compliance Assessment Program reviews, consistently address Buy America requirements.
The Division Offices' risk-based project-level reviews may overlook Buy America compliance.

RecommendationsWe made six recommendations to improve FHWA's oversight of Federal-aid recipients' compliance with Buy America requirements.

The U.S. Postal Service plays a vital role in the life of this nation, serving nearly 169 million addresses nationwide. To deliver on its mission today and in the future, the agency needs to recruit and hire employees in every part of the country. However, the Postal Service currently faces several workforce-related challenges.

To inform USPS’s recruiting, hiring, and onboarding strategies for its pre-career workforce, this paper reviews a sample of organizations in the public and private sectors to identify their best practices. Pre-career employees are temporary workers who do not receive the same benefits as career employees and are not always guaranteed a regular schedule, providing USPS with cost and operational flexibility.

During the week of March 31, 2025, we performed a self-initiated audit at the Louisville Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) and three delivery units serviced by the P&DC. The delivery units included the Iroquois Station, Middletown Branch, and Pleasure Ridge Park Branch in Louisville, KY.  

We issued individual reports for the three delivery units and the P&DC. We also issued another report summarizing the results of our audits at all three delivery units with specific recommendations for management to address.

Our Objective(s)Assess FAA's identification and measurement of the impacts of external factors, such as weather and airline decision making, on Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) benefits and costs.
Why This AuditNextGen is a multibillion-dollar infrastructure effort that aims to modernize the National Airspace System (NAS) to provide safer and more efficient air traffic management. In 2021, we reported that NextGen's benefits had not kept pace with expectations due to implementation challenges and other factors, including external factors such as weather and airline decision making that are beyond FAA's control. Following the issuance of our report, Congress directed our office to report on the extent to which NextGen benefits and costs can change due to external factors.
What We FoundFAA identifies multiple external factors in its NextGen benefit and cost analyses.

FAA's Business Case Analysis Reports show it considered external factors in projecting individual NextGen programs' benefits and costs. For example, FAA considered the impact of external factors such as fuel prices, weather, and equipage rates in projecting the Data Communications program's benefits and costs.
FAA also identifies many external factors that impact NextGen's overall benefits and costs. For example, FAA's Business Case model incorporated external factors, such as the Terminal Area Forecast (TAF), which projects trends in future air traffic growth at major airports, as well as passenger value of time rates and weather to calculate and monetize reductions in delay minutes.

FAA has not systematically measured the impact of individual external factors on overall NextGen benefits and costs.

FAA conducts analyses to account for the possible impacts of external factors on the benefits and costs for individual NextGen programs. However, except for the TAF, FAA has not conducted a systematic analysis of how sensitive NextGen's overall benefits and costs are to changes in major external factors.
This impacts the overall reliability of FAA's projections of NextGen's benefits and costs. Since NextGen systems and their capabilities will continue to be deployed well beyond 2025, FAA's ability to prioritize programs and their scopes may not be as effective without the most accurate benefit and cost projections the Agency can produce.

RecommendationsWe made 1 recommendation to inform FAA's projections of overall benefits and costs for NextGen or other future NAS modernization efforts.

Why We Did This Report

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General conducted this audit to determine how the EPA has managed its Brownfields Program and allocated funds under the program since enactment of the Brownfields Utilization, Investment, and Local Development Act.

Summary of Findings

We identified two areas that may warrant management attention and further research:

• Data inaccuracies in the EPA’s Grants Research Information Portal database, which could limit EPA staff’s ability to accurately monitor and report on grant funds using the database.
• Increased grant funding due to Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriations, which could pose challenges for EPA oversight of grant funds and associated results. The EPA will have to monitor a higher number of brownfields projects—including larger, more complex projects—for years after FY 2026 while not receiving additional Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriations to fund regional oversight staff.

A machinist journeyman based in Sunrise, Florida, was sentenced July 23, 2025, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, to 18 months of probation and was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $90,900 after pleading guilty to one count of felony theft, as a result of money received from fraudulent COVID-19 pandemic-related loan applications. Our investigation found that the employee submitted an application containing false statements to the Small Business Administration to qualify for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan. As a result, the employee received $91,000 to which he was not entitled. The employee also submitted an application containing false statements and information for a Paycheck Protection Program loan, resulting in receipt of an additional $9,194 to which he was not entitled.

