Federal Reports

An Amtrak Customer Service Representative in Reno, Nevada, was terminated from employment on July 20, 2020, following his administrative hearing. Our investigation found the employee stole funds from credit cards presented to him by Amtrak customers purchasing train travel. The cards, known as J-Pay Release cards, were pre- loaded with $200 in funds and were issued by the California Department of Corrections to inmates upon their release from custody. The former employee surreptitiously switched out fully-loaded J-Pay cards presented to him by those customers after debiting for the requested travel and returned completely depleted J-Pay cards instead. It is estimated that the former employee stole over $100,000 in stored value from the stolen J-Pay cards.

We contracted this audit with Cotton & Company LLP, which found that FEMA did not ensure the Florida Department of Emergency Management (FDEM) monitored the Polk County School Board (PCSB) to ensure it established and implemented policies, procedures, and practices to account for and expend PA grant funding in accordance with Federal regulations and FEMA guidance. For example, PCSB was unable to support $46,168 in food spoilage costs; requested and received funding through a Florida Public Assistance grant for ineligible contract costs incurred under Project 2658 for debris removal and related costs; and charged $897 in unallowable costs associated with ineligible fringe benefits for substitute employees. We made 13 recommendations that, when implemented, should improve PCSB’s management of FEMA Public Assistance funds. FEMA concurred with our 13 recommendations.

U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not follow its written policy when conducting disciplinary reviews of Senior Executive Employees (SES) employees, which risks creating an appearance that SES employees receive more favorable treatment than non-SES employees. We reviewed the disciplinary proceedings of the former SES official to evaluate whether ICE’s deviation from the written policy, or any other evidence, in that case indicated that the official received favorable treatment, as alleged. We did not find evidence of actual favoritism or inappropriate influence in the official’s disciplinary or security clearance review processes. We recommended that ICE finalize and issue its draft policy documenting the process for disciplining SES members. We made one recommendation that will enhance transparency in ICE’s disciplinary program. ICE concurred with our recommendation and took action to resolve and close it.

The objective of our audit was to determine whether the Department’s fleet program operates in accordance with applicable federal fleet requirements for vehicle operations, acquisitions, and utilization. We found that the Department is not operating its fleet program in accordance with federal fleet requirements. Specifically, we identified issues in the following areas: (1) Operations—The Department’s fleet inventory data is unreliable due to inaccuracies and incompleteness. (2) Acquisitions—The Department’s Personal Property Management Manual lacks commercial lease guidance for the Office of the Secretary, which did not document justifications for vehicle specifications or upgrades. (3) Utilization—The Department does not consistently document vehicle usage, conduct comprehensive utilization reviews, and determine its optimal fleet inventory. We recommend that the Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Secretary for Administration do the following: (1) Periodically review and ensure all bureau vehicle information is complete and accurate in the Department’s FMIS. (2) Update the PPMM to include guidance for OS commercial leasing. The Department should ensure other PPMM requirements do not similarly exclude OS. (3) Document justifications for mission-essential vehicle specifications when not obtaining leased vehicles through GSA. (4) Update policies and procedures to include requirements for bureaus to maintain adequate documentation of vehicle usage. (5) Provide refresher training to fleet managers to ensure they are aware of all federal and updated Departmental fleet management requirements. (6) Direct Departmental / bureau fleet managers to perform and document an annual analysis of fleet utilization in accordance with Departmental policy and Congressional direction. (7) Perform a VAM study at least every 5 years, to produce a profile of its optimal fleet inventory, and periodically monitor results between VAM studies.

Our objective was to evaluate recent delivery and scanning performance for selected U.S. Postal Service delivery units we audited in fiscal year (FY) 2019. We audited seven of these units based on carriers returning late to the office and 11 units based on the number of package scans performed at the unit instead of the delivery address. These units are in 17 districts throughout the seven Postal Service areas.