Federal Reports

Audit report of the NLRB's submission of procurement data and compliance with the DATA Act.

An Amtrak senior manager based in Beech Grove, Indiana, was terminated from employment on August 30, 2021. Our investigation found that the former employee violated company policy by failing to formally document, investigate, and report a workplace violence incident involving an employee and by encouraging another employee to change his statement regarding the incident. Another manager at the Beech Grove facility received a letter of written warning for failure to ensure the incident was properly investigated.

Postal Service management is responsible and accountable for the prevention of accidents and responsible for controlling losses, such as ensuring quality of performance and operating within cost and budget guidelines. Management’s role is to share responsibility for the safety and health of employees.The Employee Health and Safety (EHS) application is used to enter and manage accident, injury, and claim information related to vehicle and industrial incidents. The application included information for 455,099 accidents from fiscal years (FY) 2016 to 2020, of which 144,607 (32 percent) were motor vehicle accidents and 310,492 (68 percent) were industrial accidents.Our objective was to review and assess the effectiveness of management’s controls over reporting accidents.

Our objective for this report was to identify the internal control weaknesses that allowed a potential identity theft crime to occur in Chicago and to assess the company’s processes for overseeing and safeguarding items at selected stations.We found that the company has taken steps to strengthen its Lost and Found program to include addressing issues that contributed to an employee theft of 13 state and government customer identification cards and 21 social security cards from the Chicago Union Station Lost and Found program in October 2020. Additionally, we found the company is securing sensitive and high-value items at the stations we reviewed, and, in 2018, automated inventory controls through its use of the third-party software system, Chargerback. We identified opportunities that could further improve the company’s Lost and Found program to include 1) improving program monitoring by station managers, 2) ensuring staff are well trained, 3) resuming monthly lost and found reporting to station management, and 4) provide guidance on how employees should safeguard items found at maintenance yards and on trains and how quickly the items should be transferred to the Lost and Found area. The company agreed with these observations and plans to take corrective actions.

As part of our annual audit plan, we audited the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) utility-scale Solar Purchased Power Agreements (PPA). Our audit objectives were to determine if TVA has (1) approached Solar PPAs to better understand the industry and market trends being developed prior to entering into multiple agreements and (2) developed Solar PPAs to recognize positive financial value earlier in the term of the PPAs. The scope of our review was utility-scale solar PPAs in place as of December 31, 2020. We found TVA had (1) taken a measured approach to solar PPAs to better understand the industry and market trends and (2) generally developed solar PPAs to recognize positive financial value or breakeven.(Summary Only)

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Program report provides a focused evaluation of Veterans Health Administration facilities’ quality, safety, and value (QSV) programs. This evaluation examined committee processes for QSV oversight functions, protected peer reviews of clinical care, utilization management, and patient safety.This report describes QSV-related findings from healthcare inspections performed at 36 Veterans Health Administration medical facilities from November 4, 2019, through September 21, 2020. Each inspection involved interviews with key staff and reviews of clinical and administrative processes. The OIG reviewers evaluated meeting minutes, protected peer reviews, root cause analyses, annual patient safety reports, and other relevant documents. The results in this report are a snapshot of Veterans Health Administration performance at the time of the fiscal year 2020 OIG reviews.The OIG found general compliance with many of the selected requirements. However, the OIG identified weaknesses in various key QSV functions, noted repeat findings from the fiscal year 2018 and 2019 QSV evaluations, and issued four recommendations related to the• implementation of action items recommended by committees responsible for QSV oversight,• peer review of all applicable suicide deaths,• inclusion of required processes in root cause analyses, and• implementation and monitoring of action items resulting from root cause analyses.