Federal Reports

VA’s Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers provides benefits such as monthly stipends to approved caregivers of eligible veterans. The VA MISSION Act of 2018 expanded eligibility for the program from veterans injured on or after 9/11 to include veterans injured in any conflict. The prerequisites to expansion include an information technology (IT) system that fully supports the program. The OIG assessed VA’s efforts to implement this IT system and compliance with schedule and system performance requirements, as well as the development costs.The OIG recognizes VA’s significant efforts and the challenges involved. Millions of veterans, if determined eligible, may be considered for participation in the program. However, the OIG found that VA did not meet the MISSION Act’s October 1, 2018, deadline for implementing an IT system, nor the October 1, 2019, reporting requirement. This was due in part to governance issues and lack of continuity in leadership when upgrading and replacing the legacy system.The new IT system, the Caregiver Record Management Application (CARMA), was implemented on October 1, 2020, two years after the MISSION Act’s requirement.VA informed the OIG on January 22, 2021, that CARMA now includes functionalities that meet MISSION Act requirements. However, the OIG found VA did not establish the appropriate security risk category and fully assess the system’s privacy vulnerabilities.The OIG made four recommendations: (1) establish policies and procedures for joint governance on all IT projects to ensure efforts provide an adequate return on investment and achieve program objectives; (2) enforce an existing process to help IT projects deliver and sustain the intended outcomes, ensuring the Program and Acquisition Review Council evaluates underperforming projects; (3) reevaluate elevating the system’s risk category to better protect health information and other sensitive data; and (4) establish agency-wide policies and responsibilities for managing IT projects.

In its 10-year plan, the Postal Service expressed an intent to enhance tools that drive greater value for the senders of mail, including Informed Delivery (ID) and Informed Visibility (IV). In this white paper, the OIG discusses marketers’ perceptions of ID and IV and their suggestions to improve these platforms.

At the request of then Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior David Bernhardt and Members of Congress, we reviewed the actions the U.S. Park Police (USPP) took to disperse protesters in and around Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, on June 1, 2020. Our review focused on events that occurred in and around the park from May 29 through June 3 amid the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. We sought to describe what occurred primarily from an operational perspective, including how and when the USPP, in coordination with its law enforcement partners, developed and executed its plan to clear the park and the USPP’s reasons for dispersing protesters from the area. We also sought to determine whether the warnings the USPP provided to protesters before it executed the plan complied with applicable guidance. We did not review as part of this project individual uses of force by USPP officers; these actions are the subject of separate inquiries or ongoing lawsuits.Protests began in and around Lafayette Park on May 29, 2020. On May 30, the USPP and U.S. Secret Service established a unified command to coordinate the law enforcement response to the protests. From May 30 to 31, at least 49 USPP officers were injured while policing the protests, and Federal and private property was vandalized.On the morning of June 1, the Secret Service procured antiscale fencing to establish a more secure perimeter around Lafayette Park that was to be delivered and installed that same day. The USPP, in coordination with the Secret Service, determined that it was necessary to clear protesters from the area in and around the park to enable the contractor’s employees to safely install the fence. The USPP planned to implement the operation as soon as the fencing materials and sufficient law enforcement officers arrived at the park. Six other law enforcement agencies assisted the USPP and the Secret Service in the operation to clear and secure areas near the park.The operation began at 6:23 p.m. and was completed by 6:50 p.m. Shortly thereafter, at 7:01 p.m., President Trump walked from the White House through Lafayette Park to St. John’s Church. At 7:30 p.m., the contractor began assembling and installing the antiscale fence and completed the work by approximately 12:30 a.m. on June 2.We found that the USPP had the authority and discretion to clear Lafayette Park and the surrounding areas on June 1. The evidence we obtained did not support a finding that the USPP cleared the park to allow the President to survey the damage and walk to St. John’s Church. Instead, the evidence we reviewed showed that the USPP cleared the park to allow the contractor to safely install the antiscale fencing in response to destruction of property and injury to officers occurring on May 30 and 31. Further, the evidence showed that the USPP did not know about the President’s potential movement until mid- to late afternoon on June 1—hours after it had begun developing its operational plan and the fencing contractor had arrived in the park.We also found that although the USPP used a sound-amplifying long-range acoustic device to issue three dispersal warnings to the crowd on June 1, not everyone could hear the warnings. Furthermore, we found that the USPP does not have a detailed dispersal warning policy applicable to operations like the one that occurred on June 1 and that this may have led to the ineffective warnings issued to the crowd that day.Finally, we found that the USPP and the Secret Service did not use a shared radio channel to communicate, that the USPP primarily conveyed information orally to assisting law enforcement entities, that an assisting law enforcement entity arrived late and may not have received a full briefing on the rules of engagement, and that several law enforcement officers could not clearly hear the incident commander’s dispersal warnings. These weaknesses in communication and coordination may have contributed to confusion during the operation and the use of tactics that appeared inconsistent with the incident commander’s operational plan.Given the lack of a specific policy, we recommend that the USPP develop a detailed policy for protests and other events of the type that occurred on June 1 and improve its field communication procedures to better manage multiagency operations.Read a statement from Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt regarding this Special Review report.

Patients in active treatment for substance use disorder may also be treated for a variety of medical conditions. Medicare Part B covers these patients’ drug testing services when reasonable and necessary. For 2019, Medicare paid $180 million for such services provided to 274,000 beneficiaries with substance use disorders nationwide. Although the 2019 Medicare fee-for-service improper payment rate was 7.3 percent, the improper payment rate was 58.9 percent for the drug test with the highest Medicare fee schedule amount. We conducted this audit to evaluate how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and its Medicare contractors addressed the risk for improper payments for drug testing services. Our objective was to assess the Medicare contractors’ program safeguards for ensuring that Medicare claims for drug testing services for beneficiaries with substance use disorders comply with Medicare requirements.Our audit covered Medicare Part B claims for drug testing services provided in 2019 for beneficiaries with substance use disorders. We interviewed CMS officials and reviewed requirements for drug testing services in all seven Medicare contractors’ Local Coverage Determinations (LCDs). We also interviewed staff from seven selected laboratories and analyzed claims data to determine the potential impact of weaknesses we identified.

DHS OIG's 37th Semiannual Report to Congress summarizes the work and accomplishments of the Department of Homeland Security Office of InspectorGeneral from October 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

This report examines the EPA’s activities to oversee mobile source compliance with clean air laws and regulations during the coronavirus pandemic. It highlights National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory’s efforts to minimize the potential for noncompliance during the pandemic and the importance of returning to full testing capacity to provide the most effective oversight.