Federal Reports

The OIG assessed the merits of a hotline complaint received in March 2019 regarding building conditions and patient safety at the Northport VA Medical Center in Northport, New York. The complainant alleged that medical center managers did not take adequate action to maintain the center’s buildings. According to the complaint, the delivery system for steam heat failed and caused damage that contaminated employee and patient areas with asbestos, lead paint, and other debris. The review team determined that damage occurred in building 65 of the medical center and that four rooms were closed for repairs from February through mid-October 2019. The room closures did not, however, affect patient care because other space was available. The team also found that prior medical center leaders did not plan effectively to address building 65’s deficiencies. The OIG made three recommendations to the Veterans Integrated Service Network 2 director. These included developing an oversight process to make certain that medical center leaders effectively develop and execute the master plan to reduce the medical center’s footprint in order to better manage aging infrastructure. The OIG also recommended that the medical center’s director define a timeline for implementing the master plan and communicate plan objectives to stakeholders. The recommendations call for (1) the medical center’s master plan and the strategic capital investment plan to be consistent and (2) the master plan to be executed following agreed upon milestones and available resources. Finally, the OIG recommended that the medical center director develop processes and procedures for submitting work orders—including for notifications when work orders are assigned and reviewed for accuracy and consistency—to help the center’s engineering service prioritize work and manage resources.

We identified 16 allegations of race-based harassment involving cadets between 2013 and 2018 that the Coast Guard Academy (the Academy) was aware of and had sufficient information to investigate and address through internal hate and harassment procedures. The OIG identified issues in how the Academy addressed 11 of them. First, in six incidents, the Academy did not thoroughly investigate the allegations, and/or did not discipline cadets when investigations documented violations of cadet regulations or Coast Guard policy. In two of these instances, cadets committed similar misconduct again. The Academy also did not fully include civil rights staff as required in six instances (including two of the instances noted previously). Therefore, civil rights staff could not properly track these incidents to proactively identify trends and offer the Academy assistance. In addition, in one incident involving a potential hate allegation, the Academy did not follow the Coast Guard process for hate incidents. Finally, our review determined that race-based harassment is underreported at the Academy for various reasons, including concerns about negative consequences for reporting allegations. Underreporting is especially concerning because our questionnaire results and interviews indicate harassing behaviors continue at the Academy. We made five recommendations that will enhance the Academy’s ability to address harassment and hate allegations, including ensuring the Academy consistently investigates allegations, requiring the reasons for disciplinary decisions be documented after race- or ethnicity-based harassment investigations, informing civil rights staff of all misconduct that could reasonably relate to race or ethnicity; and improving training related to preventing and addressing race-based or ethnicity-based harassment or hate incidents. The Coast Guard concurred with all recommendations.

The OIG conducted this mandated review to assess VA’s reporting of staffing and vacancy data on its public-facing website. VA is required to release this information publicly each quarter by the VA MISSION Act of 2018 (the Act). The review team found VA partially complied with Section 505 of the Act. VA reported time-to-hire data using a 100-day target instead of the Office of Personnel Management’s required 80-day target. However, VA implemented sufficient corrective actions to close three of the five recommendations from the OIG’s June 2019 report. In doing so, VA ensured compliance with reporting requirements for vacancies and employee gains and losses. Vacancies were reported by specific occupational series as required, allowing the public to see whether unfilled positions were greater in clinical or nonclinical roles. Additionally, VA properly published staffing gains and losses by quarter, as opposed to fiscal year to date. VA also improved transparency and usefulness of its data. All seven quarterly staffing and vacancy publications were posted on VA’s public website. Furthermore, in the three most recent quarterly releases, VA provided an executive summary with a brief data element synopsis for its administrations and staff offices. Finally, VA added a summary page to the staffing and vacancy spreadsheets that provided the reader with information on how to interpret the data, overall figures for the previous quarterly data releases, and the top five vacant occupations in the Veterans Health Administration. However, action is still needed to close recommendations on disclosing data limitations and updating the methodology for aggregation and reporting. The OIG recommended the assistant secretary for human resources and administration ensure that time to hire data are reported as required and confer with the Office of General Counsel to ensure that changes in reporting methodology adhere to the Act.