Federal Reports

We did not substantiate allegations that the former director of a tribal credit department misappropriated funds from the tribal loan program.

We did not substantiate the allegations that an oil and gas company intentionally reduced its reported mineral sales volumes.

Rescue 21 Alaska, Coast Guard’s maritime search and rescue communication system, has experienced outages resulting from antiquated equipment in Coast Guard’s District 17. Challenges and funding shortages during system acquisition caused Coast Guard to limit the purchase of new equipment for Rescue 21 Alaska, requiring District 17 to maintain existing equipment for longer than initially planned. Alaska’s winter weather conditions and remote access to communication site locations cause lengthy repair times, further exacerbating the outage impacts. The outages have prevented Coast Guard, at times, from effectively receiving and responding to distress calls from mariners. Coast Guard has made some upgrades to the Rescue 21 Alaska system to enhance distress communication availability and reliability. Although Coast Guard plans for further upgrades, outages persist. When notifying the public about the outages, Coast Guard primarily relies on a “Local Notice to Mariners” posted on their public website. However, this limits who can receive the notices, as not all mariners go to the internet to determine outage locations. Alaska mariners shared other effective methods Coast Guard could use to improve its notifications to the public when there are known VHF distress communications outages. Adequately upgrading the communications equipment and ensuring robust attempts are made to notify the public when outages occur is essential for Coast Guard to achieve its search and rescue mission in Alaska. We made two recommendations to ensure the Coast Guard is prioritizing Rescue 21 Alaska upgrades and appropriately notifying the public of outages. Coast Guard concurred with both recommendations.

The objective was to determine the extent to which TSA has implemented requirements of the 9/11 Act and TSA Mod Act to develop strategies, programs, regulations, reports, and other initiatives to strengthen transportation security. Although TSA implemented 167 of the 251 (67 percent) requirements in both Acts, 55 of the 167 (33 percent) were not completed by the Acts’ established deadlines, and TSA did not complete the remaining 84 requirements. TSA was unable to complete 33 of these requirements because the actions relied on external stakeholders acting first or depended on conditions outside of TSA's control.

Our audit objective was to determine to what extent the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) acquisition of computed tomography (CT) systems addresses needed capabilities. We determined TSA acquired CT systems that did not address all needed capabilities. These issues occurred because the Department of Homeland Security did not provide adequate oversight of TSA’s acquisition of CT systems. DHS is responsible for overseeing all major acquisitions to ensure they are properly planned and executed and meet documented key performance thresholds. However, DHS allowed TSA to use an acquisition approach not recognized by DHS’ acquisition guidance. In addition, DHS allowed TSA to deploy the CT system even though it did not meet all TSA key performance parameters. DHS also did not validate TSA’s detection upgrade before TSA incorporated it into the CT system. As a result, TSA risks spending over $700 million in future appropriated funding to purchase CT systems that may never fully meet operational mission needs. We made three recommendations to improve DHS’ oversight of TSA’s CT systems acquisition. DHS concurred with all three recommendations.

FEMA does not always appropriately report and investigate employee allegations of sexual harassment and workplace sexual misconduct. For FYs 2012 to 2018, we identified 305 allegations from FEMA employees potentially related to sexual harassment and sexual misconduct such as sexual assault, unwelcome sexual advances, and inappropriate sexual comments. However, we were unable to determine whether FEMA properly handled 153 of these allegations, because it could not provide complete investigative and disciplinary files. For allegations that had complete files available, at times we were unable to determine whether FEMA conducted an investigation. Finally, we found FEMA did not document whether it investigated some sexual harassment EEO complaints as potential employee misconduct. We attribute the inconsistent investigations and incomplete files to inadequate policies, processes, and training. These shortcomings may fuel employee perceptions that FEMA is not addressing sexual harassment and sexual misconduct and is not supportive of employees reporting that type of behavior. We made five recommendations to improve FEMA’s handling of sexual harassment and misconduct allegations including establishing a comprehensive case management system; developing and implementing formal processes and procedures to appropriately address all harassment allegations; providing investigative training; and ensuring allegations are appropriately referred to DHS OIG.

The objective of this review was to determine to what extent the Department of Homeland Security has implemented COVID-19 measures for migrants at the southwest border. We reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) does not conduct COVID-19 testing for migrants who enter CBP custody and is not required to do so. Instead, CBP relies on local public health systems to test symptomatic individuals. According to CBP officials, as a frontline law enforcement agency, it does not have the necessary resources to conduct such testing. For migrants that are transferred or released from CBP custody into the United States, CBP coordinates with DHS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and other Federal, state, and local partners for COVID-19 testing of migrants. In addition, although DHS generally follows guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for COVID-19 preventative measures, the DHS’ multi-layered COVID-19 testing framework does not require CBP to conduct COVID-19 testing at CBP facilities. Further, DHS’ Chief Medical Officer does not have the authority to direct or enforce COVID-19 testing procedures.