Federal Reports

OIG evaluated whether APHIS’ controls over select agents adequately reduced the threat to public, animal, and plant safety, and animal and plant products.

Allan Lummer, Farshad Sassounian, Sidney Cobos and Ashkan Kohanpour, medical marketers based in Los Angeles, were sentenced in United States District Court, Central District of California, in July 2021 for aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return. Sassounian, Cobos, and Kohanpour were each sentenced to six months in prison and ordered to pay $24,147.50 in restitution. Lummer was sentenced to two years’ probation for his role in the scheme.Our investigation found that the four defendants aided in the preparation and presentation of a false tax return to the Internal Revenue Service for Pharmacy Acquisition LLC. The defendants knew the tax return falsely claimed a deduction for expenses that were actually distributions made to them, as owners of the pharmacy. Further, our investigation found that Pharmacy Acquisition LLC provided medically unnecessary compounded drug prescriptions to Precise Compounding Pharmacy that were reimbursed by health care benefit programs, including Amtrak’s plan. As a result of the scheme, Amtrak’s insurance providers were fraudulently charged approximately $22,000.

As part of our annual audit plan, we audited costs billed to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) by The L.E. Myers Co. (LE Myers) under Contract No. 9070 for construction and modification services for TVA's Transmission and Power Supply Program. The contract provided for TVA to compensate LE Myers for these services on either a cost-reimbursable or fixed price basis. Our audit objective was to determine if costs were billed in accordance with the terms and conditions of Contract No. 9070. Our audit scope included about <br> $35.5 million in cost-reimbursable expenses billed to TVA from September 1, 2018, through December 31, 2019. In summary, we determined LE Myers overbilled TVA $120,152, including (1) a net $93,695 in unsupported and incorrect craft labor charges, (2) $13,955 in unsupported travel costs, and (3) $12,502 in unsupported equipment costs. In addition, we found that (1) LE Myers did not submit an electronic billing file to the TVA Office of Inspector General in the format and frequency provided for in the contract's terms, and (2) TVA did not revise the contract's equipment rate schedule to include a piece of equipment approved for use by TVA's Contract Manager.(Summary Only)

To ensure the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) social mediaprogram is effective at helping EEOC achieve its objectives—to 1) promote EEOC’s educationand outreach activities, 2) encourage greater use of the EEOC website, and 3) increase publicaccess to information about rights and responsibilities under the laws EEOC enforces—theEEOC Office of the Inspector General (OIG) hired Hager Sharp to evaluate the program.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General, has completed its audit of the HUD’s disaster preparedness from 2005 to 2018. We performed this audit due to an agreement with six other Inspectors General as part of a Disaster Assistance Working Group-Cross Cutting Functional Effort by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency to determine to what extent the Federal departments were prepared for upcoming natural disasters. (See the Scope and Methodology section for details about the working group.) Our specific audit objective was to determine whether HUD’s Offices of Multifamily Housing Programs, Single Family Housing, Community Planning and Development, Native American Programs, and Public Housing can improve their preparedness to respond to upcoming natural disasters. We found HUD’s Offices of Multifamily Housing Programs, Single Family Housing, Community Planning and Development, Native American Programs, and Public Housing had weaknesses in their written policies and supervisory controls. The Offices of Multifamily and Single family had control weaknesses in their post disaster information-gathering activities. The Offices of Community Planning and Development and Native American Programs had weaknesses in their controls to ensure that all affected grantees and housing entities are contacted following a disaster. And, the Office of Public Housing did not track its outreach to PHAs.We recommend that the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Multifamily Housing Programs and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Single Family Housing establish and implement a process to ensure that policies, procedures, and supervisory controls are effective. We recommend that the Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development establish and implement a process to ensure that supervisory controls are effective related to a requirement that staff contact grantees following a disaster. We recommend that the Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing establish and implement a process to ensure that the Office of Native American Programs’ policies and procedures are effective. We recommend the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Field Operations improve the Office of Public Housing’s procedures with written guidance to ensure that its staff formally tracks outreach to public housing agencies.