Federal Reports

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The Postal Service plays a vital role in the American democratic process and this role continues to grow as the volume of Election and Political Mail increases. In addition to the next general election, which will be held November 3, 2020, there will be federal elections for all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate. There will also be 13 state and territorial elections for governor and numerous other state and local elections. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an expected increase in the number of Americans who will choose to vote by mail and avoid in-person voting. Our objective was to evaluate the Postal Service’s readiness for timely processing of Election and Political Mail for the 2020 general elections.

The Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG Act) of 2014 added new requirements for States that receive funding from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) to conduct comprehensive criminal background checks on staff members and prospective staff members of child care providers every 5 years. Criminal background check requirements apply to any staff member who is employed by a child care provider for compensation or whose activities involve the care or supervision of children or unsupervised access to children.Our objective was to determine whether Indiana’s monitoring of child care providers ensured provider compliance with State requirements related to criminal background checks established under the CCDBG Act.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements

At the request of the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Supply Chain, we examined the cost proposal submitted by a company for engineering, design, and construction support services. Our examination objective was to determine if the company's cost proposal was fairly stated for a planned 5-year, $20.5 million contract.In our opinion, the company's cost proposal was overstated. Specifically, we found the proposed total labor markup rate, for recovery of the company's indirect costs, was overstated compared to recent actual costs. In addition, we found the company's proposed costs for the request for proposal's (RFP) example projects contained a cost markup not provided for by the RFP's draft contract. We estimated TVA could avoid about $2.24 million over the planned $20.5 million contract by negotiating a reduced total labor markup rate to more accurately reflect the company's recent actual costs. (Summary Only)

In the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, Congress established a comprehensive program to preserve the historical and cultural foundations of the nation as a living part of community life. Section 106 of the Act requires federal agencies to consider the effects of projects they carry out, approve, or fund on historic properties. The Tennessee Valley Authority's Cultural Compliance group performs historic preservation reviews (called Section 106 reviews) to assess (1) whether or not historic properties are present, (2) adverse effects of projects on historic properties, and (3) how to mitigate the adverse effects. Due to concerns raised about the efficiency of historic preservation reviews, we performed an evaluation to determine if the process for performing historic preservation reviews was efficient. We determined Section 106 reviews were not consistently tracked resulting in a lack of data to determine the time and costs of the reviews. However, we were able to identify inefficiencies in the Section 106 process. Specifically, we determined the process had inefficiencies regarding (1) prioritization of projects, (2) incorporation of Cultural Compliance in planning, (3) communication between organizations, (4) workload of Cultural Compliance personnel, (5) reliance on contractors, and (6) tracking of cultural resources. We made recommendations to the Vice President, Environment, to address inefficiencies in Section 106 reviews.