Federal Reports

The Office of Inspector General evaluated NASA’s processes and procedures regarding the acquisition, handling, storage, and disposal of hazardous materials.

An Amtrak employee based in Jackson, Michigan, was terminated from employment on December 2, 2020, for violating the collective bargaining agreement between the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees and Amtrak. Our investigation found that the former employee violated company policy by engaging in outside employment while on a medical leave of absence from the company.

What We Looked AtWe queried and downloaded 35 single audit reports prepared by non-Federal auditors and submitted to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse between July 1, 2020 and September 30, 2020, to identify significant findings related to programs directly funded by the Department of Transportation (DOT). What We FoundWe found that reports contained a range of findings that impacted DOT programs. The auditors reported significant noncompliance with Federal guidelines related to 8 grantees that require prompt action from DOT’s Operating Administrations (OA). The auditors also identified questioned costs totaling $25,838 for one grantee. RecommendationsWe recommend that DOT coordinate with the impacted OAs to develop a corrective action plan to resolve and close the findings identified in this report. We also recommend that DOT determine the allowability of the questioned transactions and recover $25,838, if applicable.

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) response to COVID-19 to determine if it appropriately, effectively, and efficiently tracked, monitored, and issued Federal Housing Administration (FHA) refunds owed to homeowners with terminated loans. During our field work, the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic began and as a result, we developed a second, more urgent audit objective to determine how COVID-19 has affected policies, procedures, and distribution of FHA refunds and whether HUD’s response was appropriate. We determined that COVID-19 generally did not affect the Single Family Insurance Operations Division’s (SFIOD) FHA refund policies and procedures; however, SFIOD did not fully notify homeowners of operational changes to its physical mail procedures, which potentially impacted its distribution of refunds. We issued this interim report to ensure HUD was made aware of the issues identified during our review and could act in a timely manner to address them. The audit prompted HUD to take immediate corrective action for all three recommendations, one of which will be closed concurrently with the issuance of this memorandum and two that will be completed during audit resolution.

We determined that PA Education generally had sufficient internal controls to ensure that LEAs developed IEPs in accordance with Federal and State requirements for children with disabilities who attend virtual charter schools and that these students were provided with the services described in their IEPs. These internal controls included developing model policies and procedures; monitoring LEAs; and providing technical assistance, guidance, and training. However, we found that PA Education could strengthen its monitoring process to ensure that LEAs also have written procedures on how they implemented the model policies for IEP development and how they provided and documented service delivery for students with disabilities.