Two Amtrak Police Department (APD) senior officers received written counseling on July 23, 2025, as a result of our investigation. We found that one officer violated company policy by having on-duty APD officers transport her to various locations on two days while she was off-duty. In addition, we found that the second officer violated company policy by using his company-issued APD vehicle to go to his father’s residence while on-duty and off-duty.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) is issuing this report to present the results of our audit of SBA’s Oversight of Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) Recipients. The SVOG program was established on December 27, 2020, as part of the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits and Venues Act. In total, Congress provided $16.25 billion for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to award grants to eligible businesses in the live arts and entertainment industry.

As of October 2024, SBA identified $544 million in potential improper payments that need to be recovered. SBA established performance goals, measured progress, and reported that the SVOG program met all three performance goals. However, we found one of those goals, the number of SVOG recipients that continued or reopened operations, was not measured with representative data.  SBA should establish and implement timeframes for each closeout activity. Without prompt action to closeout these awards, SBA has no assurance that taxpayer funds were used for the intended purpose.  

We made six recommendations for SBA to improve recovery of SVOG funds where needed, expedite the award closeout process, better monitor the use of SVOG funds, and report on the limitations of data used for SVOG performance results.

The OIG examines individual nonpharmaceutical proposals submitted by commercial contractors for Federal Supply Schedule contracts with an anticipated annual value of $3 million or more, with an anticipated annual value of $500,000 or more for dealers or resellers without significant sales to the general public, and where VA has requested a review. The OIG’s oversight work helps VA contracting officers negotiate fair and reasonable prices for the government and taxpayers. The OIG’s reports on individual proposals are not published because they contain sensitive commercial information protected from release under federal law. To promote transparency, this report summarizes the 22 preaward reports provided to VA contracting officers in fiscal year 2024.

The 22 nonpharmaceutical proposals had a cumulative estimated contract value of approximately $1.8 billion and included a total of 44,802 offered items. The OIG found that commercial sales practice disclosures were accurate, complete, and current for four proposals. The remaining 18 proposals could not be reliably used by VA for negotiations until noted deficiencies were corrected. The OIG also determined that proposed tracking customers for two proposals covering 56 of the offered items were not suitable for the price reductions clause and recommended different tracking customers. Tracking customers serve as a benchmark for potential price reductions during the life of a contract; if tracking customers receive a price reduction, the government’s price should also be reduced. Of the 22 proposals reviewed, no tracking customer recommendations could be made for five proposals covering 28,077 of the 44,802 items. Contract negotiations for 21 proposals had been completed as of May 8, 2025, and the OIG recommended lower prices than offered for 15 of the proposals, assisting contracting officers in obtaining approximately $17.4 million in savings for VA over the life of the contracts.

OIG assessed the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s internal controls governing the inspection of passenger baggage for commercial and private aircraft departing Hawaii to the continental United States to protect against invasive plant and plant product pests and diseases.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has conducted almost no familial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing to verify biological parent-child relationships, potentially missing opportunities to protect vulnerable migrant children from human smuggling fraud schemes. From September 2021 to September 2024, CBP conducted 314 familial DNA tests on about 0.01 percent of the 2.7 million aliens who crossed the border claiming to be part of a family unit. CBP did not increase familial DNA testing even after limited testing revealed more than 14 percent of administered tests indicated no biological relationship.

Audit of the Railroad Retirement Board's Compliance with Annuity Eligibility Requirements – Abstract

Each year, increased mail volume during the U.S. Postal Service’s peak season —Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve — significantly strains its processing and distribution network. In our prior reports, we discussed how Postal Service management developed a preparedness plan to address the strain with the right amount of personnel, resources, and capacity throughout its network.

Our objective for this report was to assess the extent to which the company effectively manages leave granted under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

The FMLA provides important protections to employees who need to miss work for their medical conditions or those of a family member. We have previously reported on employee abuses of FMLA leave and weaknesses in the company’s administration of it that could have contributed to such abuse. 

In this report, we found that Amtrak is committed to ensuring that its employees maintain access to the important job protections FMLA provides, and that its process for approving leave is generally effective. The company, however, does not effectively oversee FMLA leave once employees begin using it because 1) it has not consistently communicated oversight responsibilities to supervisors, and 2)company systems do not allow supervisors to effectively track FMLA leave approvals. As a result, many supervisors do not track FMLA leave at all. More broadly, without adequate tracking tools, the company does not have reliable data on FMLA leave use companywide.

