Federal Reports

We audited lender reporting of COVID-19 forbearances for Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans in the Single Family Default Monitoring System (SFDMS). We compared default reporting data from SFDMS to loan data provided by five sampled servicing lenders that serviced a third of the FHA single-family portfolio. Our audit objective was to determine whether COVID-19 forbearance data available in SFDMS were consistent with the information maintained by loan servicers. We found that COVID-19 forbearance data available in SFDMS were generally consistent with the information maintained by the loan servicers reviewed. This report contains no recommendations.

The objective of our audit was to determine the extent to which the U.S. Department of Education had processes for ensuring that Federal Student Aid’s (FSA) fiscal year (FY) 2020–2024 strategic goals, objectives, and related performance indicators were effective. FSA did not have documented processes to guide its FY 2020–2024 strategic planning and to ensure that the strategic goals, objectives, and performance indicators included in the FY 2020–2024 Strategic Plan were effective. Despite FSA not having documented processes to guide its strategic planning, the strategic goals, objectives, and majority of performance indicators included in the final FY 2020–2024 Strategic Plan are effective. All 5 strategic goals and all 15 objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timebound. They also align with the former Secretary's goals and guidance and the Department's FY 2018–2022 Strategic Plan.

For our final report on the audit of the U.S. Census Bureau's (the Bureau's) incident response process, our audit objective was to assess the adequacy of the Bureau's process to respond to cybersecurity incidents according to federal and U.S. Department of Commerce requirements. We found the following: I. the Bureau missed opportunities to mitigate a critical vulnerability, which resulted in the exploitation of vital servers; II. the Bureau did not discover and report the incident in a timely manner; III. the Bureau did not maintain sufficient system logs, which hindered incident investigation; IV. the Bureau did not conduct a lessons-learned session; and V. the Bureau continued operating servers that were no longer supported by the vendor.

Each year, increased mail volume during peak mailing season — November through January — significantly strains the Postal Service’s processing and distribution network. During the peak mailing season of FY 2021, increased package volume and reduced employee availability resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic added even more strain on the distribution network and led to temporary embargoes of up to 17 days for certain mail types at nine mail processing facilities: the Birmingham, AL Annex; West Valley, AZ processing and distribution center (P&DC); Baltimore, MD P&DC; Detroit, MI network distribution center (NDC); New Jersey (City), NJ NDC; Northwest Rochester, NY NDC; Cleveland, OH P&DC; Springdale, OH Annex; and Philadelphia, PA NDC. Our objective was to evaluate the operational impacts experienced by the Postal Service before and after the embargoes and redirections at mail processing facilities during the fiscal year (FY) 2021 peak mailing season.