Without more effective management of FMLA leave, the unpredictable nature of FMLA-related absences—and the company’s limited visibility regarding them—poses operational, safety, and financial risks.

To address these weaknesses, we recommended that the company define its requirements for managing and monitoring FMLA leave, evaluate solutions to meet such requirements, and select a strategy to strengthen its FMLA leave oversight. In the meantime, we recommended that the company better communicate roles and responsibilities and provide training for employees overseeing FMLA leave.

Three individuals were separately sentenced in U.S. District Court, Central District of California, for their roles in a scheme that defrauded health insurance companies—including approximately $1.15 million in fraudulent billings to Amtrak’s health care plan—through a California-based substance abuse treatment center, Paragon Recovery LLC.

Stephen Reeder, an Ohio resident and Paragon’s program director, was sentenced on June 6, 2025, to two years of probation and ordered to forfeit $42,675. Reeder paid patient brokers William Leonard and Casimiro Bojorquez, both California residents, illegal kickbacks in exchange for unlawfully brokering patients to treatment facilities owned and operated by Paragon.

Leonard was sentenced on July 18, 2025, to five years of probation and ordered to forfeit $234,000. Bojorquez was sentenced on April 11, 2025, to time served, three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $176,000.

OIG conducted a review of two posts’ inventory of controlled substances to determine if they maintained effective controls for managing controlled substances and complied with Peace Corps requirements. OIG conducted site visits of the Peace Corps 
overseas posts in The Gambia (Peace Corps/The Gambia) and Namibia (Peace Corps/Namibia) 
from November 19 through 22, 2024. 

The OIG examines individual pharmaceutical proposals submitted by commercial contractors for Federal Supply Schedule contracts that have an anticipated annual value of $5 million or more or that VA has asked the OIG to review. The OIG’s oversight work helps VA contracting officers negotiate fair and reasonable prices for the government and taxpayers. The OIG’s reports on individual proposals are not published because they contain sensitive commercial information protected from release under federal law. To promote transparency, this report summarizes the 14 preaward reports provided to VA contracting officers in FY 2024. The 14 pharmaceutical proposals had a cumulative estimated contract value of approximately $34.4 billion and included 1,361 offered items. 

The OIG found that commercial sales practice disclosures were accurate, complete, and current for six proposals. The remaining eight proposals could not be reliably used by VA for negotiations until noted deficiencies were corrected. The OIG also determined that proposed tracking customers for all 97 sampled items were suitable for the purpose of the price reductions clause. Tracking customers are customers that serve as a benchmark for potential price reductions during the life of the contract; if tracking customers receive a price reduction, the government’s price should also be reduced. Contract negotiations for 10 proposals had been completed as of May 6, 2025, and the OIG recommended lower prices than offered for five of the proposals, assisting contracting officers in obtaining approximately $36.8 million in savings for VA over the life of the contracts.

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

The OIG evaluated allegations related to (1) the crisis management of a client at the Everett Vet Center; (2) documentation added to the client’s clinical record by district 5, zone 1 (district) and Everett Vet Center leaders to justify lack of action; and (3) altered notes. The OIG reviewed concerns regarding clinical documentation, safety planning, and the Vet Center Director’s (VCD’s) clinical consultation to staff.

The OIG substantiated that Everett Vet Center staff and leaders inadequately managed the client’s crisis because the VCD advised a counselor to allow the client to leave the clinic without notifying law enforcement authorities. The OIG also substantiated that the VCD and counselor failed to seek consultation from the support facility’s external consultant or follow up with the support facility’s suicide prevention team. The counselor did not update the client’s safety plan when the client presented to the appointment with increased risk.

The OIG found that the VCD backdated a progress note due to lack of awareness of documentation requirements and a district leader deleted progress notes; however, at the time, staff and leaders had the capability to delete notes and did so under certain circumstances. The counselor delayed crisis reporting due to uncertainty about whether the client’s circumstances met the criteria for reporting the event. 

The OIG found that conflicting information regarding the scope of the VCD’s clinical responsibilities may have contributed to the VCD’s failure to consult immediately with a district leader on the day of the client’s visit.

The OIG made four Readjustment Counseling Service-level recommendations on crisis reporting and monitoring, clinical record and risk assessment documentation, and VCD position descriptions; and five district-level recommendations related to  reviews of care; duty-to-warn obligations; consultation with external consultants and suicide prevention coordinators; and safety planning.

Why We Did This Report

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General conducted this evaluation to determine whether the EPA verifies that EPA-authorized state lead-based paint programs continue to meet regulatory requirements after initial authorization. We initiated this evaluation in response to an anonymous OIG Hotline complaint.
 

Summary of Findings

The EPA is not verifying that authorized state lead-based paint programs remain at least as protective of human health and the environment as the federal programs and that the programs provide adequate enforcement after initial program authorization. Without changes to the EPA’s oversight procedures, authorized state lead-based paint programs may not adequately protect public health, and children may suffer adverse and irreversible health effects.

SEC Investigative Summary 25-0015

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a healthcare inspection to assess the impact of additional staffing on patient access to care in the community through the VA Maryland Health Care System (system) in Baltimore.

The OIG found that high consult volume contributed to system staff’s inability to schedule and complete community care consults timely and consistently coordinate community care, despite staff and system leaders taking some corrective actions to address deficiencies. The OIG also found that Care in the Community nurse care coordinators did not use care coordination plan notes for every consult or routinely document note addendums as required by the Veterans Health Administration. 

The OIG concluded that Veterans Integrated System Network leaders were aware of challenges in Care in the Community, but did not help system leaders improve and sustain consult management performance beyond providing temporary administrative staff assistance.

The OIG learned that, due to insufficient staffing, system leaders only implemented the Referral Coordination Implementation in one specialty, despite the Veterans Health Administration requirement of implementation in 34 specialty medicine areas by February 2021. The OIG concluded that, consistent with other facilities, the system struggled with Referral Coordination Initiative implementation. 

The OIG found that Patient Advocate Tracking System data was collected and trended but the Deputy Chief of Staff did not ensure the data was analyzed or staff directly implemented action plans for quality or process improvements. 

The OIG made 7 recommendations related to assessment of the Care in the Community 7-day appointment scheduling requirement, completion of performance action plans, education to address incomplete consults, consult completion, care coordination documentation, Referral Coordination Initiative implementation, and Patient Advocate Tracker System data analysis. 

Prior to the launch of the Delivering for America plan, the U.S. Postal Service used Surface Transfer Centers to distribute, consolidate, dispatch, and transfer all mail classes within the surface network. They also served as a concentration point for consolidating mail from under-utilized surface trips. In September 2024, the Postal Service transitioned to the use of RTHs. RTHs are intended to decrease the number of mail separations and fill containers quickly during processing to expedite getting mail onto trucks and out for delivery to customers.

As of March 2025, 18 RTHs were active nationwide. While the Postal Service indicated that work handled at RTHs would be insourced, some RTHs, such as the Denver RTH, continue to be operated by contractors rather than Postal Service employees.

VBA’s Pension and Fiduciary Service, which administers the death benefits program, assists eligible claimants with burial expenses, plot costs, and transportation costs for a veteran’s remains. To streamline claims processing for death benefits, VBA launched a system called pension automation. This automation system extracts data from claim applications and documents, such as a death certificate, and uses rules to generate decisions and notification letters for claims. Given VBA’s increased reliance on automation, the VA OIG conducted this review to determine whether VBA’s automation system is accurately processing claims for death benefits. 

Based on statistical analysis of a sample of 150 claims for veterans’ death benefits completed by automation from January 5, 2023, through March 31, 2024, the OIG estimated that 83 percent of such claims contained an error, of which 2,000 claims (16 percent) resulted in about $1.9 million in underpayments to survivors. Although the automation system correctly processed most burial allowances (90 percent) and plot allowances (95 percent), the OIG team estimated that 9,800 transportation claims (79 percent) were improperly processed during the review period. The most common errors identified by the team were: the automation system prematurely denied transportation claims that should have been transferred to a claims processor to review the transportation benefit; some transportation claims were never reimbursed; and the notification letter did not provide a decision on transportation for some claims. These errors occurred because the automation system did not have rules to ensure the proper processing of transportation benefits and because of a discrepancy in VBA policy. The OIG made and the under secretary for benefits concurred with two recommendations to update VBA policy and ensure automation is consistent with the policy for processing this benefit.

OIG examined the circumstances surrounding the oversight and enforcement of the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR)/Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) food delivery contract. 

Note: This report contains sensitive content that is being withheld from public release. Any monetary impact amounts redacted from this report are not reflected in monetary totals.

We found an energy company failed to decommission operations as required within one year after its Federal oil and gas leases expired.